Terrestrial Trout Food - Grasshoppers

Grasshoppers appear on the lowland rivers from early summer and feature in the trout’s diet through January, February and March. Long grasses and a good offshore breeze, along with some nice hot weather will see them splat onto the water, often kicking and struggling to return to shore. That splatting, kicking and struggling certainly catch the attention of the trout as they can pick up those vibrations from meters away. Hoppers are a substantial sized food item and in some years a high abundance can account for some exceptional fish condition.

Fly fishing strategy

Look for trout rising to grasshoppers and work the stream methodically, landing the hopper with a nice little splat .... dri....ift ... twitch ... twitch, concentrating around major current seams, bubble lines, back eddies and of course the undercut banks. The more skill you can develop in landing the fly very close to a bank will often yield great rewards
Hopper patterns I like include the Nobby Hopper, a foam bodied hopper all sizes 10 – 14.

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Fly fishing Tasmania - techniques for catching trout when grasshoppers are about.