GUIDE: Cicada lures and how to fish them

One of our favorite styles of lures to use when chasing estuary and river species like Bream, Estuary Perch and Bass is a Cicada style topwater lure.

Summer and the warmer months gives us that unmistakable sound of the Australian bush where the cicadas are calling. At times it can be deafening, and the abundance of these creatures can be hard to comprehend. But to us fisherfolk it gets us fairly excited at the prospect of our target fish smashing our Cicada lures off the surface with gusto, creating some of the most enjoyable fishing going around.

With so many cicada style lures on the market, we decided to give you a quick run down of the cicada lures we prefer to use and have had great success with over the years, and how we use them.

Megabass Grand Siglett

Megabass Pagani Siglett

Tiemco Softshell cicada

Jackall Kana kana

Duo Shinmushi

When to use

Like all top water lures, cicadas are best fished around periods of low light, think dawn and dusk. However with that said they can still prove effective on bright sunny days when pitched up into deep shady pockets or under overhanging vegetation.

Retrieves

With the action built in to all of these lures, they really are as simple as casting and retrieving, however, adapting your technique to suit the fishes mood can drastically affect your results. Understanding how your cicada swims, and how to get it to swim at its optimum as quickly as possible, can also help your strike rate. Think of fishing your cicada like driving a boat. Drive it too slowly and it will plough through the water, to quickly and it will become uncontrollable.  Cicadas are a great lure for targeting snag dwelling fish like bass and estuary perch, but if your lure dragging through the water for the first meter or two it will look un-natural and could possibly spook any fish that may be there. Once you are ready to commence your retrieve, its best to either give the reel a quick crank or a pop of the rod tip to break the lure free from the surface tension, and commence your retrieve. adjust your retrieve speed while watching the lure and you will quickly find its optimum swim speed.

Slow Roll 
Simple and often the most productive technique. The slow roll requires casting your lure to your target and retrieving it back with a slow roll. As mentioned above your lure will dictate the best speed in which to roll it back.

Slow Roll & Kill

Similar to above the slow roll and kill involves crawling the cicada back to boat/bank but with a few breaks in between, allowing the lure to sit idle in the water, before commencing your retrieve.

Dead stick & Twitch

This could be considered the most natural presentation and can be a deadly technique at times particularly on shy or heavily pressured fish. It works exceptionally well around structure and under over hanging trees or anywhere where you want your lure to stay in the strike zone as long as possible. Cast your lure and when it hits the water leave it. Do nothing! wait for all the rings around the lure to dissipate then give it a few very subtle twitches of the rod tip. try to employ just enough rod work to get the lures “wing beat” on the spot without moving its position in the water.

Now get out there and give it a go! I have no doubt you will become as addicted to this style of fishing as we are!