Can someone lead me to the links for making cork poppers for gills, bass, trout, etc? I can’t remember where they are located.
Thanks
Go to the Home page for FAOL, on the left hand side click on Fly Tying and in the search box type Poppers.
I am curious on why you want to fight with cork when balsa and foam is so much easier to form.
The only thing I rremember doing is sanding the cork to make it smooth. Keep the dust and mix with Elmers glue to fill the holes in the cork.
I go with foam now as it is easier for a lazy tier.
Rick
Hi Uncle Jesse. Someone gave me a bag of about 25 small corks they bought for crafts, but didn’t need. If it’s not worth the trouble I’ll just pitch them and go with foam.
Bruce
I hate to throw away anything of value but I mostly gave up on cork several years ago. With my cylinder cutter made from an umbrella shaft, my varialble speed drill, emory boards and dremel old flip flops make nice bream and bass bugs. Sharpies color them up to taste and the bodies are almost indestructible.
Does anyone glue different colors of foam together for foam poppers? If so, what glue do you use?
If it helps, for the larger bugs, I just assemble them on the hook. I haven’t had any trouble with any slippage.
I have, but do not do so regularly, and have used some type of super glue. I buy the 3 or 4 tubes for a $1 at the dollar store and have used Shoe Goo spread thin if I have it. I tend to go with one color and when I want stripes start with the white wedge flip flops my daughter gave me, when they were no longer fashionable, and use Sharpies.
You can get craft foam with adhesive on one side. If you put the sticky sides together, it makes a very strong bond. Some colors even have glitter. I don’t know what the fish think, but grandaughters like it.
Hi RHenn,
I have used spray adheasive on foam with good results. The spray adheasive in my garage currently is 3M 77 spray adheasive, so I am assuming it is what I have used in the past.
I have made cork poppers, and do like them. They float a bit higher than foam, I think, but are not as durable as the foam is. When filled and sanded, as Rick mentioned above, they can be made to look pretty nice.
The ones I usually have made are not as nice as the one Rick describes, because I don’t always fill the holes very well. Sometimes I do fill them, and the ones that are filled do look a lot nicer, but it doesn’t matter to the fish whether they are filled and pretty or not, so I don’t always fill. This is expecially the case if the cork is pretty good to begin with.
The paint I usually use is just Testors model paint that you buy at a variety store. Put on a coat of white, and then paint with the color of choice. The white undercoat seems to make the final color seem to be brighter. My favorite color is chartreuse, which is made by mixing yellow and green. I usually use more green than yellow, which makes for a bit less bright color than does the use of mostly yellow, but the color has been pretty effective.
A quick and easy tail on a popper, and one that has been pretty effective for me, is just four strands of rubber legging material. Such tails stand up well, are quick and easy to tie in, do not become water logged and heavy as feathers can. They don’t have the classic look of the standard feather tailed poppers, but they work well.
Most of my poppers now are foam, for the reasons listed above. Green foam, or chartreause if I can find it, with yellow or green rubber legging tails in small sizes are my favorite bluegill poppers.
Regards,
Gandolf
I prefer the cork. You can buy 1/2 inch corks cheap. They are easy to convert into a popper provided you are not trying to make a masterpiece. Here is a picture of one I made. The paint is acrylic and the eyes are friction tape. You can make the tail with what ever you prefer.
Panman
Hi Panman. I guess you just shape the cork and then sand it a bit. I have acrylic paint already. Do you put anything over the acrylic paint?
Some I leave as is, others I cover with nail polish and others with glitter glue. It doesn’t seem to make much difference to the fish.
Tim
Hi Lastchance,
I don’t know how Panman attaches the cork to the hook, but I use a very fine coping saw blade to cut a slot in the cork.
It is good to take a carborundum stone and work on the coping saw blade. I sometimves use the stone to stone off most of the set from the blade, so it will cut a narrower slot. The blade cuts very slowly however, with out the set, which is where the blade is the sharpest. Go slow at this and try the blade from time to time to see how it goes. However, you should probably try the blade “as is” before doing any stoning, as it may be just fine to begin with, and if it is good to go “as is” stoning will ruin it.
Once the slot is cut I use a hump shank hook, as this gives more area for the glue to bite into, and holds it better. Also it helps get the hook square with the cork. Next I take some pretty coarse tying thread and wrap the area of the hook under where the cork will be. Wrap it snuggly on the hook but use spirals that leave a bit of hook shank showing. The thread will help the glue to hold onto the hook.
I use epoxy for the glue. I try to set the cork on the hook so as to keep quite a bit of hook gap. You see poppers, and I have bought some, that have the hook right through the center of the cork, but I think that doing that really restricts the hook gap.
Regards,
Gandolf
Here is the step by step for making poppers: http://www.flyanglersonline.com/features/panfish/part91.php
Use an X-acto razor saw to cut the slot. Very sharp and thin.
Any of the “contact cements” work great for gluing foam layers together. Barge and Pliobond are two old and very well known brands. Another with a long history is Weldwood Contact Cement, now owned by D.A.P. They now hava a ‘water clean-up’ version available.
I have used an old hacksaw blade for years to cut slits in both cork and balsa, and do not ‘dress’ the teeth. The extra width of the cut it makes allows for easy seating the thread-wrapped hook shank. The slot should be cut just deep enough into the body to permit insertion of the hook shank. Gandolph is correct; you want to keep the back end of the body as close to the hook shank as possible to keep the body from obstructing the gape.