Dog days of summer

For trout anglers August can be the toughest time of year and has long been called the dog days of summer, the days are long, the water temps high and any significant rain seems a long, long way off. For river anglers, the prolific insect hatches of May and June have tapered off, and now late evening sessions seem to be the only option, however, now is the time to be fishing terrestrials at any time of day or night as trout go nuts for these high protein snacks. The terrestrial fly box should have beetles and ants of varying colours and sizes, daddies for later in the month and into September and also BIG FAT FOAM HOPPERS as I found out in 2021!

This year I have seen a massive boom in hoppers in the fields and along the banks of many of the rivers I visit, the first ones I noticed in late July were some very green ones, they then went to tan in the middle of August before going brown in the latter part of the month. Naturally, the first one I saw I picked up and in the name of citizen science promptly chucked it in the river, it landed midstream just off the bubble line and gave a good few kicks that had it heading towards the far bank before being engulfed by one of the better fish that live in that stretch, this was in the middle of what was one of the hottest days of the year! Was it a fluke I thought, one way to find out I thought, and so another grasshopper was snatched from the ground and hurriedly thrown in the river, this one was a better swimmer and with a high cadence propelled its way downstream and into the riffle where it was promptly eaten by one of the smaller trout, no fluke then? Having chummed the water with the pair of hoppers it was time to try an imitation, on went my vaguely representative hopper pattern and the smaller trout in the riffle was the first target, fly lands on water trout smashes fly! Now I know why the Americans go nuts on hoppers and the great thing is they’re so buoyant you can hang huge weighted nymphs off them too, so this was the start to a long summer fishing hoppers both on their own and as a ‘hopper dropper’ rig

There’s nothing pretty about fishing a hopper pattern and definitely no need for a delicate approach, in fact, the polar opposite has the best outcome, smash’em down and twitch that line to make‘em swim, and trout will move way off their station to investigate the commotion going on up on the surface when these meaty morsels are crashing about.

Greedy hopper eater from a Lincolnshire limestone stream, this one turned and chased the hopper pattern a good six feet down a faster section of the stream.

My hoppers, like most of my fly tying, are a simple and somewhat utilitarian affair made up of what happens to be lying about on my fly tying bench.

A bit of foam roughly cut to shape, some dubbing, a few legs and a calf hair wing all hung onto a size 12 longish hook.