Grasshopper (Acrididae)

Terrestrial, hatching July–September, active in water between 60 and 80°F, and imitated at #8–12. Recorded from the North Carolina mountains, where 1575 North Carolina rivers on this site carry a page.

A terrestrial that never hatches: hoppers are blown or jump onto the water from mown and grazed banks, and their season on trout water runs from midsummer on, peaking in July, August and September. They are tan to yellow-green, heavy-bodied, with folded wings and powerful back legs, and only the adult matters to a fish. The landing is part of the imitation — a hopper hits the surface audibly, sits half-sunk, and kicks — so the cast goes to the bank rather than to the middle. Water in the 60 to 80 degree band is where they figure, which covers cold-transitional, cool and warm streams alike. Hook sizes run 8 to 12. Dave's Hopper and the Morrish Hopper cover it at 8 to 12, a Chubby Chernobyl at 8 to 14, a Foam Beetle at 12 to 18, and a Muddler Minnow, 4 to 10, when the fly sinks. Meadow water and a warm wind suit them; the grass drying out in August is the tell.

#8–12Hook size
60–80°FWater, active
Jul–SepPeak months
1Life stage fished

Subbasins with trout water where it is on record: 16 of North Carolina's 46.

See North Carolina's trout water on the live map → Every reach coloured by water temperature — the water these hatches come off.

What it is

Terrestrial · Acrididae · adult

Tan to yellow-green, heavy, with folded wings and powerful back legs. Hoppers do not hatch — they are blown or jump onto the water from mown and grazed banks from midsummer on.

Meadow water, a warm wind, and a bank you can slap a fly against. Best after the grass has dried out in August.

When it hatches

Peak is July–September. The pale months either side are the shoulder — the app widens a peak by one month in each direction and recommends the bug there, and no further: that widening is bounded so that a bug peaking in May is never offered in August.

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peak shoulder not recommended

Water conditions

The band is a water temperature, not an air temperature, and it is the range in which this insect is worth fishing — for a mayfly that is the emergence window; for a scud or a midge it is simply the range trout will still eat one in.

60°F 80°F

Active from 60°F to 80°F. On this map that is cold-transitional, cool, warm water — the band crosses 2 of the three breaks the river colours use. Breaks at 58, 64 and 70°F.

Stages

What the insect is doing, and what that means for what you tie on.

Stage	What it is
adult	The landing is part of the imitation. A hopper hits the surface audibly, sits half-sunk, and kicks. Cast to the bank, not to the middle.

Matching flies

5 patterns in this book imitate the Grasshopper, across its stages. Which one to tie on follows the stage the water temperature says it is in — the app makes that call on a live reading; this page lists the whole set.

Where to find it right now

The rivers with a page here that sit in this insect's regions, with a USGS gauge reporting water temperature. This list is re-ranked against the reading each gauge is sending now and today's date, so it is live — the fallback below it, if the readings do not arrive, is each river's measured July mean.

Regional presence

Regions, not collection records. This insect is recorded from the coarse regions below; nobody has surveyed which named river it has been caught on, and this page will not pretend otherwise.

northern lower Michigan MI
southern lower Michigan MI
the Upper Peninsula MI
the Wisconsin driftless WI
northern Wisconsin WI
the Virginia mountains VA
the North Carolina mountains NC
southeast Minnesota MN

Rivers in these regions with a page here

Related hatches

Same family, or overlapping this one's calendar on the same water.

Open the trout map →Every trout stream near you, coloured by today's water temperature.