“Catch him on a hopper?”
Those are both the first utterances from Kurt Russell, a stinky caster, in Paramount’s “The Madison” and also the query I’ve cast on many mid-summer fishing outings. As long as people have plied fly fishing waters, the ubiquitous grasshopper fly has fooled and bitten fish of all stripes. As Russell, aka Preston, says, “Tie on a hopper and give ‘em hell.”
I cut my eyeteeth by using live hoppers to catch panfish as a kid. My brothers and I would start the day before a trip to our local pond by catching a Mason jar full of the jumping critters and use them to catch bluegill, perch, bass and catfish.
As bait, they are just as effective as worms. Graduating to the fly school, hoppers make a great fly, which serves as a “full meal deal” to hungry trout. One hopper on a trout dinner plate is equal to at least a dozen mayflies.
Have you ever tied one, as in fly tying? There are dozens of patterns to copy or just come up with one of your own. It is important to match those at your river of choice in size and body color. To keep a pattern super simple, just use a bit of dubbing in pale yellow or tan with a deer hair wing. Stock your fly box with sizes 10-14. If you purchase your hoppers, you’ll find well over a dozen styles sold in shops and online. Make sure they are barbless or mash the barbs on your own with fine-nose electrical pliers.
You may have a substitute hopper pattern in your fly box already: the ubiquitous Chernobyl Ant. With a closed-cell foam layered body, the Chernobyl Ant is more difficult to sink than a battleship. While it is not nearly as realistic as the hopper styles with laid back wings and pheasant tail legs, it is the ticket for fishing dry/dropper in late summer. As the Chernobyl is fished on the surface, drop your favorite nymph pattern a foot or two below it. If a fish takes the dropper, the Chernobyl will serve as a strike indicator.
A hopper was made for poor casters because you can’t mess up a cast unless it ends up in a tree or bushes. In fact, one of your best techniques to drive your cast into the water like a grasshopper crashing down. Twitch it, bounce it, skid it. The real ones seek to swim back to shore if they inadvertently get blown into the stream, which signals “eat me” to the fin crowd. When fishing, make a standard cast toward midstream, let the fly drift until it swings back toward the bank. At that juncture, use a straight line and the fly will fly toward the shore.
Jake, a fly guy from Farmington, was giddy about his hopper intoxication. He was a bit braggadocious as he spoke of his big hopper day.
“I slayed them on the San Juan with a hopper. I caught fish after fish. They all were 2 or 3 pounds and I must have caught at least 10.”
What do I do when I hear stories like that? First, I divide all the fish numbers by two, then I go and fish a hopper myself.
My best hopper day was on a horse trip to a backcountry creek in Yellowstone National Park. I was on a family expedition with my boys and with brother-in-law Rick Connor and his boys. As we rode 5 miles, the horses disturbed hoppers all along the trail. Duh, what pattern to fish today? I was using my zero-weight fly rod and only had to cast 25 feet as we wet-waded. Cast to the far bank and have the hopper fall in. BAM! Make a bad cast. BAM! Reel the fly in. BAM! Hopper madness!
The Chernobyl Ant can also wreak havoc. Looking for long fly drifts like on Idaho’s Henry’s Fork River, I use the Cherny for my “shake and bake” technique. Cast out the big dry/dropper rig and instead of a regular cast, add more line from your reel to the water by stripping off line and shaking your lowered rod tip.
On moving water, you can put out most of your line, akin to a 100-foot cast. Hopefully, a fish attacks way before that. The never-sink Cherny serves as both temptress and indicator. Guaranteed to work or your money back.
Now back to the future. Remember I shared my hopper roots going after bass and bluegill, so switch from live grasshoppers to artificial. Find a farm pond with fish and go with a hopper.
It is Hopperzeit. Don’t leave home without it.
