Aquatic and terrestrial food webs are closely linked through the exchange of allochthonous resources that cross ecosystem boundaries. While many subsidies occur annually, rarer, pulsed subsidies may have disproportionate long-term effects on recipient communities. Periodical cicadas (Magicicada spp.; hereafter cicadas) represent one of the largest natural resource pulses in North America, emerging every 13 or 17 years depending on species and delivering large quantities of biomass and nutrients to forest and stream ecosystems. Optimal foraging theory predicts that as the density of a high-value resource increases, consumers will preferentially exploit resources while ignoring lower-value alternatives. Despite their magnitude, the ecological effects of cicada emergences on stream fishes remain poorly understood. Cicadas are relatively large and may impose morphological constraints on consumption by gape-limited fishes. Fishes also rely on multiple sensory modalities (e.g., visual, olfactory, and auditory cues) to detect and exploit prey, suggesting that both physical and behavioral traits may influence access to cicadas. Our objectives were to: (1) quantify cicada drift density and biomass using drift nets (26 × 45 cm), (2) assess cicada occurrence in fish diets, and (3) examine relationships between foraging strategy, life history, and gape size. We leveraged the emergence of Broods XIX and XII in 2024 and XIV in 2025, sampling drift from 88 streams across Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio, and collected fishes from a subset of 39 streams. We focused on a variety of fish species, including Green Sunfish (Lepomis cyanellus), Longear Sunfish (Lepomis megalotis), Bluegill (Lepomis macrochirus), Creek Chub (Semotilus atromaculatus), Bullhead Catfish (Ameiurus Spp.), Madtoms (Noturus Spp.), Sculpins (Cottus spp.), and Topminnows (Fundulus spp.). Using these data, we assess whether cicada consumption varies among surface, pelagic, and benthic foragers, and how traits such as gape size, feeding mode, and habitat preference mediate access to this pulsed subsidy. By integrating drift dynamics with consumer traits, this study provides insight into how infrequent, large-scale resource pulses influence fish feeding ecology, trophic interactions, and energy flow in stream ecosystems, contributing to a broader understanding of consumer–resource dynamics under rare but ecologically significant phenomenon.