FURTHER NOTES ON THE GRASS- 
HOPPER FLY 
O N the waters where I fish, the sea- 
son of 1918 was remarkable for 
the veritable swarms of grass- 
hoppers; their numbers were such that 
they destroyed a lot of cattle, feed and 
r/p 
reduced the hay crop by as much as 50 
per cent, in some cases. 
At the times when they were flying 
they literally spotted the river, and 
they were so thick upon the water that 
it was difficult to find a gap in the pro- 
cession of floating insects of sufficient 
size to warrant the attempt being made 
to induce a fish to take an artificial 
imitation in preference to the natural 
insects which were anything but few 
and far between. 
It is not much good putting one’s fly 
into a mass of grasshoppers where pos- 
sibly none are more than qjght or nine 
inches away from each other. About 
the only thing to do when conditions 
are so bad, is to watch out upstream 
for an open space in the floating insects 
and then put one’s fly in this place as 
it comes over the feeding fish. Fortu- 
nately, however, it was not quite so bad 
as this all the time; if it had been, 
very few trout would have been caught. 
T HE average ’hopper last year was 
of a considerably lighter color than 
those of proceeding years. Possi- 
bly this was due to the large numbers 
and to the limited amount of food; 
E are depending upon the 
friends and admirers of our 
old correspondent Nessmuk to make 
this department worthy of his 
name. No man knew the woods 
better than Nessmuk or wrote of 
them with quainter charm. Many 
of his practical ideas on camping 
and “ going light ” have been 
adopted by the United States 
Army; his canoe has been preserved 
in the Smithsonian Institution; and 
we hope that all good woodsmen 
will contribute to this department 
their Hints and Kinks and trail- 
tested contrivances . — [Editors.] 
several other observers remarked on this 
variation in color, but fortunately I had 
a number of grasshopper flies dressed to 
a generally lighter shade than the fly 
described in the original notes, pub- 
lished in the August, 1919, number of 
Forest and Stream. 
The grasshopper fly of the 1917 series 
was dressed as follows : 
Body — Quill dyed naples yellow (No. 
29, shade 3). 
Body Hackle — Same color but a shade 
lighter. 
Tail — Mallard (barred feather) . 
Wings — Pheasant. 
Cheeks — Primrose yellow, pale (No. 
19, shade 1). 
Neck Hackle— A few turns of ginger. 
The only difference between this fly, 
which for convenience can be called the 
“medium” dressing and the “light pat- 
tern, which I tried out in 1918, was that 
the body was a quill dyed a shade of 
greenish white (No. 15, shade 2). The 
body hackle was a similar color but 
/ 
lighter, and the wings were a very pale 
pheasant wing feather. 
The fly was tied on Nos. 8, 9 and 10 
Pennel limeneck eyed hooks. There is 
no doubt about the killing qualities of 
this fly, as some of the following inci- 
dents will show: At the same time the 
fact must not be lost sight of that these 
fish are by no means unsophisticated. 
They are fished for very determinedly 
every day in the season by a large num- 
ber of people who employ every imag- 
inable contrivance to catch them; the 
most popular device being a grasshopper 
on a hook. 
O N more than one occasion when 
conditions were just right for 
observing, I saw two fish 
simultaneously dart at the fly as 
it fell on the smooth surface of a 
deep pool. Each time one of the con- 
testants was successful and got caught, 
and they were not very small fish either. 
On another occasion I had intended to 
finish up the day’s fishing at a certain 
pool. The water in it is quite 10 feet 
deep and there is only a barely per- 
ceptible current so that usually the sur- 
face is like glass. However, on this day 
there was a good wind and the surface 
was ruffled somewhat. When I arrived 
at the pool I saw two other men there 
already. They were seated on the high 
bank that overhung the river on the op- 
posite side to that which I was on, and 
they were fishing with grasshoppers. 
One was seated at the head of the pool 
and the other at a point about 60 yards 
below his friend, and it was towards the 
middle of this 60 yards that I directed 
my steps. 
When I arrived close enough to the 
stream to observe I saw that the fish 
were well on the feed. Every few sec- 
onds the splashing rise of a trout at a 
