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Leafhopper (Cicadellidae)
Terrestrial, hatching June–September, active in water between 58 and 75°F, and imitated at #18–22. Recorded from northern lower Michigan, southern lower Michigan and the Upper Peninsula, where 1140 Michigan rivers on this site carry a page.
- #18–22Hook size
- 58–75°FWater, active
- Jun–SepPeak months
- 1Life stage fished
What it is
Terrestrial · Cicadellidae · adult
Tiny wedge-shaped bugs, green, yellow or mottled, a few millimetres long, that hold their wings tented flat and low. Present on streamside grass in enormous numbers all summer.
Tiny wedge-shaped bugs blown off streamside grass all summer, and the classic answer to a fish sipping steadily in flat water with nothing visibly hatching. The jassid was tied for exactly this and remains the fly for it.
When it hatches
Peak is June–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.
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.
Active from 58°F to 75°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 | Blown onto the water constantly through summer. This is the standard answer to a trout sipping steadily in flat water with nothing visibly hatching — the fish is on something at #20 or smaller, and it is usually this. |
Matching flies
3 patterns in this book imitate the Leafhopper, 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.
- Black Foam Ant terrestrial · #14–20 — Floats low, which is how a real ant sits. Small water, tight to the bank.
- Foam Beetle terrestrial · #12–18 — Black foam, a bit of flash on top. The most reliable summer dry on wooded streams.
- Jassid terrestrial · #18–22 — A tiny flat-winged terrestrial, jungle-cock or feather wing lacquered flat. Vincent Marinaro's fly for flat water and steady sippers.
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.
- Bruce Creek the Upper Peninsula · July mean 66.8°F
- Camp Creek the Upper Peninsula · July mean 66.8°F
- Caps Creek the Upper Peninsula · July mean 66.8°F
- East Branch Fence River the Upper Peninsula · July mean 66.8°F
- Fence River the Upper Peninsula · July mean 66.8°F
- Fribley Creek the Upper Peninsula · July mean 66.8°F
- Hickman Creek the Upper Peninsula · July mean 66.8°F
- Jones Camp Creek the Upper Peninsula · July mean 66.8°F
- Klippel Creek the Upper Peninsula · July mean 66.8°F
- Koops Creek the Upper Peninsula · July mean 66.8°F
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
Rivers in these regions with a page here
- Au Sable River
- Muskegon River
- Escanaba River
- Kalamazoo River
- Abitosse Creek
- Acme Creek
- Adams Creek
- Addis Creek
- Adventure Creek
- Aho Creek
- Ahola Creek
- Alabaster Whitney Drain
- Aldridge Creek
- Allen Creek
- Alward Creek
- Amundsan Creek
- Anderson Bayou
- Anderson Creek
- Anna River
- Antler Creek
- Antrim Creek
- Apel Drain
- Apple Creek
- Arsenault Creek
- and 1116 more
Related hatches
Same family, or overlapping this one's calendar on the same water.
- Black Ant Formicidae · Terrestrial · June–September
- Caterpillar Lepidoptera larvae · Terrestrial · May–September
- Grasshopper Acrididae · Terrestrial · July–September
- Annual Cicada Neotibicen spp. · Terrestrial · July–August
- Cinnamon Flying Ant Formicidae (alate) · Terrestrial · August–September