by Curt Kovener
We all knew they were coming as they have every 17 years in Southern Indiana as they have since before the forests were cleared by the immigrant settlers.
I went out the front door in the Wilderness one recent morning to be greeted by hollow shells and slowly moving winged cicadas on pretty much anything attached to the ground.
Several found themselves trapped in the dog’s outside food bowl so I used that as a gathering apparatus and began plucking them off of whatever I found they were on and depositing them in the bowl. It’s rather like picking blackberries. You have to look for them and then you have to pick them.
They don’t bite. They don’t sting. And if collected in the morning soon after they have molted they don’t fly. I found picking them up by their wings prevents them from clinging to me. They make a bit of a fluttering fuss but that will eventually be their final undoing.
I collected about 50 of the harmless but sinister looking red-eyed insects that have seen the light of day for the first time since 2004 when the fresh hatched nymphs fell from the tree limb where their mama laid them, and burrowed into the ground to attach to a tree root for sap sucking the next 17 years.
And I have made a tour of the wilderness homestead a morning ritual collecting them for nearly a week now.
I carried the bowlful of fish food on the hoof to the dock.
The bluegill and bass in the lake have learned to come swimming ripply-split when they see me as I toss some floating fish food for their dining pleasure in the evening. This time when they hustled over they seemed a bit startled that what I flicked out to the water’s surface was fluttering.
But after the first bluegill smacked the surface and the entire cicada disappeared, they quickly attacked the high protein breakfast offering.
As I flicked the novice fliers onto the water to become nourishment, I recalled a similar experience 34 years ago. It was a Memorial Day weekend and myself, youngest brother Whitney and our friend Vaughn Isenhower made an early morning trek to the Muscatatuck River at the north edge of Vernon Township.
The weeds along the river bank were heavy with dew and freshly emerged cicada—some had not yet molted. Settling in we baited our hooks with the nightcrawlers we had collected the night before and tossed in our lines and waited for the action.
Which never happened. No matter where we threw our lines the bobbers just stayed still.
Out of frustration, I reeled-in my line removed the worm, grabbed a pale un-molted cicada, stuck in on the hook, and tossed it out into the river. The bobber barely stood upright before is disappeared under the surface.
I set the hook and reeled in a platter size catfish. It didn’t take Whit and Vaughn very long to follow my lead and soon we had over a dozen meal size catfish.
But just as suddenly, the fish quit biting. The young fishermen mused over what the fish were thinking. But when fish don’t bite boredom sets in.
So I grabbed a winged cicada and said “Let’s see how far you can fly” while giving it a toss towards the river. It made it about halfway across before plopping on the water’s surface. And just as quick there was a smack at the surface and the cicada was gone.
We all looked at one another—and just like we had rehearsed it— reeled-in in high speed unison, re-rigged our line for surface fishing, baited up with a winged cicada, cast the new bait into the river and began reeling in bluegill and rock bass.
The young lads were having a grand time until I had to leave around noon to get the newspaper finished for the week. But perhaps because I was older and wiser, Whit & Vaughn got to clean all those fish that we fried up for that holiday evening’s supper.