Catching fly rods and hoppers

[Cowboypirate]

Many years ago when I was a young lad we had a very old realtive come by once or twice a summer. He would visit with mom and dad for a while then ask if he could go down to the river fishing on our property. When the pleasantries were over he would look at me with a grin and ask me if I would get him some bait. Now I sold worms as a kid, every summer, but it was not worms he wanted. He wanted me to fill up his glass bottle with big of bunch of grasshoppers out of the back yard.. I enjoyed the chase. Seemed like, to a kid, that stalking hoppers with my hand was just like chasing down Cape Buffalo in Africa. He sure caught a lot of fish with them hoppers too. 

Last week I gathered up a few nieces and nephews and put them on the hunt for hoppers so I could show Cookie how to fish a live one. Was not planning to release this video but them kids asked me to and Cookie thought me choking on a mosquito was hilarious. Anyway here it is..

https://youtu.be/9KTR-q1pHec

As for a fishing report. It is hoppers season and they were biting on the small mountain creeks. Fishing with artificals this time of year can be amazing. But why toss an artfical. Be a kid again and go grab some with your hands. 

Oh and as for the flyrod comment in my title...I was cleaning my gun storage area and found a fly rod I had bought a few years ago and forgot about. You know what that means.... ya I am getting old and forgetful but what it means is I am going flyfishing. It said it was lonely and wanted to play.

[TubeDude]

Ahhh.  Brings back rememberies...when I CAN remember.  As a kid in Idaho I lived near a small creek that came down out of the mountains, ran through town (Idaho Falls) and emptied into the Snake River.  That was Willow Creek...which has since been channeled into Ririe Reservoir and no longer exists except in my childhood memories.

During the summer I fished it almost every day...with grasshoppers.  I would pick them off the weeds in the early morning while they were still less active, stuff a few in the button down pockets on my denim shirt and  head for my favorite spots.  Often those spots were twin culverts running under the roads in town.  Big trout liked to hang out in them.  I would float a hopper down into the culvert until I heard a splash or felt a tug.  Then I would wait a few seconds and set the hook.  On bigger fish I often had to handline them out.  My old flimsy steel telescope pole took a big permanent kinky bend otherwise.

I probably caught more rainbows and cutts over 16"...and sometimes a lot bigger...during the last two years we lived in Idaho than I have during my later years...almost all on summer hoppers.  Often, as I proudly walked home with two or three hefty bows on a forked stick someone in a car would come to a screeching halt and exclaim that they drove hours to fish and did not catch fish that big.

In my adult years...after marrying and having kids...I made a return visit to Idaho Falls to visit relatives.  Of course I had to go look at my childhood fishing spots.  But, alas, that was after Willow Creek was diverted and no longer ran through town.  I almost refilled it with my tears.

Here's a picture of me holding one of the many brute bows I caught on hoppers.

[Cowboypirate]

Ahhh.  Brings back rememberies...when I CAN remember.  As a kid in Idaho I lived near a small creek that came down out of the mountains, ran through town (Idaho Falls) and emptied into the Snake River.  That was Willow Creek...which has since been channeled into Ririe Reservoir and no longer exists except in my childhood memories.

During the summer I fished it almost every day...with grasshoppers.  I would pick them off the weeds in the early morning while they were still less active, stuff a few in the button down pockets on my denim shirt and  head for my favorite spots.  Often those spots were twin culverts running under the roads in town.  Big trout liked to hang out in them.  I would float a hopper down into the culvert until I heard a splash or felt a tug.  Then I would wait a few seconds and set the hook.  On bigger fish I often had to handline them out.  My old flimsy steel telescope pole took a big permanent kinky bend otherwise.

I probably caught more rainbows and cutts over 16"...and sometimes a lot bigger...during the last two years we lived in Idaho than I have during my later years...almost all on summer hoppers.  Often, as I proudly walked home with two or three hefty bows on a forked stick someone in a car would come to a screeching halt and exclaim that they drove hours to fish and did not catch fish that big.

In my adult years...after marrying and having kids...I made a return visit to Idaho Falls to visit relatives.  Of course I had to go look at my childhood fishing spots.  But, alas, that was after Willow Creek was diverted and no longer ran through town.  I almost refilled it with my tears.

Here's a picture of me holding one of the many brute bows I caught on hoppers.

Ya. Good memories. I think uncle Alvis enjoyed watching me catch the hopper as much as he did fishing with them. Its good to be a kids raised the way we were.

[Bduck]

I remember those days too as a kid fishing with free hoppers. Unlike your minions using nets catching hoppers, I was free lancing with my hands. Thanks for the video, I enjoyed it. I then promoted to buying 2 dozen crickets for I think was .25 and 3 dozen of minnows for 1.00, thankfully dad was around for the funding.  I caught a lot of shell crackers with hoppers & crickets, crappie with minnows, and yes redworms was the go-to as well. 

[wiperhunter2]

Great grasshopper catching and fishing Video Lance, and it looks like you picked a nice location to fish them. Reminds me of the time Kent and I fished the Utah Cutty slam, I caught them the day before the trip, in the field behind my house, now it's a bunch of condos. We fished them on a creek less than half the size of the one you were fishing, Good times.

[joshomaru]

In the immortal words of John Prine (RIP). For Tubedude:

"Then the coal company came with the world's largest shovel
And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land
Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken
Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man.
And daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away
When I die let my ashes float down the Green River
Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester dam
I'll be halfway to Heaven with Paradise waitin'
Just five miles away from wherever I am.
And daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away"

On the subject of hoppers, my kids have caught more fish at Currant Creek Res on hoppers they caught in the bushes there than anything I ever fished with!

[catchinon]

Josh, I don't know the song you posted but it made me think of this one.
Big Yellow Taxi by Joni Mitchell

They paved paradise, put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swingin' hot spot
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone
They paved paradise, put up a parking lot
(Ooh, bop-bop-bop-bop, ooh, bop-bop-bop-bop)
They took all the trees put 'em in a tree museum
And they charged the people a dollar an' a half just to see 'em
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone
They paved paradise, put up a parking lot
(Ooh, bop-bop-bop-bop, ooh, bop-bop-bop-bop)
Hey farmer, farmer put away that DDT now
Give me spots on my apples, but leave me the birds and the bees
Please
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone
They paved paradise, put up a parking lot

When I was a kid we used to play pickup baseball in the vacant lot next door to my grandparents' house. There were grasshoppers in the parts that hadn't been worn down to dirt by us kids. We would flush grasshoppers like they were quail and then note where they landed. It was hard to sneak up on them and catch them by hand so we went to using willow switches to slap and stun them. Wish I had that eye-hand coordination and reaction time now. Don't it seem to go... We had our ranking system; the most prized were the black ones with red underwings that made a clicking sound as they flew. I don't think many of those made it on a hook down at the creek, but I became a huge fan of fishing with hoppers anywhere I could catch them. Right now our horse pasture is teeming with them. Maybe Lucy, who is six, and I will go catch a bunch and go fishing.

[RockyRaab2]

No trout in Illinois where I grew up, but we did have lots of catfish. Two or three 'hoppers on a big hook would almost always catch your dinner.

Bet that would work in Utah, too.

[TubeDude]

No trout in Illinois where I grew up, but we did have lots of catfish. Two or three 'hoppers on a big hook would almost always catch your dinner.

Bet that would work in Utah, too.

I have caught cats on hoppers in several waters around the west...usually while fishing for other species.  But one of my best sessions was on Chatfield Reservoir near Denver...on hopper pattern topwater flies.  I had been catching bluegills and small bass on those flies when I noticed some big splashy rises a bit downshore.  I kicked my tube down there and plopped one of my ersatz hoppers near the bank.  It disappeared into the maw of a big ol catfish. 

Seems the cats are opportunists and a breeze was blowing some hoppers into the water near the shoreline.  I probably caught a dozen or so kitties on the fairy wand.  A lotta work but a lotta fun.  Have not duplicated that since.