newest creations

[kelkay]

Here is my second time to play around with foam poppers etc....this time I tried to make a slider or diver. Not sure which you would call it. Most I made were poppers, but these two patterns were my favorite for some reason.

[garb72]

those look great!

[James Smith]

Those look terrific and should work great. One consideration though; you might want to try a longer hook shank. This will get the bend of the hook back away from the body of the popper and give you a better hook-up rate. Just a thought...

Jim Smith

[Flyfish Dog]

Sweet!! Really like them but I do agree with JS assessment on the longer hooks. You could just flatten the bottom to open up the gaps as that what I will do if you dont have the longer hooks.

[aged_sage]

I totally agree with flyfish dog's comments. A professional guide/ commercial tier (now retired) who is widely known here in Texas for his "pencil poppers" stressed keeping a distance of 1/8-1/4 inch between the back edge of the body and the point of the hook.

Your flies look GREAT!

[Uncle Jesse]

Just in case you have a truckload of those hooks, pull the hook through the body beginning near the bottom of the body, that will leave most of the hook gap open. I use a large needle to pull a piece of line that has been run through the hook eye, it allow you to see where the hook shank will run.

BTW, neat paint job on the flies.

[kelkay]

Here is a popper. The popper should have enough gap for hook ups shouldn't it? It is the slider where the gap isn't as good. I have a ton of these hooks that I bought on Ebay. These are number 6 Mustad worm hooks, no other description. I bought some stinger hooks, but they were too small for these popper bodies. I bought a small pack of 6 and 8 stinger hooks, and they are MUCH smaller than the number 6 worm hook. So now I am wondering what hook would be best for these poppers, and sliders. To top it off I am not sure about the mono guard. I made one very similar to someone else's who makes poppers all the time. (that might be about all he does) I used 20 pound test here, and it is pretty soft. I got some Stren clear mono for the next batch. This man told me single guards were just as good as the double...as he tried them both ways. I would love to hear more thoughts on all this before I go to all the trouble of another batch. Once painted it takes 3 coats of Sally's...so it is a lot of work. I guess the more I do...the quicker I can get at this. Right now it is painfully slow work. I think the paint job is good, the rest needs tweaking.

[kelkay]

I burned the end of the mono and tied it in through the eye...some have said that is not necessary. The man I watched does this. I then coated with Sally's. So any thoughts on that would be appreciated too. I want the next batch to be better constructed. Still I believe these will catch some fish. I have others similar to these. The foam is soft, and I love the bodies...very easy to work with. I like these hooks because it has a large eye...so putting mono through the eye is not a problem to tie in...as it is not crowding the eye at all.

[FishnDave]

I think that popper looks GREAT!

[James Smith]

KelKay,

When you use a longer shank hook on a popper (especially for bass), it does a couple of things for you:

1. Creates a bit more space so you do not have to crowd your materials. This also allows you to make popper that appears to be larger with little additional weight. As you know with bass, big baits usually means bigger fish.

2. It tends to cause the popper to sit in a tail-down position in the water when at rest. This allows you to create a slight rocking motion if you just twitch the popper while it is at rest which is a terrific way to induce strikes.

3. It puts the business end of the hook right there where the fish can't miss it even if it is just smashing it to stun it.


You are right, the paint job on your poppers is terrific and it's obvious that take a lot of work to create them. You might consider using 1 hour epoxy to coat them as you can get it done with one coat and it will allow you enough time to coat 4-5 poppers at a time. Just a couple of thoughts...

Jim Smith