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You can put the trico and midge boxes away now. For the rest of summer, the dry-fly action is big, violent, and explosive. Stick to the grasshopper and cricket patterns here and follow these tactics, and you might just catch your biggest trout of the year.

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1. Dave’s Hopper (sizes 8-12; tan, -olive, and yellow) is the most ver-satile of all hopper imitations. It can be fished dry or wet.

2. Foam bugs like the Big Eye Hopper (sizes 6-10; tan, olive, and yellow) have a strong outline and ride high. They are ideal for float trips.

3. Schroeder’s Parachute (sizes 10-12; olive and tan) has a realistic, low-riding body and a parachute for visibility in broken water.

4. Ed Shenk of Pennsylvania invented the Letort Hopper (sizes 8-12; yellow) years ago, and it remains a great smooth-water pattern.

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5. The Letort Cricket (sizes 6-16; black) is another Shenk brainchild. Base the fly size on the crickets hopping beside your driveway.

6. Use foam crickets like the JD Kicker Cricket (size 12; black) as a high-floating surface pattern with more built-in action.

7. Originally styled to mimic a sculpin, the Muddler Minnow (sizes 6-14) makes a great sunken hopper pattern.

8. Clip the tail and the abdomen hackle to turn a Woolly Bugger (sizes 6-10; black) into a drowned cricket.

From the August 2012 issue of Field & Stream magazine.

Joel Sartore/National Geographic Stock (Grasshopper)