Walt Cary, from Northern Virginia, has been tying poppers for years, and sells them commercially thru various fly shops. I’ve never seen a recipe for his poppers. Anyone have a recipe they’d offer?
Ron,
If you’ve got a picture, I’m pretty sure we could figure it out. There is lots of popper experience here.
Poppers are pretty basic things…
Buddy
theres a bunch here
http://www.brooksideflies.com/flies_20.php
hook
rubber legs
hackles
cork/balsa/foam popper body
Buddy, looking at Normand’s link, the tan belly frog is the one I’ve had the best luck with. I’m a great thread midge tyer but have never tied a popper. Just looking for help. Mostly need advice on shaping the cork and painting. Thanks!
Normand, thanks for the links. I can buy them locally, but would like to tie a few myself.
You might want to watch the Gander Mountain calendar for the store(s) in the Winchester area. Walt teaches how to tie his poppers there - or he has in the past. I live a little north of Richmond and he came to our GM when it opened and gave a few lessons. I was intrigued and spent a fair amount of time chatting with him about it. Like you I had never tied a popper but with his guidance I have tied a few now.
He, like so many of us, has pretty strong opinions about what works and what doesn’t. It is clear to me that he has figured out a recipe that works for him both at the bench and on the river. It almost certainly isn’t the only recipe but it’s great to be able to start with something you know works and then build from there.
Don
Thanks, Don. I’ll watch the calendar for Gander Mtn. I agree with you that it’s better to start with something that you know works. Walt’s poppers work, so why reinvent the wheel? Ron
Ron,
If this is the ‘one’…
Hook is probably a bass ‘j’ worm hook…you can see that the hook exits the back end of the body above the eye. Lots of poppers are made with these as it prevents twisting of the hook in the bait.
Tail is easy…grizzly dyed yellow ‘bass neck’ or ‘streamer neck’ feathers, with one of them wrapped as the hackle.
Body is eitther cork or foam. You can buy premade foam bodies in that shape in most fly shops.
Cork takes some work…either gin together a lathe or hand shape them. Just take your time and work slowly with medium grit sandpaper until you get the rough shape, then fine sand to smooth. To get the cup in the front, a round ‘ball’ shaped corse grinding bit in a dremel works well. Cut the hook slot with a fine hacksaw or woodworkers saw.
Painting the premade foam ones is easy…buy acrylic paints in the colors you want and just paint them to match. The soft edges of color you see on this bait indicate that it was done with either a spray can or an airbrush, but the fish won’t care if it’s not done that way. Buy a set of cheap drill bits at the dollar store to paint the spots and the eyes. Finish off with a coat or three of clear gloss acrylic.
Cork requires a good sealing to last well. A couple of coats of an acrylic sanding sealer with some sanding in between works quite well. You can also ‘dip’ the bodies into the sanding sealer, which gives a thicker coat and smoother finish faster (hang teh hook on a strightened paper clip, dip the body, then hold the body in a splatter box and ‘spin’ the paper clip between your fingers to ‘spin’ off the excess)…but you got to clean the hook eyes afterwards. Then finish color as above for the foam.
Poppers are loads of fun to make…and you don’t have to make them come out as ‘nice’ as the one pictured for them to catch lots of fish. But it is kind of fun to get them ‘nice’, too.
Buddy
Like Norm said popper are very basic a body, figure out what you want to use for the body, I prefer flip flop foam, I have used cork and balsa also. The fly in the photo was made from a synthetic wine stopper. I shape my body using a cordless Black and Decker rotary tool, like a small Dremel, with an adjustable chuck. I cut out the cylinder using a cutter made from an umbrella shaft chucked in an electric drill, cut to length, thread it on to a small wood screw and sand it to shape using an emery board. I us mostly No. 6 or 8 Aberdeen hooks. I take a large needle and run it through the body where I want the hook to be, run some fishing line through the hook and needle’s eyes and then pull the line through the body and then the hook shaft. I push the body to the back of the shaft, lay down a base of thread, tie and cut it off, coat with super glue and slide the body into place. If you want to paint the body, nows the time to do that. Then add hackle, marabou, legs, whatever you want on the fly. Use the same trick with the needle to add body legs.
That’s the basic on how to make a foam bodied popper. Cork is too much trouble for me to mess with it normally, balsa is not as durable but easier to work. Synthetic rigid foams are tough, readily available and cheap. I made my first poppers out of old Nike running shoes that had over 500 miles on them. You can not destroy the body with a fly rod.
There are a lot of guys with a lot more talent than I will ever have but the bream and bass haven’t been too critical of my bugs. Hope this helps.
ron
you can buy popper kits with the corks. just need to paint them. use the link above for painting ideas
http://murraysflyshop.com/flytying_popperbodies.html
all kinds of corks here
http://www.mountainglassarts.com/s.nl/sc.2/category.100/.f?gclid=CILh6arm_p4CFRshnAod1WRkKg
[QUOTE=Buddy Sanders;337874]Ron,
If this is the ‘one’…
Buddy, that’s the one. Great suggestions from you, Uncle jesse and Normand. That’s exactly what I needed: specifics about preparing the body and painting it. Thanks, guys! Hope to tie some this weekend and will try to post a picture soon! Ron
Do you really need to paint?
Myself and several of my fishing friends never use painted poppers. We fish foam poppers in either white, gray, black or yellow. I really don’t think that the fish care about fancy colors.
Next time you’re in the pool, swim down to the bottom and look up at something on the surface. All you can really see is a silhouette antway.
Kevin
Kevin, the main reason for me to paint them is so I can see them. I have a hard time seeing some colors on the water, and white is the worst! If it wasn’t for my bad eyes, it’d be a lot easier to tie up a few poppers! Thanks for the advice. Ron
You can get foam in most of the basic colors you want, I’m partial to charteuse and white, the colors are mostly for the fishermen ( I have made poppers in team colors for my SEC & ACC friends) Permanent sharpies come in a wide variety of color also. I like to put a couple of black or red dots on the belly of the flies, don’t really know if it helps or not.
I have thought that maybe the fish primarily hit the feathers, thinking it some dragonflies or other big bug and the body just kept that floating. I tend to catch more fish from my dropper fly that from my popper. Honestly I tend to fish more gurglers, foam grasshoppers, spiders, etc that are not as wind resistant when using the 3 wt. I like to use for bream.
Check out the large foam numbers and letters at the local hobby shop. They are about an inch thick and come in several colors. You can use a peice of the brass tubing in a drill to cut out the size you want. I just chuck up a peice of tubing in the drill put some sandpaper on a board, then hold the drill at an angle while running to sharpen the tube. Or you can buy sets of hole cutters for your drill.
GJ
I would like to add three things to the previous responses.
1). After sanding either cork or balsa, “prime” the body with Gesso before painting. This is a white, water-based material that is brushed onto canvas to produce a flat surface for oil paints. It is available wherever artist supplies are sold.
2). Balsa bodies can be made more durable by coating the body, after painting, with 2-Ton (30 min) epoxy. Mix the epoxy and thin to the desired consistency with plain old rubbing alcohol, and paint on. I usually mix at a ratio of one part mixed epoxy to 1/2 part alcohol, but I may mix 1 part mixed epoxy with an equal part of alcohol. This makes a very thin mix. (Forget the “Old Wives Tale” that the water in the rubbing alcohol will turn the mix white: ABSOLUTELY NOT TRUE!)
3). Instead of a vertical face, slanting the face up and back will produce a diving bug, a la Charlie Cypert’s Pencil Popper,which is a very effective “bug”. A slope of about 15 degrees works quite well. This also works quite well for solid-body foam minnow patters; no, not “crease” minnows.