All of the children came rushing into the kitchen. They were abuzz about the the bug they had found. It was big. It looked like an alien. It was dead. Quickly my wife corrected them. It is just the husk. The cicada got rid of this, shook it’s new wings, and flew away. Now there is a cicada shell on the window sill directly above the kitchen sink.

Washing dishes tonight, I started thinking about cicadas and the fish that love them. Giant trout that throw caution to the wind for these big, buzzing mouthfuls. Fish I’ve caught.

My first cicada “hatch” came the year after I moved to Pennsylvania. The fledgling fly fishing internet message boards tracked the bugs as their historic emergence happened across the commonwealth. Valley after valley, creek after creek, the cicadas would appear. Fisheries that usually required midges and tiny cress bugs were now tolerating 3X and size 2 foam flies. Most importantly, big fish were feeding with reckless abandon. The cicadas brought everyone out.

I took advantage of a weekend alone and drove up north. I hit a spring creek that had been cruel to me in the past. It was fabled. It was frustrating. With the cicadas, it was vulnerable. On previous trips I woke up before dawn to gently present tiny tricos to small fish sipping under the morning mists. This time I was trudging through the current, splatting popper-like flies in likely holding spots. I was catching fish.

Wild browns in skinny water attacked like great whites in shark week footage. The whole experience was almost startling. Like a switch had been flipped. It was too easy. It was like playing with a cheat code. It was the fabled spring creek, but it was different. I caught a lot of fish. But I didn’t spend the night. I had my fill and drove back late in the evening, full of fast food and frenetic fish.

The next day I went out on local water. Also spring creek. Also fabled. Almost as if pushing my luck, I headed to a stretch of the river that had never been productive. It was slower, weedier, and swampier. A PA limestone B-side. The cicada fly, with it’s black foam and orange fuzz, gave me superhero confidence. I heard bugs but didn’t see them. I counted on the fish being in tune with nature. Splatting the gaudy fly over and over I moved upstream. Eventually the water erupted. The cress and algae seemed to rise up on top of the fish. In a vacuum, 10 out of 10 members of a focus group would assume the species to be a largemouth bass.

The rainbow was the first I had caught in the small creek. It was just under that benchmark 20-inch length. It was an odd fish. Odd location, odd behavior, just odd. The whole experience was only slightly less bizarre than if I would have caught a small mermaid.

In less than 24 hours, cicadas had blown my angling perspective wide open and backwards. A once-in-every-17-years Bizzaro World had opened itself up to me and my 5-weight. The next time the cicadas came around the results were less remarkable. A few fish here and there, but nothing like that first hatch. 17 years is coming up soon. Perhaps a trip to those waters will result in another planets-aligning moment.

Perhaps those days and those fish were alien to normal fly fishing. A handful of moments that will never be replicated. Only remembered at the kitchen sink, wings spread and full of life.