crowbuster

I'm a seasoned tier and fisher from another board. Not on this one as often as I should be. What is your favorite hopper pattern and size for wild trout? Just would like to see other opinions and compare them to mine. Thanks.

I use both. I use a two-edged razor from CVS and I have a pair of straight and curved scissors specifically for spun or stacked deer hair. The other element is practice. I generally make the initial cuts with my scissors and cut a flat bottom with a razor. However I always make my initial cuts large, so I have some room for error. I can always take a little more deer hair off, but I can\'t put it back on once I cut it. After that initial shaping with the scissors, I cleaned up with the razor and that gets my fly near finished. Then I can go pack and do the final touches with my straight scissors and get my fly looking neat and clean. Another thing you can do, and I do this with my divers and sliders; Carefully, Flex the razor so get a curvature in the blade. Not trying to be condescending at all, Just trying to give ya what pointers I can. Deer hair aint the easiest stuff to work with. here\'s a pic of my last deer hair bug....and I know of a video i can show that goes over trimming extremely well. It\'ll just be a matter of finding it. There's either 2 or 3 videos of this guy trimming. Watching his techinque helped me get started. But then again, you could already be much further along then I was. It may be a waste your time.

Very nice. Informative and clear, and you finished with a top class fly. What is preference for stacking/spinning thread? GSP? Kevlar?

'Preciate the response guys. You all have definitely satisfied my curiousity, and given me new ideas to play around with.

My two most recent flies. The Popper is a size 4 Mustad 3366....The Sculpin/monster/sex dugeon variant is a #1 3366 in the back and a #2 crappie hook in the front. I'll cut off the front hook before using.

I've been tying them exclusively for the past week or so. I fished them one afternoon, got some results, and really liked the action they had on the water. So it's not like i'm in need of help, but i'm kinda curious. For those of you who tie deer hair poppers/fish them, couple quetions for you fellas. I've seen them tied with both a "cupped face" and a "flat face".....Which do you prefer? Is there really any difference in performance? I've seen the face coated with a cement/laquer to stiffen up the face for extra "pop". Does any of you do this? I've been tying flat faced, with the cement for the extra "pop" and I like how they work(had a fish break me off the other day on one). I'm just kinda curious about what you other warmwater fisherman prefer. Thanks, CB

Looks awful familiar. :hyst: The second one is definitely a step up from the previous. The first was good(as I said before), but the second was definitely improvement. If you could get the defined head of your first nymph with the body of the second, it would be outstanding. Just my thoughts. Keep at it, looking good!

I've got them as small as a #12 streamer and as large as a #2. Never seen them any larger than that here in the North Carolina Piedmont.

I've spent the free hours of my week tying up 3-4 woolly buggers a day. Just to replenish my box. I really wore down on it beginning of spring.

I'd would say the fellas answered this question adequately. No, it's not legal to have them. I've been in a similar boat use you. By all means, if you want to use them, do so at your own risk. But it's not legal for you to have them if they came from protected birds. I know this because I use to particpate in Falconry. (look it up if you must). When my falconry license was issued, I could legally posess some protected feathers, but I did not renew it. When my license expired, it became illegal for these feathers to be in my posession, so i had to discard them. Hope this helps, CB

The secondary wing feathers make excellent quill wings. Primary wings have biots small enough for your smallest flies. Crow feathers are not high demand, but they certainly have a place.

Find a crowhunter. I hunt crows when they are in season(thus the name). Most of the feathers are still in fine shape after we bag them. This website may be of use to you: Crowbusters Please note I'm not affiliated with this website. The "same name" deal is coincidental.

I've always felt that fur from dry lands animals (rabbit, squirrel, woodchuck etc.) will abosrb water because the animal has no natural reason for a repellant. I would not suggest using such for dries. However, fur from aquatic mammals(beaver, muskrat etc.) have natural water repellant properties. I use those for dries quite often. I don't know what to tell you about synthetics.

I've caught more trout on a quill gordon than any of other dry fly, so that is one of the top dawgs. I love wulfs, the come in at 2. Then a small(12-14) stimulators are third.

A new addition to the fly pattern database has been submitted by crowbuster: Mike's Copper John

A new addition to the fly pattern database has been submitted by crowbuster: Just a Beetle

there's probably a dozen different ways to rig up a tandem/dropper set up. I know of a few, but I'm just gonna list one because I think it's superior to the others anyway. :whistle: Tie your top fly(That can be a dry fly, a heavy nymph, etc.) on to the end of your tippet like normal. Cut off a piece of tippet however long you wish(I go for 2ft most of the time) and tie this in between the tail and barb area of your fly. I use a clinch knot for that. Then you can tie your second fly to the tag end of the tippet. In Depth Description

LArgemouth bass almost exclusively. I throw main 8-12 but will throw larger on occasion. However, they are not small body flies; they're pretty big for 8-12.

I agree, I think they brookies down here have an infatuation with yellow. I also think brookies are pretty opportunistic feeders, and they'll bite anything that is presented appropiately. The others hit it squarely with Hare's Ear, buggers, and yellow flies....but nobody told you about an Adam dry fly. I wouldn't go without having one on me.

What is cousin Lou doing up there?! I know I should have told him not to take offense at those geico caveman commercials.....

Nice looking bug, may add to the box here shortly....Have you had any problems with the fly turning over on it's side since the weight of the hook is actually above the fly? Or does it sit on the water correctly most of the time?

Thanks guys. I didn't know if I was clear and concise or not! Thanks for the encouragement, and more SBS tutorials to come.

Very nice! Those are a ton better than my first dry flies. Keep it up, you will be one heckeva tyer with some experience!

This is a great looking pattern. Do you have a rough draft of the tutorial? I would love to try it out. I actually just put it up. here's a link: Tutorial

My favorite terrestrial pattern. Larger sizes for bass and panfish, and smaller sizes for trout. Materials:The materials listed below are what were used on the pictured fly. Like with any other fly, there's a ton of variations. The color combos and hook sizes can be altered to anything you wanna tie. Hook: Mustad 10# Streamer Thread: Tan Foam: Brown closed cell Foam 2: tan closed cell Legs: Silli Legs Body: Rust Antron Hackle: Brown Dry Fly Head: Super Fine dry fly, Sulphur Wing: Stacked Elk Hair The foam strips should be about 1 1/2 times the hook shank. for a #10 streamer hook, that turned out to be just over an inch. One end on each foam strip is trimmed and shaped: The other ends should be left straight. Also note that the first foam strip is narrower than the second. The foam strip that will be on the bottom should be slightly narrower than the width of the hook gap. The top foam strip should be slightly wider than the hook gap. The narrow strip goes on first. As you can see, a length of foam about 1/3 hook shank protrudes over the end. Now for the legs. My leg of choice comes in bundles: I pull one strand off the bundle. Cut it in half so you have two even lengths. Cut each of those in half to give you four even lengths. Now tie one strand in on the side of your fly. One or two soft loops follow by a hard wrap does the trick for me: Do the other side. Should look like this Now, we can put in the other foam strip. Do this the same way as before: Now, we need to move our thread forward. To do this, we secure the BOTTOM foam strip and leave the TOP foam strip unsecured and wrap forward just a bit. Now that we are in front of the legs and the TOP foam strip, we can tye in our hackle and finish securing the BOTTOM foam strip. If you have not done so already, return your thread to the back of the hook where we tied in our hackle. We can dub the body now. Dub forward but leave some space for the head. Now palmer the hackle. We now have to trim the hackle flat on the top of the fly to give the foam a place to lay. Bring the foam strip accross and secure. I put alot of thread on the hook here because I'm trying to really secure the foam strip and create a smooth surface for the hair wing. Time for the wing. The density of the wing is another one of the preference deals. You'll have to play with it to find what you like. However you don't want a tall wing, you want the Elk Hair to splay out a little and creat a wide wing. (Notice the wing just goes back to the hook bend). Trim up the butt ends of the Elk Hair and bring your thread forward up to where you would normally stop on any other fly. You want to dub this head backwards. Your thread should be up at the eye of the hook. Starting your dubbing here and dub backwards to the body. Remember how we did the back legs? Let's add another set to the front. Try to place the legs right in the center of each side of the head. your should be looking like this: Let's fold that TOP foam strip back over our head, tye it off, and whip finish right there. I also trim the hackle flat on the bottom. That's a personal preference thing....Your fly ought to look something like this now: Now that the fly is finished, we have some trimming to do. We just need to cut the BOTTOM strip off so we have a small head over the eye of the hook and we need to trim the end of that TOP foam strip in a V shape... it looks like this: That's it! If I was able to lead your though the process your finished work of art should look like this: Clean any foam trimmings off of your fly and apply head cement if you choose to do so...Finished!