Welcome to the first anniversary edition of Two-Lane Livin and its first outdoor column. We have all survived another West Virginia August, the nights are cooling down and there is a little color in the leaves on top of the mountains. It is time to get out for some exciting hopper fishing.

Carefully wading upstream, one well placed step at a time, you cast to a clump of grass draping into the water. The hopper imitation makes a splash landing near its intended target. A wake forms, moving from a nearby undercut bank. The wake grows as it picks up speed, torpedoing towards the drifting fly. A head appears; jaws agape and you jerk the fly from his mouth. He slashes toward the fly again and you jerk the fly away again, before he inhales it. Finally, the trout is quicker than your reaction. You feel weight on your leader, the fish has hooked himself and the fight is on. He runs past you downstream. A few minutes later, a spotted sixteen-inch Brown Trout fins at your feet. You carefully remove the soaked hopper and the trout cruises back to its shaded lair.

Anglers who have experienced this scenario in the past are sure to return for more hopper action. If you haven’t tried hopper fishing, now is the time. You don’t need the latest equipment and all of the fancy gadgets that the technical fly fishermen are inclined to carry. Finesse is not the name of the game, except for your wading skills. You need to wade just like a Great Blue Heron, one calculated step at a time. If you send waves out ahead of you, you will fail. Nearly any fly rod and reel combination with a floating line will work fine. I use a 9 foot 6 weight rod with a 9 foot 6-pound fluorocarbon leader. I wouldn’t recommend going under 6-pound test. Strikes can be savage, the fish isn’t looking for leaders, he is looking for a big juicy meal. If you had been living on meals of gnats and mosquitoes all summer, wouldn’t you do the same? The only other thing you will need is a few grasshopper fly imitations. Dave’s Hopper is the most common and is available anywhere that sells flies. The newer foam body patterns are very realistic and look like they are unsinkable.

If you are fishing a small stream, wade the middle and cast to streamside vegetation. If your choice is a pond, fish the weedy edges. Getting your fly on the water is the only requirement; sooner or later a fish will grab it. Do not get hung up on the idea that this is just for trout fishermen. This works on nearly anything that swims, at the proper time of the year. Smallmouth and largemouth bass, trout, sunfish and even catfish will feed on the waters surface when grasshoppers are present. I wouldn’t be afraid to bet that somewhere on the backwaters of Stonewall Jackson Lake an enterprising angler is casting hoppers to schools of carp and having a blast.

Most importantly, go to your nearest body of water, tie on a hopper, relieve some stress and have fun.