Poppers were a completely new experience for me in Autumn of 2011. Now I feel like my Gary Krebs Popper Jig Set and poppers are part of my normal fly line-up. This in spite of the fact that I only have about two weeks on the water fishing poppers, and all of these days fishing for silvers in Oregon Estuaries. Well, this hardly qualifies for global or even regional qualifications to blah blah blah about the wonders of tying and fishing poppers, but hey, why not share some of the neat aspects I have learned so far, and hope that I get some feedback to help improve my technique, which has already occurred, second hand, when Gary called Chris to politely note some of the bloopers I had made shooting our first series of videos.
My first experiences fishing poppers for silvers here in Oregon involved either white or red foam popper bodies. Why not make a red and white popper body, I cleverly wondered. Funny, sounds like a red-and-white DareDevil spoon, yes?
The process of making two color poppers was pretty simple. The results are quite pleasing. The series of no-nonsense photos following shows the basic steps.
1. Use Zap Gel to join two colors of the River Road Foam Cylinders . Let them dry. It does not take more than a little drop to accomplish this.
2. I like to position the color joint right at the edge of the bevel cut on the Krebs Jig; this gives me the perfect proportion of the two colors in my finished popper.
3. Make the cuts in the foam to shape the popper body. I do insert the needle to keep the foam secure while doing so.
4. Make the slits, drill a larger hole for the rubber legs (optional, depending on hoe many legs and krystal flash you might want to use) and prepare the hook as shown in previous post on poppers.
5. Here are some of the color combinations I have been experimenting with. Does color matter. Dunno. Not enough experience yet, but they sure look cool.
Hope you have as much fun as I have making these silly poppers. With the experiences I have had fishing these for silvers, I am ready to take on the elusive bucket mouth bass next spring. With renewed confidence. Yes Sir.
Jay Nicholas
2011
So damn fishy!!!