Pacemaker Fishing Forum

Nice work.....

They have most definitely hatched on the Occoquan.  They are all over!

Bass were grabbing every cicada that hit the water.. it was amazing...top water was a hit om Sunday

I gave it a try yesterday with dreams of giant carp and bass slurping up cicadas all along the lower Occuquan.  As soon as we pulled in the park we heard the cicada roar and were very excited.  When we got to the water didn't see any except one bird with a cicada in its mouth.  We worked both shore lines out past the mouth and only saw one cicada on the water and nothing touched it.  Didn't see any other flying around either.  Evenatually we worked inside a creek on a low tide and had some fantastic lm fishing on jigs in the center channel.  The bait fish were getting sucked out of the adjacent spatter dock and the fish were feeding.  The channel cats were just as active tearing up a 2.5 inch gulp jerk shad on a wobble head jig head.  Top water also found some action.  I also legitimately caught my first snakehead on the jig rig.  I've snagged several before but this was my first true hit and land.  He's destined for a hot oil bath tonight.  So we first started off very, very slow but finished strong once we said to heck with the cicadas.  We wore our arms out fly fishing for nothing.  Then threw some traditional summer largemouth stuff and did very well.  IT's been a long time since I've stricktly targetted LM being that you can catch average 20+ inch stripers all year on the same tackle.  But it was a good time for sure.  Oh, we also caught one 18 inch striper up the river right at dark.  Won't go back there chasing cicadas.  I hear the best bet for them is down south Virginia in Smith Mountain lake area where guides are sight casting to 10 pounds stripers and carp all chewing cicadas on top.  It won't last much longer, a week or two maybe.  I need to get down there.