Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Billions of cicadas emerging in North Carolina to create rare noise

First time in 221 years? I thought about Carl Segan who used the term "Billions and Billions" when describing the universe.

I suspect there age going to be a bunch of very fat and happy birds along with other insectivores this year.

Always thought those were a mid to late summer thing.

Is that a recent story?

If so, someone ought to be gathering bunches to sell to those on the Caveman Diet.

Cavemen would likely have been gorging themselves on them. Who needs to risk getting trampled by a mammoth when you could pick more than a day's worth of calories before lunch???

I put some of those little Once Every 17 (bullllllllllsheeit) year fuggers on a hook and tried fishing with them. Could see down 6ft into the water. Bounced it off of a bass’s head about 10 times. Completely ignored. It literally scared bluegill away.

Ya didn't spray it with the WD-40, did ya?

about half my labs and my one setter loved to munch on the things...

99,850 views 19 hours ago
Two broods of the insects are creating event that hasn't happened since early 1800s.

I'm going to have ear plugs ready just in case the sound isn't soothing to me.... My imagination might go towards alien invasion

We had a big hatch year 40 some odd years ago and any place there was a green, leafy tree or limb hanging low over the water you could cast a dark color lure under it and WHAM... it might be a largemouth, it might be a crappie or catfish or rock bass, sometimes drum or carp. It didn't matter if you used popping bugs, jigs or crank baits... they were on a feeding frenzy.

Song of the South.

Who tha fuqk predicted it 221 yrs ago

Aren’t we lucky???? Transients, illegals, and now cicadas.

They hatch once the ground reaches a certain temperature, 55* if I remember right.
Damn good catfish bait. The kids caught a bunch, so Dave and I took the kids fishing.
I never even had time to drink my beer! I was always busy taking fish off!
The kids were happy to catch them, but scared of getting stung. 😀
We just had the 17 year batch in ‘21, so if I see another, I’ll be freaking 75 years old.
By that time, those kids oughta have figured out how to take a catfish off without getting stuck!
Reon

Cicadas breed and die. The rest of the time they spend underground. The others breed and breed and more breeding. And they sure don't disappear for years st a tine.

It’s every summer

Regular cicadas and katydids, I personally enjoy the sounds of summer.

It takes 17 years to run a life cycle, that does not mean you only get cicadas every
17 years. Just that brood.

There are a lot of broods.


Good chance you can find them every year, just not as many as the big brood hatches.

1974 was the worst I've heard in my area. weeks, if outdoors you couldn't hear yourself think.

Tried to do a bit of fishing that year, forgetabout it. No peace while in a boat or on the river bank. Dead bugs coating the surface of the river. The fish wouldn't bite on anything I presented, they had plenty to eat.

50 years ago, nothing to compare here since.

Exactly

But there are the cyclical ones with red eyes that everyone FAWNS about

And them there are the seemingly annual emergence of the larger ones that look like Hot Wheels little green army school buses.

My labs enjoy crunching them when they get played out and crash land on the patio concrete. They don’t eat them. Just crunch them in half

we had a pile of 17 year old cicadas some 30 years ago. they were everywhere. me and grandpap (RIP) were camping at Raystown Lake and cicada was the only thing that a fish would bite. bluegill, crappie, perch, largemouth bass, pike, musky, strippers, catfish, carp.... if it swam, cicadas was it to catch them. the brood comes out after 17 years, but i never seen millions of cicadas again at my home.

i have seen another cicada storm in southern WV in the late 90s.