They came in fits and starts, given a cold snap and wet weather earlier this spring. Then one afternoon, while mowing the lawn, I found an empty exoskeleton clinging to the grass. Then another. Every two or three paces you'd see one.
A week or two later they were clinging to the chicken coop, crawling up the walls when I shut the birds in at night. The chickens and the duck caught on- beelining towards nymphs they spotted in the grass, following me around as I plucked cicadas from the peach tree, looking for handouts.
I fished a bit, not as much as I would've liked. Even still, everything was tuned in. Smallmouth and sunfish- the usual suspects, but less common species too. On one trip for smallmouth I noticed a trio of grass carp milling around and made a cast- they crushed the topwater bug without hesitation, and I broke off. I never did land one, but it was something, watching them throw wakes to intercept a little black bug.
The vast herds of buffalo are gone. Flocks of parakeets and passenger pigeons no long blot out the sun. But every thirteen years, or seventeen years, these critters erupt from the ground and give us all a taste of what those experiences must have been like. It's truly kind of amazing.
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