The Locusts are Coming!

Aaaaahhh! Cut the last of the hay and round up the cows! No…wait. Not dust bowl part two, just grasshopper season. Got ahead of myself again. If you go up any of the canyon roads here on the Front Range (Clear Creek, Boulder Creek) you can’t help but notice the coveys of hoppers (yes…I just called them a covey) flushing out of every stand of road-side grass. You hesitate momentarily, mentally stalled between the need to get back onto the creek and whack some more wild browns on big dry flies…and the almost overwhelming urge to catch the nearest hopper and throw it into the best pocket water within easy tossing distance—as though watching a trout slam a real grasshopper struggling back to dry land would somehow be way more cool than watching that same fish unload on your big foam and hair Charlie Boy on 4x. For the record, it is pretty cool. Empowering, certainly. Like a sadistic prince in one of those Russell Crow gladiator movies. Shall he live? Noooo! Thumbs down! Feed him to the Browns! Final word of warning, though. You may think you will, but you will NOT catch the first hopper you set your sights on. Maybe not even the first dozen. But dare to set your fly rod down and make the original effort and you are fully committed. No matter what it takes. Frantic pouncing. Desperate flailing of arms. Passing motorists fumble for cell phones. No reception…half a bar…no matter. They think they have seen one of those escaped Ward militia children…fed nothing but raw chicken and C4 behind a dilapidated shed…finally gnawed through his makeshift bailing twine leash and now is half way back to Boulder….