So, a great friend gave me a Dremel tool and some foam to play around with. I robbed a small stash of my wife’s 2mm foam sheets and went to town. All in all, I have been having a blast with the new toy and at the tying bench (our kitchen table).
I am not sure that I have it down the way I want. I saw some pretty cool foam poppers today that I want to twist Kershaw style. I dunno how to make them like Skip48, though I would like to.
Here are some examples of my Dremel poppers and all I have to do now is see what the fish think of them. The fish hopefully don’t look as close as fellow tyers. The pictures definitely add ten pounds (show off the mistakes).
Any ideas are welcome!!! I want to fish a few times with them and then make some changes if need be. I think the first thing will be some colored hackle instead on my grizzly. I love it when the creative juices get flowing!!!
Again, any suggestions are welcome. My next step is to make 'em look like minnows or shad. I think the Jelly Bean is the next pattern I will follow!
The only thing that I can see there is that you want to use a wide gape hook such as the TMC 8089. You want to open up that hook gap as much as possible. Nothing will frustrate you more than a fish that eats your fly, but not being able to hook it.
OMG, another one has the bug. Great looking poppers, but as cheech mentioned get a hook with a wider gap. Your foam is almost closing off the hook point.
My wife got the bug bad after getting some of Jim Hatch’s flies. She waited til the end of summer then hit up Wally World for a ton of size 13 flip flops. Mostly white, but some colors. I hit Harbor Freight Tools for a set of punches, chucked them up in a drill and she has popper blanks by the hundreds.
I like some of the foam work, but my best suggestion is resize your pics to about 640 X 450 or close to that. That is the size that fits the Internet best and your pics will not be so huge. Still at 640 they will be large enough as all my pics are that way.
Example: My Shrimp Below is 640 X 398…
What are you using to shape the foam with the Dremel? What bit type?
SKershaw: Great Flies. Do you use them for bass? I have a dremel tool, too! What kind of punches do you buy and how do you attach them to the dremel? I am close to a Harbor Freight. Seems as though poppers might be a good winter project.
Thanks
If you check Jims articles on Dremel bugs you will find he uses less expensive Aberdeen hooks
Skip48 sounds like you havent read Jim Hatchs" Jelly Bean “and” Creative Foam Flies" in the Fly of The Week --Preveios Fly section . It covers eqip needed shaping and painting BILL
You are right, I never heard of him or his foam flies, but I have not been tying flies very long. Got my start tying with crappie jigs and kind of just migrated to include flies and now have a fly rod and reel coming. I got the big using a $20 Walmart rig, LOL!
Thanks for the info as I will read it and am always looking for info on different type flies and patterns.
Skip
PS I went and found the Jelly Bean Fly by Jim Hatch and that is way cool. I can see where I need to get my Dremel out for fly tying. Heck I can see I need to get some Balsa wood now too, LOL!
When I do these, I just cut the foam into squares or rectangles. I then just center them on the needle and go to town with the shaping. Once in a while if I don’t quite cut the square large enough for the body I am making I end up with a flat spot, but once I notice that I make the body a bit smaller to compensate. At first I was thinking this gave less waste, then I realized that the waste was just in very many much smaller peices. Good thing I do it in the garage where the mess is incidental!!
Nice job Scott! I like the looks of the multi-colored ones. I have never tried any like that yet. I HAVE added nail polish and eyes to some however for color and coating and such.
So, did the wife kill ya? Did she forbid you from meeting up with me again yet? Don’t worry it’ll probably happen.
