Periodical Cicada (Magicicada spp.)

Terrestrial, hatching May–June, active in water between 55 and 78°F, and imitated at #4–8. Recorded from the North Carolina mountains, where 1575 North Carolina rivers on this site carry a page.

#4–8Hook size
55–78°FWater, active
May–JunPeak 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 · Magicicada spp. · adult

A heavy black-bodied insect with brilliant red eyes and orange wing veins, an inch and a half long, and completely unmistakable. It flies badly and lands on water constantly.

Seventeen- and thirteen-year broods, so this is a hatch with a calendar measured in decades rather than weeks — Brood X covers much of Virginia and the southern Michigan lower peninsula, Brood XIX the southern Appalachians. In an emergence year it is the best dry-fly fishing of the decade, and in every other year it is nothing at all. Check the brood map before packing the flies.

When it hatches

Peak is May–June. 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.

55°F 78°F

Active from 55°F to 78°F. On this map that is cold, cold-transitional, cool, warm water — the band crosses 3 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	Emerges from underground in thirteen- and seventeen-year broods, so this is a hatch with a calendar in decades. Brood X covers much of Virginia and reaches the southern Michigan lower peninsula; Brood XIX covers parts of the southern Appalachians. In an emergence year, on a wooded river, it is the best dry-fly fishing available in a decade. In every other year it is nothing whatsoever, and the brood map is the only thing worth consulting.

Stage

What it is

adult

Emerges from underground in thirteen- and seventeen-year broods, so this is a hatch with a calendar in decades. Brood X covers much of Virginia and reaches the southern Michigan lower peninsula; Brood XIX covers parts of the southern Appalachians. In an emergence year, on a wooded river, it is the best dry-fly fishing available in a decade. In every other year it is nothing whatsoever, and the brood map is the only thing worth consulting.

Matching flies

3 patterns in this book imitate the Periodical Cicada, 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.

the Virginia mountains VA
the North Carolina mountains NC
southern lower Michigan MI

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.