Chuck McFarlane

Thanks Kevin. Fun fly to tie and fish. No success yet with this pattern as the rain has been relentless this year. Rivers are just coming back into shape so looks like good conditions in the near future. Been playing around with some other articulated patterns for mid water/under the surface using feathers from various sources. Results have been quite pleasing.

Nice tie mikechell. That's a pretty popper. I like it and I'm sure the fish will too!

Love it!!! That will have some nice jigging action! I also like your choice of color that should work well in varied light conditions and water visibility. Sweet tie fisherboy.

Cheers Adam! I love my tube. I never worry about back casting space when chucking those large flies. Bank fished for years and still do from time to time but I'm in the tube for 90% of my bass fishing time.

Thanks so much Fisherboy0301. I guess it just came together. One of those ties that seem to go right and the materials behave. I was even able to get a decent whip finish on the head after the final pack of deer hair. That seldom happens for me. I'll be fishing them on a sink tip basically casting them on to the bank from my float tube and working them over the deeper shore structure. Definitely a big bass bug and fun to tie.

Here's something I came up with that for lack of a better name I call the articulated feather duster. I plan to use this on SMB and LMB. I was in the equivalent of the dollar store over here in Japan and noticed these huge feather dusters on sale. Upon close inspection I found loads of useable feathers and decided to get one. The pattern itself is nothing new and I was mostly inspired by Lefty's deceiver pattern for most of the fly and basically just used clumps of feathers to form the tail and over wing. The under wing is tan artic fox tail. The body is a combination of grizzly spey hackle and olive brown palmer chenille twisted together and wrapped up the shank. I added some natural herl and spun a tri colored deer hair head. The eyes are a solid doll type pin variety available from craft stores and the legs barred round medium. We'll see how it fishes and if it doesn't produce I can always use it to dust up around the bench.

Thanks Tidewaterfly, yep found that out the hard way. The hair took the ink okay but couldn't get it back to it's original fullness no matter the brushing. Matted like you said. Only one strip so live and learn. Rabbit hair is so fine it appears like jelly in the water. No wonder it mats so easily. I'm onto the cactus chenille heads and have used the longer polar variety palmered along with the hackle. Nice effects! Wifey wants me to tie one up with the hook cut off at the bend so she can hang it off her tote bag.

I like it! In my waters I might take a marker to the shell and mottle it up a little with some brown and dark olive. Is that felt your using? Sure looks buggy!

Those look great Tidewaterfly! Guess I could let my imagination run wild when it comes to color and material choices. I like the cactus chenille heads. Gives a broader profile and adds a little more flash. May try barring the strips with a marker as well. Thanks for sharing!

Can't really say what my favorite fly is so far I guess I'm still looking and will be for quite some time. We're getting buckets of rain on this side of the pond. Rivers are out of shape so spent some time on the vise. Found this dredger pattern calling for a #4 salmon hook. Have a couple of boxes of them so got to it. Although the pattern rides hook up I still like to add the weed guard saves me a lot of headaches in the rip rap. Hope this pattern proves to find a special spot in my box. Both flies turned out to be a little over 3 inches in length. I played around with color combinations and will add more. Going to fish these on a sink tip and work the bottom structure. Cheers Michael, I will do with the schlappen on the bombers. Got a fair amount in my material box and I'm excited to see what kind of a results I'll get.

Chuck, those are the same style that some use for Salmon. When I was tying commercially, I had some orders for Bombers, so decided to try them for SM. They're not a lot different than other deer hair flies popular for bass, so I tied them on 6, 4 & 2 size hooks. I'm sure they could be smaller or larger for targeting bass, depending on where your fishing, but these are the sizes I've used most. We have a tremendous "white fly" hatch in the area, & that white Bomber is perfect for that hatch. I've tied & used Waller Wakers, Glitter Bugs & that Pink Deer Hair Wog for SM too. Thanks so much Tidewaterfly. I was pleasantly surprised to see the bombers in your SMB arsenal. I often thought they might make good bass patterns and your post confirms it. Dead drifted or skated they provide a bold profile on top water and should make for some exciting action. Cheers.

Those bombers look interesting. Kinda like something we used to use for Atlantic Salmon. What style and size hook would be good for SMB?

Nice tie Sandworm. I've got a buddy who swears by rattles in his minnow flies for LMB. I'm not sure what flash material he ties them with but I've watched him fabricate rattles out of metal beads and plastic drinking straws. I'd love to see an SBS for this style of tie someday. Very interesting!

Kirk, here's what I found at lunch today. Fits great in the fingers and accepts a range of small bits. Tested it on some scrap balsa and works fine. Can get my leg threader through with ease. What I like about this is I can file away at the edges with the bit if I need that little extra leeway for thicker rubber. I'll get to the brad tips this weekend. I want to find a small kit that has my most popular eye diameters. Thanks again Kirk your suggestions should help my future projects immensely.

Lovely flies Frank! I think those would work for several species of meat eaters. Fresh and salt.

Kirk, now that is slick! Thanks for the pics clear as day! Now I can get back to that sneaky pete project and recess the eyes on my next batch of poppers.

Nice ties!! I really like your color and material choices. Well done all of them.

Thanks Kirk!, That's a useful tip! I ruined one when I tried to drill a small hole on another pattern that called for legs. The drill went through the balsa so fast and uncontrolled that when I threaded the rubber through' I had legs coming coming out the side and top of the popper. I guess that's why I was so inspired by the Lefty poppers no legs to mess with. I'm sure your tip will work for a long shaft bit as well as the brad tip. I'll give it a go. Cheers.

Thanks so much for the comments all. I'll be fishing it, and a couple of it's friends on Friday. The only issue I'm concerned about is fouling the back hook on the front. There's a lot going on back there with the second weed guard. Seems to be okay on the tying bench but I won't know for sure till I cast it.

Pretty slow out on the water today. Had one chance all day on a nice smallmouth that took my bugger short and left me wishing I had tied the tail in shorter or I had a trailing stinger hook. Saw some articulated buggers somewhere and decided to sit down on the bench and come up with something that incorporated colors and materials that worked in my waters and also something I could throw into the nastiest snag strewn places. Fianally, I wanted a tried and trusted pattern I was confident I could tie. Hooks; TMC 5263 #4 x2 Tail; Marabou Burnt Orange Flash; Crystal Flash Rainbow Body; Dubbing Blend; Rabbit Burnt Orange, Angora Goat Brown, Melty Yarn Black, Ice Dub Brown Olive Hackle; Spey Hackle; Grizzly Dyed Orange Rib; 3x mono tippet Legs; round rubber medium orange barred Eyes; Black bead chain medium Intruder wire 3mm. glass beads x 3 Weed guards; Hard Mono This should give the smallies quite a mouth full!!

Found them ditz2 CK74SNP SS kink shank 3/0 to 8. 4XH 4XL. Available in my area also so shipping will be minimal. Cool! This should give me lots of shank to work with. Yeah, I saw that hook somewhere on a popper tutorial but never gave them much thought. Now I see why the kink was built in. Thanks so much for the tips!

Man I love that duster idea!

To prevent slipping you could use some prepared fly tying wax when tying in wings, collars and the like near the head. Simply swipe the tying thread before wrapping and your good to go. You can swipe the thread any time during the tying process. The wax is available in any well stocked shops just avoid the dubbing wax that's for a different application. Cobblers wax is another good option.

Thanks ditz2. I still need to tweak this shape and I'm going to try cupping the plow a little on the next batch. They popped enough to get attention but I feel I could get them to work a little better. I used a B10S on the above and I didn't have much shank to work with after the bodies went on. I also felt the hook was a little too light even though they landed properly on each cast. I too look for the rear to ride down a little as I get most of my takes on the pause and I feel the more vertical the shank the better for hook ups. If you could recommend a good popper hook to get started with I'm all ears. I like to tie them from about 1/0 to 6.

Hi, just starting to find my way around here and realized I haven't introduced myself yet. I'm Chuck originally from eastern Canada and live and work here in Japan. Years and years ago I chased Atlantic Salmon throughout New Brunswick on the fly and lived out of a tent and got around on a motorcycle for much of the summers. I'm quite new again to fly fishing and especially tying. I came to this site to learn from people of all levels and I gotta say the profiles, patterns and depth of knowledge I've seen here so far are awesome! I hope I can contribute in some way. Cheers!