Poppers and Hooks

[MartinF]

Hi

I was wondering about the merits of tying poppers on longshank hooks where the popper body is part of the fly. That is as apposed to having the popper body in front of a shortshnak hook. The line is passed through the popper body and attached to the hook. The back of the fly may be a normal fly or a hook with a bit of bucktail/kinky fibre and some flash.

Anybody recommend one over the other?

Thanks
Martin

[swflyfish]

Both work well- the second type (with the seperate body) has the advantages that you can use a seperate body and 'slide' the popper head on and off as you like. I guess the other added advantage is that the extra body of the fly behind the popper head adds more resistance in the water- this comes in handy when the fish push a 'bow' or 'pressure' wave in front of them as this can sometimes move the fly out of the fish's way and can result in a missed fish.

One other thing to try is to use an intermediate line instead of a floating line as the intermediate line also holds the fly in the water a lot more.

Hope this helps.

[Muzzy]

cut an ear buds tips off, and get what ever tickles you for a popper body. Make it but sticking/gluing the ear bud throgh the popper body and leave about 5mm or so of the bud sticking out past the back of the popper body (did that make sence?). get some of the fuel line remote control cars use (toy world has it) and stick that on the little bit sticking past the popper body (this tube bit holds the hook in place it makes sence later)

then what you can do is get what ever hook shank you like and just tye them as tails in many colours and with feathers splayed out and in etc etc. What you then have is one popper head and many tails all the tails are free of the popper body so max hook gape is there. Also puts the hook pretty reward so to speak from the pop so short strikes are reduced a tad (reduced not removed)

to make the popper head pretty you could wrap it in ciggy foil as it gives a scale type look when painted with softhead stuff.

to attach feed the leader through the popper head assembly, Tie it to the tail fly and then pull the knot and hook eye in to the retaining tube (the fuel line) this will keep the fly and head in possition durring fishing.

hope that made sence, but tube flies for poppers seem to make the most sence to me to gain the maximum hooh clearence and it puts the hook back behind the pop if you gets me drift...

[MartinF]

Schweet. Thanks guys!! Will get to the vice now ...

[Maxg]

Regardless of the stuff out there the best system, rather than individual flies, poppers or otherwise, is the Cam Sigler tube fly system. This involves 2 tube flies, in tandem with a small door knob popper head. The advantage of this is that both of the flies are tubes, can be used as single poppers or single streamers, or as a tandem popper or streamer simply by removing the popper head. There are a few variations of this theme, a tube fly and a streamer on a hook, in tandem, or 2 tubes in tandem etc. The actual fly design is wide open, can be FPF's or big feather devices. Can be floating or sinking whatever.
The trick is to get onto Bass Pro and get a Cam Sigler set sent over, not cheap but still good value. Once you see how its put together you can produce a variety of billy flies in a variety of configurations. I think the pic is self explanatory. Cheers Max

[Maxg]

Pic not good, try this

[Maxg]

The tube format. centre is a tube from a Bic biro, cleaned out of course, inserted into a short length of poly tube. The hook eye slips into the rear tube holding it in place. The fly is tied on the front tube. Pic is self explanatory