August’s hot and muggy dog-day weather causes stream levels to plummet and water temperatures to skyrocket. It’s a trying month for trout fishermen as native brookies school up in deep holes, near spring inlets or ledge seeps, and along bank undercuts, seeking cool water, shade, and relief from the heat. Fish are far more interested in conserving energy and preserving oxygen than racing around after food, and most have been fished over frequently since spring and are either fly smart or fly shy.

Ardent fly rodders resort to casting dry flies just after dawn, right at dusk, or on rainy, overcast days to hook a few trout. Some sportsmen refuse to suffer the humid heat at all and hang up their rod until September ushers in more tolerable conditions for fish and fishermen. Another small but growing group of persistent anglers, of which I’m a charter member, understands just how few open-water fishing days remain and resort to new and unusual tactics. We bug brook trout into biting!

Terrestrial tactics

Bob Beauchman and Rich Harvey are longtime friends and two of my past professors from Massachusetts College of Pharmacy. This pair of pill pushers made their first visit to northern Maine the year I graduated from MCP, and after hosting them to a couple of days of remote small-stream fishing, the trout weren’t the only ones hooked. Each summer since, Rich and Bob make their annual three-day trout trek to the Crown of Maine, an outing they talk about and plan all year, especially when city life closes in on them. This season, teaching summer courses postponed the Boston boys’ usual early July prime-time fishing foray to the first week of August.

I warned them that fishing conditions would be different and more difficult during August, and that this year it was either sweltering hot or pouring rain, and neither were particularly enjoyable or productive casting conditions. Bob allowed that either warm or wet had to be more pleasant along a scenic, serene trout stream than surrounded by the torrid cement and brick backdrop of bustling Boston. Having been a country boy subjugated to city academia for several years, I agreed wholeheartedly and encouraged them to pack and hit the pavement north with due haste!

When first we met, I learned that Bob and Rich were both bait fishermen. I attributed that shortcoming to city upbringing and poor mentoring and over our many outings had persevered in touting the benefits of fly casting. It’s a hard sell when a can of freshly dug garden hackle are catching fish as fast as feather-hackled offerings. A couple of years ago I finally coaxed and cajoled Bob into using my dry fly rod one afternoon. After missing a lot of strikes and finally hooking, fighting, and landing a couple of feisty brookies on dry flies and the lightweight rod, he converted. Still, I noticed he always brought his old bait rod along, “just in case,” he said. Rich, with the theory, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” remained an inveterate worm drowner.

Clear, bright, 75-degree weather welcomed us at 7 the first morning, and high 80s were promised by early afternoon. I opted to visit Three Brooks Stream, a small trout-filled waterway that wanders through Aroostook farm country. Thick brush along with tall firs and mixed hardwood offer a shady canopy over many pools and riffles as the spring-fed brook meanders through golden fields of grain and vibrant green potato fields crowned with white and purple blossoms. Three Brooks ranges from 10 feet narrow to 30 feet wide and averages 1-3 feet deep, but there are abundant pools up to 5 feet in depth where a surprising number of native speckled-sides school up.

Bob and I wore hip waders, while Rich, defiant of the mosquito and black flies, wore shorts, sneakers, and a thick layer of fly dope to beat the heat. We hopscotched from pool to run to riffle, taking turns, first a fly, then an angleworm, and vice-versa in the next spot. I pointed out the likely holding lies and did the heavy looking on as we got started. A few small trout were caught and released, about 50-50 on fly and worm, the largest being 7 inches and a couple of fierce 4-inchers that made me wonder how they grabbed and held onto the baits. On two occasions as we waded past a run we’d just fished, I spotted fleeting shadows of larger trout zip for cover and pondered why they hadn’t been teased into taking.

After the Beantown boys cast over a couple of more lies where fish interest continued to be skimpy, I began to consider a different course of action. Twice, fair-size brookies had noisily slurped something from the stream surface, but there was no hatch going on and when we fished over the trout, they ignored bait on the bottom and dry flies on top. Perhaps it wasn’t that fish weren’t taking, maybe we just had the wrong menu. As Bob and then Rich fished The Elbow, a corner deep hole about the size of a Volkswagen Beetle, I began pawing through my fly-vest pockets for a certain fly box.

A dozen or more trout always seek haven under the shady canopy of trees over The Elbow, some a foot long, which is a real trophy from petite Three Brooks. One rise and refusal to a royal coachman and one 6-inch bait biter were the only reward for several minutes of casting. I finally located a worn aluminum box with a worn plastic tag reading Bill’s Bugs and dug around for a particular pattern. One side of my bug box is lined with a variety of sizes, shapes, and colors of grasshoppers while the opposite tier of hook holders features imitation crickets, caterpillars, beetles, ants, bees, inchworms, and even a couple of lady bugs.

Tying on a yellow foam-bodied Joe’s Hopper with red tail, brown hackle, and swept-back, body-hugging, lacquered turkey feather wings, I moved to the head of the pool and told the boys I wanted to try an experiment. Compared to the size 16 dry flies Bob had been using, my size 2X, No. 6 hopper looked like a tugboat floating downstream. My second cast was nearer the bank undercut, and we didn’t get to observe the float for more than a couple of feet before what turned out to be an 11-inch brookie with brilliant orange flanks engulfed the big bug. I caught two more trout, lost a third, and raised another pair, then switched to the same style grasshopper with a green wool body and caught one and lost one.

A long slow set of moderate-depth riffles was our next stop, and an 8-inch fish grabbed Rich’s worm, which now sported a silver spinner, but several more casts produced no further interest. Bob’s dry flies were completely ignored, but when he tried my rod and hopper pattern, his first float drew a raise and the next try hooked up. Three more brookies swirled for the terrestrial, but still a bit of a novice, Bob was a bit slow on the draw and only hooked up one. He was amazed that seemingly barren water suddenly came alive when lifelike bug imitations suddenly came floating along.

What astounded the city boys even more was that the more I twitched and splashed the hoppers along the surface, the quicker and harder trout engulfed them. Dry flies need a fully free drift with no wake or ripples, but a bug that inadvertently falls into the water is going to struggle. I gave Bob a hopper to tie on and I switched to a yellow-bodied, grizzly-hackled caterpillar. Our action increased notably, as did the grumbling from our bait-casting buddy. By lunchtime our trio’s tally was worms six, dry fly five, and terrestrials 19, and all but three, which were bleeding, were released to fight again.

Timely terrestrials

While certain bug imitations will work all season long, August and early September are the most productive periods for grasshoppers, crickets, caterpillars, inchworms, fireflies, and June bugs. Bees, moths, spiders, ants, and beetles will entice trout to feed from spring to fall since they are prevalent each month. A floating line with at least a 9-foot leader – I favor fluorocarbon – offers the best presentation in the clear, shallow brooks. When casting dry flies, I want the pattern to gently alight on the surface, but with bugs I prefer the fly to kind of splash down, as if it had actually crash-landed by mistake. Then I impart a thrashing, swimming action using the rod tip to imitate a terrestrial trying to reach shore or get airborne again.

Realism of form and color combined with natural motions of survival are the components that make counterfeit bugs irresistible. I truly believe that many trout attack out of instinct or irritation rather than hunger during hot weather conditions. One trick I use frequently with consistent success when casting hoppers, crickets, beetles, caterpillars, and inchworms is to have the fraudulent fly fall from grass or a brush. Since most of these terrestrial patterns have legs, wings, antennae, tails, or body hair, constructed of feathers, sticking out in all directions, the hook is often partially protected. Therefore, allowing a fly to lightly set down on shoreline grasses or a bankside bush bent out over the water, then giving a gently tug so the fake bug tumbles realistically into the stream, creates a natural daily occurrence.

Setting the hook with some terrestrials requires a bit different technique than when fishing a dry. When fishing larger, longer flies, like hoppers, caterpillars, and crickets, the surface strike will often be violent, splashy, and even noisy. The urge to immediately raise the rod tip, as with tiny dry flies, must be quelled. Most of these bug imitations are a real mouthful, so hesitate a second to make sure the fly and trout are both below the surface before raising the rod tip. Rush the pull and the hook will often be yanked free before the barb can set, and the fish will not only be lost but too spooked to come back for a second helping.

The best bugs

Any August angler who doesn’t have at least a dozen terrestrial patterns to try is really shortchanging himself. Bogus bugs will catch trout when no other fly patterns produce regular action, and best of all, these flies will work right in the middle of the day, regardless of the hot, bright sun. Vary hook sizes as you see fit, but have yellow-, green-, and orange-bodied grasshoppers in foam and wool, and be sure they have lacquered turkey feather wings. Best known patterns include Joe’s hopper, Bing’s hopper, and a spun head version called Dave’s hopper.

Dave’s cricket also has a spun deer-hair head and is very realistic, and Luccas’s cricket is also truly authentic and uses foam to assure a good float. Harvey’s beetle is my favorite imitation of that species and don’t forget to have at least one ladybug fly. I have a floating firefly and a deer fly and a couple of chartreuse inchworms in my reserves but depend more heavily on a yellow foam caterpillar with peacock herl tail and antennae and mixed grizzly and brown palmered body hackle, it’s the real deal.

If you’ve got room for addendums, try a Tennessee bee, a spruce moth, a June bug and a couple of black or maroon spiders and ants. Some of these terrestrial patterns may be difficult to find at local fly shops or sporting goods stores, but hoppers and caterpillars should be available in several versions. For more exotic versions it may be necessary to tie your own, visit a close friend who ties flies, or begin catalog shopping.

It’s difficult to explain just how effective bugs can be on trout, until you see it or experience it yourself. In the way of proof, let me offer this addendum to the trout trip with the Boston pharmacy professors. At supper, after the first day’s fishing, Rich, the dyed-in-the-wool worm caster, grinned sheepishly and quietly asked, “I don’t suppose you’ve got a spare fly rod and a few extra bugs I could try tomorrow?” Sometimes the right fly can bug both fish and fishermen into taking.

Outdoor feature writer Bill Graves can be reached via e-mail at bgravesoutdoors@ainop.com