HOPPERS, Summer’s Main Event

The front piece is by artist, naturalist and historian, Big Timber’s, Jack Hines.  Jack knows the allure of Montana streams and midsummer hopper fishing.  I hum and lick my lips when just thinking about the hopper-tunities of July, August and a bite of September.  Propelled by Jack’s vision and art, I would like to expand your “terrestrial” horizon.  This essay is about trout food, the migratory grasshopper, some biology and two fishing tips.

CONVENTIONAL WISDOM

The hook and bullet press leads us to believe that terrestrial insects startled out of a bush or gusted onto the water become trout food.  This does happen but two decades ago—after seeing the second toilet-bowl-flush rise mid-river I noticed something different—several hoppers floating mid-river beside my old wooden McKenzie drift boat.  Moments later Jim hooked a nice rainbow, so I ferried to the right bank; net in hand, stepped out to set the anchor on the weedless delta of Bridger Creek.  To my astonishment there were hoppers all over a barren mud flat.  Once I tuned in, I have observed many of these Kamikaze-hopper flights.  And this phenomenon is not new.  Not too far northeast of Cooke City, Montana, is the Grasshopper Glacier, an old icy freezer that keeps spitting out the now extinct Melanoplus spretus.  To me it is amazing that about 1700 AD a swarm of hoppers made it to altitude 11,000+ and we can see the evidence of this today.

HOPPER BIOLOGY

          

  A cousin to the Grasshopper Glacier relic lives on and is widely distributed throughout southern Canada and most of the Lower 48.  It is commonly found in south central Montana. This hopper is a frequent disaster for Montana ranchers, a mouthful for a wary Brown and a bonanza for the dry fly fisherman. Here's some biology about one hopper species, the migratory grasshopper, Melanoplus sanguinipes (Fabricius). 

            "Many outbreaks of this agricultural pest occurred during [the drought years of] the 30's and 40's.”  Robert E. Pfadt continues to write,  “This grasshopper has adapted exceedingly well to western agricultural practices.  For example, introduced weeds have provided a nutritious and steady food supply.  Populations that erupt on weedy range may migrate in massive swarms to infest land miles away.  Adults are highly migratory in their pre-reproductive state.  Swarming occurs on clear days when temperatures approach 80o F and winds are gentle and intermittent.  Migrants take off into the wind and then turn around and fly with the wind at speed of 10 to 12 miles per hour.  They usually begin flight in late morning, fly during the middle of the day, and alight in the afternoon to feed and rest.  With favorable conditions the following morning, they continue their migration.  From trials of marked adults, individuals are known to travel 30 miles in a day and probably fly much farther.  In 1938 one record of migration indicated a swarm averaged 66 miles per day for four days, flying from Highmore, South Dakota to Beach, North Dakota.  The longest migrations recorded in 1938 were made by swarms that traveled from Northeast South Dakota to the Southwestern corner of Saskatchewan, a distance of 575 miles.

            “Pilots of observation aircraft in the grasshopper control programs have encountered swarms flying 1,000 feet above ground and pilots of ferrying aircraft have encountered swarms 2,000-3,000 feet above ground.  Pilots of commercial aircraft have reported encountering swarms at all elevations up to 13,000 feet above sea level (about 8,000-9,000 feet above ground)." 

Swarms of hoppers land on pastures, croplands and water.  If we are astream, the experience is what Big Timber guide Kim Tyler calls a "gonzo hopper day".  The late Gary LaFontaine thinks that air currents enhance this phenomenon.  He reasons that the differential temperature of hot earth and cool water creates a downdraft that has a propensity to drop the hoppers on cold water or even an icy glacier.

            The life cycle of all grasshoppers begins as eggs laid among the roots of grasses or at the bases of cropland plants.  The one-inch egg pod is deposited underground and contains 18 to 24 eggs.  Embryonic development begins immediately.   M. sanguinipes hatches mid-spring.  Shortly after wriggling out, the nymph an embryonic membrane, looks like an earth tone grasshopper, and is able to hop to escape predation.  The hopper nymphs molt periodically and in a few weeks become a winged adult.  Migrating swarms can form at this stage.  Females have a preoviposition period of two to three weeks.  The male is able to recognize a virgin female and after a short courtship ritual makes a copulatory hop onto the female.  Six days later a clutch of eggs is laid.  Under laboratory conditions females have produced up to 400 eggs, i.e., perhaps 20 mating/egg laying cycles.

            On population ecology Pfadt summarizes the research, "Weather and food plants are the most influential factors affecting population ecology.  An early mild spring allows the nymphs to flourish and a large percentage to become adults.  Large populations can develop in disturbed or cultivated land such as weedy range land, stubble of small grains, reverted fields, and road sides."

            Jack Hines has provided you with an artful portrait of the migratory grasshopper - yes, the legs of the male are red and light blue legs distinguish the female.  The wet springs of 1996 and 1997 gave us two floods and a crash in the hopper population.  Since that time the numbers of M. sanguinipes and other species has been on the increase in Sweet Grass County. 

ANGLING TIPS:

            July, August and part of September, watch for the mid-river-toilet-bowl-flush-rises.  Then stop!  Go to a 4X tippet and say a #8 or #10 Dave’s Hopper.  Once trout get tuned into the grasshopper smorgasbord, they will continue to take well-presented reasonable patterns, like Dave’s Hopper.  But that is not whole story.

            Two decades ago, Jim and Joe were floating the Yellowstone with me.  The previous 3 days, the Yellowstone Browns and Rainbows had been gulping artfully presented hoppers.  But, this day was not going well.   In desperation, I tied on a small Muddler Minnow and at 18 inches crimped a BB shot.  A 20-foot roll cast and two mends eased the counterfeit toward the bouldery riverbed and into the edge of the current.  Bing!

I landed the 11-inch Rainbow.  In his book, What The Trout Said, Datus Proper observes, “The only way I can understand a trout without an interpreter, is to look in his stomach.”  This post-mortem revealed a stomach bulging with M. sanguinipes.  I speculate the previous day a ton of the migratory hoppers crash-landed way up the Yellowstone.  Eventually, drowned leftovers drifted to the Greycliff section.  Why would this trout have wasted energy to rise to the sparking blue surface?  Efficiently, the rippling Yellowstone delivered breakfast-in-bed and then a hopper meals-on–wheels to his cool deep hidey-hole.  A Muddler might not be the best drowned-hopper imitation but sometimes it’s near enough.

            The “gonzo hopper day” does not happen every day.  There are times when the Montana trout are picky and they keep refusing well presented hopper imitations.  Then I prefer to add a #8 cricket pattern for a tandem cast.  It seems that two lies delivered simultaneously clog Salmonid discernment—Chan has a similar weakness.

Acknowledgments:
Helen Clark; Cartoonist, McLeod, Montana
Jack Hines; for his art and generosity
            Norma Scheidecker, Beartooth Ranger District, USFS
            Marc King, Sweet Grass County Extension Agent
            Kevin M. O'Neill, Associate Professor, Department of Entomology, 
Montana State University
And a special thanks to Robert E. Pfadt, University of Wyoming, authored Field Guide to Common Western Grasshoppers.  (Wyoming Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin 912)