I’ve had some time at the bench this week so I made up some more Balsa bugs for the spring bite here in Florida. The first is a little froglet popper that wrorks well for me and casts easily with my five wt outfit. The second is a Baby Jitterbug that has nice action and is easy to cast since it’s not too large. I carve the bodies out of Balsa Wood and color them with markers and a coat of sparkly fingernail polish before the final coat of epoxy for durability. I make the front lip of the Baby Jitterbugs out of Scallop shaped Sequins. I put on two sequins. position them and add a drop of water-thin CA to hold them in place. The lip also gets a coat of epoxy which makes the sequins very rigid and durable. I like to have several of both of these patterns in my topwater box when the bass are hitting topwater on a nice calm morning or evening. These bugs are easy to make and all you need is the Balsa wood strips, a hobby knife and some sandpaper. I prefer to use Abranet which is like cloth screen sandpaper because it lasts so much longer, but regular 220 grit sandpaper works okay.
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Those look terrific. Off to the hobby store for some Balsa and sequins. 
Nice looking flies. Good jog carving.
Rick
Thanks, Rick, but there’s really not much carving involved. Just taper the ends a bit and smooth it out with sanding. It usually take about 10 minutes to get it to the shape I want. The coloring is the most fun part and getting everything lined up so that it will behave properly in the water. They’re really not difficult and actually lots of fun to make.
Thanks for the kind words. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have.
Jim Smith
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GREAT bugs Jim. Gives one other ideas too.
…lee s.