The subject of poppers has come up some, and I like to fish poppers. Casting a tiny popper with a fly rod, seeing it on the water, and watching a bluegill blast it is a hoot! Especially very small bluegill poppers.
My first fish was nearly 50 years ago, a bluegill, on a tiny popper that was my cousins. I would guess red and white, and probably a #12 or #14. The body was probalby 1/8" or 3/16" in diameter, and about that long. The front and back of the body were cut on the slant, they were not at right angles to the length of the body.
Questions are: 1. what are your favorite colors and sizes of poppers, and 2. what were the most popular colors and sizes of poppers long ago?
My favorite popper is a #12, and in chartreuse. I think the classic poppers were most common in: red and white, yellow, and black.
The little bitty ones, like my cousins were very neat, and I haven’t seen ones like them in years and years.
I like the classic Bluegill Popper in all yellow or yellow and black. Fished along the banks around sunset the Bluegills and Bass can’t leave them alone. Cork or Hard Foam Heads
Tiny (size 14 usually) yellow foam body, hackle, and marabou tail, and a couple of rubber legs. There is something about those legs that the gills can not resist.
I use to make all my own bluegill poppers back in the late fifties and sixties. Commercial poppers were just too expensive for a young teenager’s wallet and were not durable enough to make them worthwhile. Watching the cork come loose from a $1.29 popper on your third or fourth fish was like watching the Dow plunge 200 points in a single day. Besides, for the cost of three or four commercial poppers, you could buy the materials you needed to make over a hundred home-made poppers. Cork was amazingly cheap back then and Herter’s sold a long, thin cork which could be divided in two or three good sections to make bluegill poppers. I used size #12 hooks almost exclusively. Finding small feathers for the tail and the hackle skirt was sometimes difficult but I always used feathers for my popper tails. I also always added rubber legs to my poppers. Herter’s sold them only in white and black but they did come in fine and medium. My favorite colors were all yellow, red head/white body, all white and all black. I made the poppers a dozen at a time and I seem to recall that the operation took about a week from start to finish. There were many steps including cutting and shaping the cork, cutting the slot, gluing the hook, filling the slot and holes in the cork with plastic wood, sanding, sealing, sanding, painting, sanding, painting, painting, painting, tying on the skirt. Back then I had lots more time! I haven’t made cork poppers in years. Now I use foam and make size #12 gurgle pops for all my bluegill fishing. 8T
Down in this part of the country, a number of friends and I fish a lot of foam poppers for bream. Primarily, we like small beetles made of flip flop foam with white rubber legs and with estaz or marabou on the belly. These are tailess. I prefer to tye them on debarbed Mustad 3906b #10. This 1X heavy hook and denser flip flop foam makes this bug “splat down” into the water for solid takes.
Doug told me to fish them in all yellow or all black. Over the years, we also added an all white with pearl estaz on the belly variation originated by the late Marvin Pinsel of Memphis, TN.
Typically, we start with yellow, then switch to black, and then to white. If these three colors do not work, then we go subsurface.
There was one made in Huntsville Alabama by the Hickman Lure Company (it could have been ‘Hickham’ it’s been quite a while). I think they called it the ‘whirly bug’. This was their only product.
It was a painted cork cylinder with two angled clear plastic wings and had feather/hackle tails. The plastic ‘wings’ were angled like fan blades.
You fished this on a 3 foot length of 8 pound mono leader. As you backcast the fly, the wings would cause it to ‘twist’ the leader. Once the fly hit the water, the leader would untwist, causing the fly to roll over and over on the water.
Often, this was all you needed to call in the fish. The face was flat, so you could give it an occasional ‘pop’ if needed.
You went through a few pieces of 8 pound leader material in a days fishing, but it was a unique and very effective idea.
I bought all I could find in 1977, my last trip back there. They were long out of production, and I ended up hunting down the owner of the company (he had a very successful printing business at that time) and he sold me the remaining stock.
Unfortunitely, they had undergone a resurgence in popularity AFTER he stopped making them, and I was only able to get about 4 dozen of them. The last one fell apart in the early 90s.
Caught LOTS of fish on them, though.
I should have bought his manufacturing equipment, he was trying to sell it. I just asumed that soon someone ele would begin making and selling them again. Anothe opportunity missed…
If I could fish only one top water color it would be Yellow. This color has consistantly produced more topwater bass and panfish for me under more conditions than all other colors combined. A close second color would be frog. For edge of night fishing, black /Red is the hot color. Chartuce is one of those few other colors I never am without but there are days where ti rules and days where it won’t buy a strike.
My first fly fishing experience ever was with a classic fly rod Hula Popper. Still have one though rarely use it since I can duplicate it with Hatch’s Dremel’ed flipflops that weigh about a fourth of the original. This was back in the 1950s and I have no doubt whatsoever that my fascination with fly fishing started with those largemouth bass explosions on those Hula Poppers. I also remember those little bluegill poppers others are writing about. Nowadays the Gurgle Pops are about all I use for topwater gills. And the foam or deerhair flies are just as fun as the poppers. I love Wiggle Bugs, Zoo Cougars and Dalhberg Divers. While I grew up thinking black was the only legitimate color for topwater bass fishing, recent experience has opened my eyes to yellow, especially when you can see. With night popper fishing for largemouth bass I’ll use black every time. JGW
My favorite classic poppers for bass: Frog pattern deer hair popper with white or yellow belly and white sneaky pete. For pike, a white dahlberg diver with red collar.
Shoot I just love using poppers and make about a couple dozen a year. My favorite colors are white, yellow,
frog, black. I make a black sparkle flip flop popper with eyes, black hackle, and black rubber that just tears the big boys up just before dark. A few of ya’ll have some from swaps I’ve tied in.
Definitely my favorite color is yellow or black or any combination of the two. It’s amazing how cheaply you can make them. I buy a 3 ft piece of 1/4 inch square balsa at the hobby shop for $1.00 and can usually get about 40- 50 bugs out of it. I like the mini poppers. Nothing exciting, not cupping the face saves some time. A number 12 aberdeen hook from wal-mart, some saddle hackle, cheap paint and clear coat, a little saddle hackle and a few legs, you’re in fat city!
For those that tye their own balsa poppers, what would you recommend as far as what type/brand of paint to use? I’ve used Testors model paint but I’d prefer a better easier to clean substitute? Any ideas?
I have used the enamels in the past and they do an OK job for me, but I much prefer the cheap water based paints from walmart in the small bottles, apple barn etc. They dry fast and cover well. The problem I have with enamels is that quite often the clear coat will cause some enamels to run. Water based won’t do this. My normal procedure is 1 -2 coats of artists white gesso or flat white paint, 1 coat of water based color, paint on features, then clear coat ( sally hansens super shine top coat or hard as nails coat ). Hope this helps
Mine is the same fly I recently desribed in the post “your favorite simple bluegill fly”
It’s not really a popper per se though because it’s round with a flat bottom. I just give it a small twitch and that seems to do the trick. It does not, and can not “pop”.
It’s yellow witH a yellow and black feather tail and also has legs.
I agree with those above that yellow is a killer color. I believe the legs help to impart life to the fly and in that respect I agree with DJO.
It’s tied on a #12 hook. I’m down to my last one and don’t rember where I bought them. I guess I have start tying my own bluegill flys and try to replicate it. :lol:
P.S The rock bass enjoy this fly every bit as much as the gills.
My favorite bluegill/bass “popper” is Sam’s One Bug which can be found in the FOTW archives. It cannot be considered a “popper” since it is just round foam, but, it can be twitched if you feel you need to impart any action to it. From my experience with it, you just need to cast it out and let it float along and it will be “hammered” by the bluegill/bass.
It is a very easy fly to tie up and it is a great producer of fish. I use the 1/4" foam for the bluegill on a number 8 or 10 hook and larger foam on larger hooks if I want to target bass only. I do catch a fair share of bass on the one tied for bluegill. I find that yellow is the best producer for me.
If you are looking for a surface lure for bluegill/bass that is very easy to tie, than Sam’s One Bug is the one you need plus it is very durable and will take a lot of abuse.
