The cicada frenzy is just about at the end but boy has it been good for fishermen.

Huge catches of channel cats, Kentucky bass and carp have been coming in using the creepy looking creatures that have been abundant around Barren Lake this year.

I’ve heard several stories about fishermen who run out of crickets and start using cicadas only to find out that catfish love them.

But the hatch is just about over. It was sure fantastic while it lasted.

Local educator Danny Hardin was baited up with a cicada when a big Kentucky, almost three pounds, loaded on the other day up Skaggs Creek. He had already put several channels and nice bluegill in the livewell.

These insects, which resemble oversized houseflies but are commonly confused with locusts, are the 17-year cicada. Although they are a slight nuisance to humans, fish scarf them up like people do peanuts.

“My Dad and I fished a rock wall that I love for spawning bluegill on Nolin Lake last weekend,” said Chad Miles, director of development for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources and hopelessly addicted angler. “I had a tube of crickets and an empty tube. I walked down to the dock and put about 35 cicadas in the empty tube on my way. I could have gotten a thousand.”

Miles and his father caught about 40 nice bluegill before they ran out of crickets and decided to experiment. “I put on a cicada to see if something would hit it,” he said. “I threw it up against that rock wall and within three minutes, I caught a nice catfish. The bluegill hit it during the wait. I hooked another cicada on and three to five minutes later, I had another catfish. I threw another cicada against the rock wall and three minutes later, I had another catfish. We caught three catfish within 10 minutes or so. They were all 2 to 4 pounds.”

Fish of all stripes take advantage of this overly abundant food source. These cicadas occur over most of the state, but may be spotty in some areas. Other cicada species emerge every 13 years and the common green-colored cicadas emerge every year, but this cicada hatch is the heaviest of all the others.

“My grandmother told me 17 years ago — during the last cicada hatch — that people were catching catfish on topwater lures on Nolin,” Miles said. “The catfish thought they were cicadas on the water.”

“They are a new food source, plus the way they react when they hit the water brings attention,” said Jeff Ross, assistant director of fisheries for Kentucky Fish and Wildlife. “They buzz and flop around and this draws strikes from bass and other fish.”

Several companies make topwater and sinking lures that resemble cicadas. A topwater cicada lure worked along a weedbed, rock wall, over a drop-off or across a flat will draw strikes from bass.

Bluegill will also eat a real cicada that’s suspended under a bobber. Hook the cicada much as you would a cricket. Take a size 6 to 8 Aberdeen hook and start the point between the insect’s eyes. Thread the hook just underneath the cicada’s back, leaving the point exposed at the rear.

A cicada threaded onto a 3/0 to 5/0 hook and fished against bluff walls, mud flats or along old creek or river channel drop-offs in lakes will entice catfish during the early morning, dusk or at night.

“During the last hatch, fish were sucking them off the top all over Lake Cumberland,” said Gerry Buynak, assistant director of fisheries for Kentucky Fish and Wildlife. “They were in the jumps all over the place. I heard big carp were slurping them as well.”