hopper patterns.

[ducksterman]

I have some foam but it is in green, blue, and pink. What color do you suggest.

yellow, tan, brown, olive green....the usual suggestion is to..."match the color to the hopper where you are fishing"...since they can vary from area to area....

I even read an article once in which the guy said when he tied up some hoppers with a little red on the legs it made a big difference because that was what was dropping in the water then....

[JohnScott]

cdpaul -

You might use antron or poly yarn in place of the chenile for the body.

A furled antron extended body is also a possibility. I tried one this past summer and it got a lot of looks and refusals. The hopper pattern was good, I think, but the size and color were a bit off for the naturals.

Here are a couple links that might give you some ideas for a hopper body using a furled extended body.

http://www.flyanglersonline.com/bb/s...ad.php?t=23183

This fly was fished by Ron Eagle Elk at the Idaho Fish-In with very good results. I never got around to fishing it, but my guess is it rides pretty low in the water, which is why Ron did well with it.

http://www.flyanglersonline.com/bb/s...ad.php?t=23242

This fly proved to be very easy to tie, and very effective during a Western Green Drake hatch for backcountry cutthroats. The fish that refused the furled extended body hopper kind of liked the WGD.

John

[bassman]

You might try Buck Tail for the body. John

[Buddy Sanders]

Lots of hoppers out there.

Archives of flies here has quite a few.

All of them work.

I prefer foam bodies for my own. I want them to float well.

Buddy

[ducksterman]

http://www.riverroadcreations.com/images/TiedHopper.JPG

http://www.riverroadcreations.com/im...iedHopper2.JPG

Not mine....

[mgliss]

Dubbing works.

Real hoppers float low in the water. In turbulent water they suspend just below the surface and then float again just at the surface as the water smooths out. When they drown, they eventually sink slowly to the bottom. Hoppers and crickets, ARE very strong swimmers though. Sometimes when they are abundant, a drowned version or a floater softly waked will be the only way to draw strikes, especially from pressured fish.

Just fish the chenille versions under the surface, it will frustrate you much more trying to float it.

My favorite pattern is a dubbed body fat in the butt and thining to the the front. long knotted phesant tail legs, a thick dubbed thorax of a contrasting color hackled heavily. A long thick wing of deer or elk hair tied just like an elk hair caddis. The head clipped the same size as the thorax. I tie these on a long curved hook. The body sticks below the surface and the wing floats on the surface with the hackle helping keep just the head in the film. You have to blow it out or blot it ever couple of casts to keep the wing floating, but man does it raise fish in the summer. It also keeps you from froathing the water and makes you concentrate on where you want to place it. Ah, hopper fishing at its finest. It's only February and I'm dreaming of July already!

Flyrodde, do you know of any good sunken hopper patterns?
-Mike

[Flyrodde]

Flyrodde, do you know of any good sunken hopper patterns?
-Mike

A Wolly Worm.

You can try and get as realistic as you can, but take a look at a drowned hopper. They are basicly tubes of protein with rear legs extented straight back. Sometimes in mature adults the wings splay out a little.

Match the body with the naturals (if you want you can weave a bicolored body but dubbing or chenille works fine, too), with grizzley hackle palmered (use soft webby but no more than 1.5 the hook gape sixed hackle) and this is the key IMO a red HACKLE tail. Most hoppers around me have red lower rear legs. The tail IMO is the strike trigger for trout in the streams I fish. Match the tail to the lower leg on your naturals. A yarn tail tuft is just too much for my taste. The legs are stiff in the water, you aren't looking for motion like a wolly bugger, just a glint of color behind the body.

Of cource, if you are fishing a hopper dry, you can just sink that also.

[kglissmeyer]

A Wolly Worm.

You can try and get as realistic as you can, but take a look at a drowned hopper. They are basicly tubes of protein with rear legs extented straight back. Sometimes in mature adults the wings splay out a little.

Match the body with the naturals (if you want you can weave a bicolored body but dubbing or chenille works fine, too), with grizzley hackle palmered (use soft webby but no more than 1.5 the hook gape sixed hackle) and this is the key IMO a red HACKLE tail. Most hoppers around me have red lower rear legs. The tail IMO is the strike trigger for trout in the streams I fish. Match the tail to the lower leg on your naturals. A yarn tail tuft is just too much for my taste. The legs are stiff in the water, you aren't looking for motion like a wolly bugger, just a glint of color behind the body.

Of cource, if you are fishing a hopper dry, you can just sink that also.

A good thing for all of us to remember - most, if not all, of the bugs we tie look different in the water.

[Beaver]

CD,

For wing material I use either turkey tail or wing feathers. I spray them with a fixatif to keep them from splitting and then cut them out to shape and size. There are a lot of plastic wing material also like thin skin, web wing etc.... I tie my bodies with either poly yarn or foam. Good luck

Beaver

[cdpaul]

Thanks,

Where can you get fixatif.