One way to shape the face on a deer hair popper

[Alberto]

There are many techniques to shape the head of a deer hair popper so you can get a face that will cause enough commotion to attract the fish's attention. This is the technique I like to use. Once the fly is completed, I rough trim and shape the body to almost its finished state. Next, I soak the face of the popper with head cement and clamp the hair so that it starts taking it's final shape. I'm always looking for a flat face. I use a small fender washer to give the popper it's flat face and lock it in place with my bodkin. I put a small piece of wax paper between the head cement soaked deer hair and the fender washer to keep the hair from sticking to the washer. This is what it looks like:





Once the head cement sets, which is a few minutes only, I carefully remove the fender washer and wax paper. Then I complete trimming and shaping the fly. Final step is to coat the popping face with a thin coat or two of UV epoxy. This yields a nice, flat popping face that also has durability for when the fish chew on it.



Regards,

Alberto

[ScottP]

Alberto,

Very nice technique; thanks for sharing.

Regards,
Scott

[ELHead]

Great tip , Alberto, thanks.
Dave

[melk]

Cool idea Alberto!
Mike

[jcampbell]

I would never thought of that. Is that original?

[Alberto]

John,

It is not original, it's adapted from a technique I saw in a John Likakis book on deer hair bass bugs. He uses fender washers to shape the heads. He actually bends the washers to get different shapes (I have not tried that). If my memory serves me right (I gave the book away a long time ago), he coated the fender washer with Vaseline to keep it from sticking to the hair. I did not like this and use wax paper instead (parchment will also work).

Regards,

Alberto