Frog Poper - Tube Fly

[letumgo 0]

A new addition to the fly pattern database has been submitted by letumgo:

 

Frog Poper - Tube Fly (click link for more info)

 

[Redwings1 0]

Interesting idea! How does it ride in the water?

[munky 0]

Hey, that's kewl. I would never have thought to put a popper on a tube.

 

Nice looking fly.

[letumgo 0]

Redwings1 - I don't know how it rides in the water yet. I'm hoping to give it a try this evening. I tied it with a plastic tube to keep it nice and light, but I'm also thinking of tying one with a copper tube to make it sit lower in the water. Perhaps the weight of the copper tubing would also make it splash down a little louder to get their attention more. I'll make a post to let you know how it fishes.

 

Munky, I got the idea from a book I bought on tying tube flies. There are a bunch of similar patterns used for salt water poppers, but they are all much larger flies. I was interested to see how hard it would be to scale one down for fresh water use. It was easy to tye, but whip finishing the longer body was a little harder.

 

I just hope it catches fish.

[Redwings1 0]

Cool man, I hope it does what you want it to. I was thinking tat a thin copper tube would act like the hoko normally does and kepp the popper correct in the water...with the eyes on top. Let us know how it goes.

[madkasel 0]

Very cool.

 

Somebody needs to do an article for Hatches on tube flies... they look interesting.

[day5 0]

WOW KILLER IDEA LOOKS GOOD TO!!!!

[letumgo 0]

Redwing1 - I got to go out and fish this thing today and your hunch was absolutely correct. The plastic tube does not have enough weight in it to always make the fly land belly side down. It landed okay the majority of the time, but landed upside down about every forth or fifth cast. It casts very easily though and had a nice action when it did landed properly. The bass did not seem interested in this fly (no takers).

 

I'll have to give it another try with a metal tube (and when the water warms up a bit more) to see if the fly fishes better.

 

Back to the drawing board...

[Jon Boy 0]

nice fly letemgo

 

just 1 question

 

what type of foam do you use for the head and how do you shape it??

 

:headbang:

[letumgo 0]

The fly is tied on 1/2 inch diameter white foam (I think the maker is called Rainy). I simply had to cut the foam with a single blade straight razor. No other shaping was required. The back side is cut a around 45° and the front side is somewhere between 5 to 10° off of the vertical (to help the popper left off the water). I got the idea from the new book by Bob Clouser. He gives a lot of background on proper hook placement etc for a conventional popper. I simply tried the same thing with a tube body.

 

Once the foam was cut and mounted on the tube, I coated it with multiple layers of finger nail polish containing glitter. Once I got the amount of sparkle I was looking for, I then gave it a couple coats of clear high gloss nail polish (Sally Hansen's Hard as Nails). Then I used colored markers to make it look like a frog. (Yes - I know Frogs don't have gills...I just got carried away with the markers :hyst: )

 

Your question gave me another idea. If you want to make your own foam cylinders, you could buy a cheap pair of foam flip-flops and punch them with a piece of sharpend copper tubing.