How do you like your poppers?

[petelangevin 0]

Flat or cup faced? I have been working on cork poppers and was curious to see what ideas people had on this. Each have benefits. Cupped throw a lot of water and make a good amount of noise. Flat work well in rough waters and are easier to make .

 

Any other thoughts on this. And does anyone have a good source for a 5/8 to 3/4 hss round cutter?

[Gene L 0]

I like them cheap. I make them out of a flip-flop, no cupping but I tie on two sets of rubber legs. Works great. But not much to brag about.

[Jolly Red 0]

I like the cupped face poppers for bass, they make a lot of commotion, which can attract a bass. For bluegill and crappie I lke the flat face poppers and sliders. I think too much noise will scare away the gills and crappies. Of course, the fish will have the final say, and they don't always ask my opinion ahead of time .

[riffleriversteelheadslayer 0]

I love BIG cupped poppers for Pike and bass for blue gills early in the season I like small flat faced but as the temps heat up I switch to a size 8 cupped face as for color on the cupped one for gills my favorite is all black with yellow and black barred rubber legs black marabou tail

[petelangevin 0]

I have been using my dremel like a lathe and its pretty amazing how fast real cork shapes at 33000 rpm. Its the cupped faces i am having trouble with. I have set up my first two on tubes. As i did not have any good popper hooks.

[tidewaterfly 0]

Pete, I make them with different faces. Flat, cupped, slanted and one called a "spouter" which looks like a boat front, but each side is concave. (Old style I haven't seen in many years!) Done properly they push water out to each side when stripped hard. IMO, the problem with most cupped poppers is the cup is way too deep. It doesn't need to be. It should be just deep enough to pop & push a good spurt of water. Get it too deep & it tends to just make them harder to lift off the water for casting and really adds nothing else to the pop.

[petelangevin 0]

Great advice. Thanks.

[Capt Bob LeMay 0]

I make a single pattern for poppers used in the backcountry of the Everglades where we're working brackish to pure salt. It's very quick to tie, is done from a pre-shaped soft foam head (Wapsi's Perfect Popper heads). I want the bug as lightweight and simple as possible since the hook I'm using is quite a bit bigger than what is recommended (supposed to be for a #4 hook, I'm using a #1...). The head has a cupped face - appropriately it's called a Speed Bug since I can tie them up in quantity fairly quickly. Here's a pic or two -they've taken trout, reds, snapper, snook, tarpon, and a variety of other species including spanish mackeral.... Some years ago I worked with cork heads, hand painted them, even bent up my own kink shanked stainless hooks (all for a bug that was pretty much destroyed on the first bite....) these are quite a bit more durable.

 

Tight lines

Bob LeMay

[Stippled Popper 0]

Turning the Wapsi TCS(Cupped) around and tying them as sliders can also work well at times. When vigorously stripped, the

body will generally be pulled under the water and then return to the top. Sometimes this works better than popping for me on

LM Bass.

 

I've noticed that when I want to remove a cupped popper from the water to make another cast, the popper is less likely to make

a loud pop then if the line, leader and popper are moving through the water when I make the move to lift into the back cast than

if I try to immediately lift the line and popper into the back cast.

[Boone Fisher 0]

I have been using my dremel like a lathe and its pretty amazing how fast real cork shapes at 33000 rpm. Its the cupped faces i am having trouble with. I have set up my first two on tubes. As i did not have any good popper hooks.

 

I also use this method, works perfect.

[riffleriversteelheadslayer 0]

for round cutters I use these http://www.widgetsupply.com/page/WS/PROD/hollow-punch/BCP63 this set goes up to 3/4 inch and is under $12

[perchjerker 0]

For cupping the face, Dremel has a round stone 'grinding' tool that works extremely well for doing this. It works on cork, balsa, and "Fun Foam" bodies. Don't how how it will work on the 'store bought' foam bodies, as I have never used them---make my own.

[tidewaterfly 0]

That Widget Supply Co that riffleriversteelheadslayer posted the link to is a great source for the various bits used in a Dremel, and they're inexpensive. If I add a cupped face, I'll use a small round stone to get the basic shape, then one of larger diameter just to clean it up. I feel like I get better control with using the small stone first. Trying to hold a small popper head & shape with the larger stone first I end up shooting too many heads across the room.

 

The one picture that Capt Bob posted that shows the pile of popper bodies, also shows the cup real well. This is what I was saying previously, they don't need to be very deep. Deeper when making them yourself is just more effort & it's not needed. Deeper doesn't really make them pop any louder. If you want a bigger pop, use a bigger popper.

 

S.P., I agree with you about lifting them off the water, my point was only that an extra deep cupped face just makes lifting them from the water more difficult, since the extra depth in the cup doesn't need to be there anyway. I also make a lot of sliders with the reversed bodies! Great point! Even the long pencil bodies reversed makes a good diving bug.

[Phish 0]

The a ngle on the popper is what makes it pop or glide thru water. If you spend to much making with all the bells tben you will only lose them so keep it simple for fish but leave tbe purty ones for us all to see. I like the flat faced ones better myself.

[petelangevin 0]

Can you post pictures of various popper faces? When i turned plugs i cut most fairly deep but cut the face at an angle. So it was shallow at the bottom it tended to throw more h20. But that was with a spinning reel.