Bobber Hopper

[pittendrigh]

The following isn't entirely my idea. I saw a Youtube video about a California fly tier who made a "hopper cator" with nylon loops at each end.

I've been fishing the foam hopper-dropper since the late 1980s. But I typically tied a hopper to a relatively stiff tippet, and then knotted another tippet to the bend of the hopper hook. That's useful, but a growing number of nymph fishermen like to use huge fat orange bobbers at variable positions on the leader, sometimes all the way up to the base of the fly line. And it isn't really possible to mount a typical foam hopper to the butt section of an aggressive leader (40lb test perhaps).

The youtube video I saw (and now cannot find) showed a hopper built with thick closed cell foam, with a nylon loop at each end. The tier threaded the butt end of the leader through the front nylon loop twice, and then once through the rear end loop. That way the bobber hopper could be repositioned up or down the leader as needed. But it would also stay put well enough to hook the occasional fish that takes the hopper. I tried it. Works well. But the twice-through-the-front-loop fastening method does have a tendency to kink butt section of your leader.

If you alter that arrangement ever so slightly, by threading through the front loop only once, and then over and around the body of the hopper and then between the body and the shank, and then out through the rear loop, you can still catch a fish. And it doesn't kink the leader butt. You can run the hopper all the way out, so you have maybe an 18" nymph dropper. Or you can position it right at the base of the fly line too--perhaps fishing into 10' or 12' of still water.

Some fly fishermen won't use bobbers at all. No matter what. Which is fine. But when I head out to the river I see one huge hot pink foam nymph bobber rig after another. They're not nearly as much fun to watch as a hopper. And they never ever catch a fish. I make bobber hoppers with 1/4" thick closed cell foam, about 2" long. That might sound like a rig that never would catch a fish. But they do. And even if they didn't they are more fun to watch than a round foam bobber. On most days I seldom catch more than one or two fish on the bobber. But they are often the two biggest fish of the day. A beadhead nymph or two, trailing how ever far behind, will catch as many fish they ever do.