i have never fished them and i was wondering if you dress them with floatant or not when fishing them.
50 years ago we used a floatant that was made with carbon tetrachloride and pariffin. Today I use Colman fuel and pariffin. Does a pretty good job but not as good as the old mix.
They get pretty soggy if you don’t do something to them.
fishbum
will ginks work at all?
Any floatant that waterproofs the hair will help. I keep a can old fashioneed mucilin just for hair bugs because its easier to work the paste down into the hair than with somethng that liquifies faster. You will still have to squeeze the excess water out occasionally. Sealing the ends of the hair on the bottom and sides with laquer or Sally Hansens at the tying desk sems to help also
A simple soak in a permanent water proofing liquid like Watershed or a camp type silicone waterproofer will keep them floating for years.
Dip them in after you tie them. Let them soak up the liquid, then dry them overnight on a paper towel.
No playing around with mixing flamable stuff into wax. The gink type temporary fly floatants are messy and don’t last long on bass bugs…working the bug knocks it all off pretty quick. That paste stuff just adds weight.
Knew a guy who was fond oftelling everyone that sealing the ends of the deer hair with heat would keep the fly floating. Wonder if he ruined as many as I did before he gave that one up.
And, no, RainEx will not help any of your flies float better.
Buddy
Now - there’s a tip I’m going to try. I used to love the Dahlberg Diver - until I discovered the Stealth Bomber. I love a hair bug - I even enjoy tying a few - but I hate fooling with them when I’m fishing.
Thanks Buddy.
Yes it works. Buddy introuduced me to the silicon water guard at Wal-Mart. Says
SILICONE WATER-GUARD in a brown strip angled across the front of the spray can, has an orange cap and says on top of the can cap "highest performance possible - scores 100 with a single application. Spray it into a container to form a pool of liquid and soak the flys. I haven’t yet…but that is what I soaked a thread furled leader in…and sent it to Harleybob…actually it got to him through a swap…but he said he and his son fished a raging river for 5 hours and the leader floated all day long.
Must be good stuff and thank you Mr. Buddy Sanders for that tip.
Jim
I second the WaterShed. It’s been good to me.
When they get soggy they fish more like a slider, which can be a good thing. I like it when they run right in the film and push a bunch of water over themselves. They don’t really pop at that point but deadly none the less.
Ron brings up a good point.
If you don’t use some kind of floatant on your spun hair bugs, eventually they will absorb water.
They won’t usually sink, the materials are still positively bouyant enough to float the hook if all you do every few casts is squeeze the water out of it with your fingers.
They will behave differently on the water. Some bass fishermen really like that action. The bug will make a completely different sound, more of a sloosh than a pop, and at times it can be deadly. Late evening largemouth seem to really like it.
You have to decide for yourself. What I do is waterproof all of mine so they float the same from first cast to last. I have other topwater flies that will give me a similar action to a waterlogged hair bug.
You can just treat some of them, and leave some untreated. If you decide to do this, make sure to tie in a tell so that you’ll know which is which on the water.
No one topwater fly will work for bass under all conditions. That’s part of what makes it fun. You want foam bodies, poppers, sliders, balsa bodies, hair bodies, frogs, ball heads, different tails, things like gurglers and crease flies. All are effecitive fished properly under the right conditions.
Tying a few, or a few dozens, of each of these will also use up all that wasteful and expensive spare time we all have so much of ;).
Buddy
Okay I will ask the dumb questions ( I know there are no dumb questions, only dumb people who ask questions). What do you gains by using a hair bug over a solid body, which I find much easier to make?
good question
Not a dumb question at all.
I will try to answer this fior you.
Hard body popper:
Glue body to hook
wait for glue to dry
Primer coat of pait
Wait for primer to dry
top coat of paint
wait for paint to dry
Paint eyes, and/or body trim
wait for paint to dry
Tie in any feathers
Deer hair bug
tie in tail
tie on deer hair
trim to size
go fishing
I find the deer hair bugs a lot less hassel than making hard body poppers. While all that paint and glue is drying I can tie up a dozen or so deer hair bugs. Also, tying for the commercial market I can make a little money on the deer hair bugs. I can’t make anything on the hard body poppers. Too much time involved.
Over the years I have caught more fish on deer hair bugs than any hard body popper.
I’m probably the other way around, I can build hard bodied poppers quicker than hair bodied poppers.
The truth is I main make poppers for friends, I use Gurgle Pop type, foam grass hoppers, spiders, etc. which cast easier with th 3 wt. I prefer for bream.
What a hairbug gives you is a different sound,action and feel for the fish.Hairbugs sit lower in the water and tend to pop with a softer sound which might not scare fish in shallow water.They push more water than hard poppers.Personally,I like hard poppers and foam better than hairbugs these days.Foam is easier to tie and floats better.
Uncle Jesse,
Both you and Fishbum are correct about making the different baits.
If you look at fly making one bait at a time, then the deer hair ones are faster.
If you are making several dozen, though, the foam is much faster.
Balsa is a bit slower, because of all the sanding/sealing/sanding steps before you get to the final paint finish coat phase.
If you don’t paint the foam, that’s even faster.
Yesterday afternoon I spent two hours at the lathe turning 32 balsa popper bodies. I’ll have another hour or two in today finish sanding and dipping the first three coats of sealer/undercoat on them. Tommorrow, I’ll spend another hour or two with the airbrush putting the first color coats, basically the top/bottom colors. Another hour for the spots/hand painting of eyes, that kind of work. In two days I’ll put on the epoxy top coat. It will take me about two hours to tie on all the tails.
If I added it up right, I’ll have eight to ten hours in 32 balsa poppers. Enough for the whole summer for me to fish and give away.
I try to assembly line even my deer hair flies. Still, spinning and stacking hair is a slow process. At my best speed, I can tie six in three hours. So to get to 30 of them, it’s not just 15 hours, but five nights to get that many done, as I try to tie for three hours each evening when I’m working on this type of fly.
For foam, I never tie them up start to finish. I may laminate foam together into the colors I want and then stack them up for when I want to punch out the body blanks. When I’m ready to do so, I’ll punch out a couple of hundred body blanks at the drill press, then store them for later. I’ll set up the little foam lathe and spend an evening making fifty to a hundred, depending on size and shape, bodies and throw them all into a box.
Then, when ready to produce a fly, I just start with the hook and foam body and go from there. I still will do at least a dozen of one shape/color pattern at a time. Makes things more efficient. If I’m not paintin hte foam, I can tie forty in an evening’s tying. Takes three or four evening to paint and then finish that many.
I like to make all three. I really enjoy spinning deer hair. I like making balsa baits because I enjoy working with wood and they are lighter and thus cast easier for a given size than foam. Foam is an awesome material for making bass and panfish bugs and we’re just scratching the surface on it’s possibilities.
Fishing them, though, is why I make all three.
Deer hair has a softer action on the water. The pop is not as sharp as the sounds from foam or balsa. Divers, or what I call frog bodies, in deer hair make a completely different sound as they break the waters surface. They drag small bubbles with them as they dive. They are especally good for really slow techniques, or where there may be slack in the line, as the bass hold them really well. In shallower water they hit the water softer and won’t startle spookier fish as easily as foam or balsa baits. They land with a satisfying ‘plop’ that no other material can imitate.
Balsa baits can be very loud. They can make a hard pop and can push a lot of water. They can be skipped easier than deer hair or foam. In small sizes, they are more durable than foam or hair. Balsa is more bouyant than foam, so if you make a diving head out of balsa, it will pop to the surface faster and dive more vertically. Balsa is also the lightest of the three, so it casts easier. If you need just that little bit more distance, changing to a balsa bait can give it to you. Overdress the tails on a balsa bait, and it can be cast so that it lands as lightly as a dry fly.
Foam lies someplace in the middle between the two. Best thing about foam is that you can easly and quickly make them into shapes to suit specific applications. Foam diving or slider type heads with different angles so that they dive differently. Deeper cups on the heads so that even a little fly will move lots of water…smallmouth sometimes need a lot of noise but prefer a smaller bait. No cupping on the heads, just an angle, so that they can be worked fast without digging in. For those that still use them, foam is the easiest to add rubber legs or other apendages too. You can take a sharp pocker knife or scissors to a foam bait on the water to change it’s action. Foam has it’s own unique sound. Not as harsh as the balsa, but not as soft as the hair. Kind of an overlap.
I catch fish with all of them. Sometimes I catch fish with one where one of the others wouldn’t work as well. Most times, though, it’s still a matter of which you prefer to fish at that time.
If you were forced to pick only one, it would have to be foam for it’s versatility.
Luckily, I don’t have to pick only one.
Buddy
Buddy - I don’t have the equipment, expertise or even inclination to start building balsa poppers but sounds like you make some neat ones. How about posting a few pics when they’re done?
thnx…g
Buddy, you answered a question I have had about sound. It was what I had expected. I have one popper that barely floats built from a plastic tube with a bead inside. I have used it much but I like to experiment.
It sound like you take an industrial approach to making flies. I mostly “piddle” with it building a few at a time. I have a half dozen that I have been planning to coat with epoxy to make them prettier but the daytime temp of my basement this week is around 50 degrees.
I need to find me a place nearby to learn about smallmouth fishing. I have caught a few on the TN River around Muscle Shoals on spinning tackle but never got one on a fly. Spotted bass are fun when I have caught few and ID’d them.
Buddy, you answered a question I have had about sound. It was what I had expected. I have one popper that barely floats built from a plastic tube with a bead inside. I have used it much but I like to experiment.
It sound like you take an industrial approach to making flies. I mostly “piddle” with it building a few at a time. I have a half dozen that I have been planning to coat with epoxy to make them prettier but the daytime temp of my basement this week is around 50 degrees.
I need to find me a place nearby to learn about smallmouth fishing. I have caught a few on the TN River around Muscle Shoals on spinning tackle but never got one on a fly. Spotted bass are fun when I have caught few and ID’d them.
I have made a few poppers from shooter’s ear plugs. They come in different sizes and colors and float high. The larger ones make a lot of noise when jerked hard. You can also trim them to different shapes.