Tying foam?

[Dave G. 0]

I saw a series of glitter foam at Micheal's with sticky back. I thought that was interesting with the bright colors and glitter but wouldn't be good with the sticky backing. Then the first video I watched after I got home a guy was making a pencil popper with sticky back foam ( I think it was that video anyway, I've watched enough videos now they are all starting to blur together) ! I guess I'm coming to the conclusion that people use about any kind of foam. I almost bought a pair of chartreuse flip flops on the way out of Micheals, they were on sale for $2.

 

I bought my foam at AC Moore though. 8-1/2x11 sheets more or less, $.49. Micheals sheets said EVA on them but looked the same otherwise, a little larger sheets $.99. I went to AC Moore just to see what they had, the colors were about the same so I just bought those, beige for caddis , brown for what ever, yellow and kind of a lemon/lime/chartreuse.

[mikechell 0]

 

 

There's a "balance point" ... I trim the back until it does float upright, but just at the surface.

Looks really good in the water, like a small fish skimming along making a wake without a lot of commotion. But if I twitch it hard, it pops and gurgles like it's trying to dive.

 

Of course, I like it, but the hits I've gotten on it push it more than inhale it, so I am not sure it's a good fly, yet.

[Dave G. 0]

I want to start tying some foam flies for bass and panfish but would like to save myself the headache of making a mess right out the gate.

 

 

What size/type of thread would you recommend using with 2mm foam? What threads would you avoid to keep from cutting the foam when tying?

 

What glues are you all using? Has anyone had problems with glue melting or not bonding the foam?

 

 

Thanks

We kind of walked away with your thread here, sorry about that !

 

Anyway, at this point I can say that I have tied foam with down to 8/0 Uni and backed it up with some super glue. No issues at all. I suppose to some degree that would also depend on the particular foam you have but it looks to me with the 2mm craft foam that you seemed interested in ( I use that and some older more open cell foam too) that it's a non issue. I build a little thread base first, then as suggested earlier in the thread I take a couple of looser wraps on the foam before starting to really tighten down. The super glue soaks right into the thread and really bonds to the foam, i feel the foam is well secured to the hook thus far anyway.. I suppose aggressive and toothy fish eventually will destroy the foam. My target subjects at this point though being bluegill, pumpkin seeds and bass ( not so toothy)..

[Dave G. 0]

P3270001.JPG

 

There's a "balance point" ... I trim the back until it does float upright, but just at the surface.

Looks really good in the water, like a small fish skimming along making a wake without a lot of commotion. But if I twitch it hard, it pops and gurgles like it's trying to dive.

 

Of course, I like it, but the hits I've gotten on it push it more than inhale it, so I am not sure it's a good fly, yet.

Well gee Mike, I think I'll tie up a hundred of them then. lol

[mikechell 0]

Yeah ... I can't say, yet, if it's a good pattern. Or if I just haven't put it in front of hungry fish. I like the action it has, and the Gar in Florida LOVE it ... but I haven't had any big fish on it.

But the other side of that coin is that I haven't caught any big fish on ANY pattern yet, this year.

[Dave G. 0]

Yeah ... I can't say, yet, if it's a good pattern. Or if I just haven't put it in front of hungry fish. I like the action it has, and the Gar in Florida LOVE it ... but I haven't had any big fish on it.

But the other side of that coin is that I haven't caught any big fish on ANY pattern yet, this year.

I bet it's fine but I'll wait to hear that officially. Plenty of patterns to try.

[Dave G. 0]

I got out with the boat and tried one of my foam creations. After a bit of deliberate casting practice I raised about a 2lb smallie on a long cast . I had some small fish investigating it first. I think the tails were a bit long for them to fully take it. The smallie just jumped it but I think the #12 nymph hook that I tied it on simply because I had #12's out, was a bit too shrouded to get a good hook set. A #10 dry would be fine I think ( I intended this to be a pan fish popper but we were fishing a known good smallie piece of water). Anyway, he jumped it and took it down, I felt the weight of the fish for a second or two with my 5 wt rod ( which was awesome casting this fly incidentally, so pleased with that aspect of it). Looking at that fly from the boat out there floating , I could see this easily being taken for a large hex fly and those are plentiful in that water.

[caloosa bug 0]

On my small foam panfish poppers, I've started tying them without a hackle skirt. Only a tail and body. I've found that it increases my hook up ratio on panfish. I don't know if it's because it allows the hook to sit slightly lower in the water, or if it's just because it is less material to fit in their small mouth. I would even trim the hackle to where it's only on the top of the hook, but I seem to have better luck now without it. Post a pick, I'd like to see what you came up with. Thanks

[Dave G. 0]

I thought of trimming away the lower hackles to clear the hook gape. It's a large brown hackle, easily twice the gape of the hook. This is my experimental phase, clearly not worth the effort of pictures yet. Maybe the next round. It's really a stupid looking thing at this point but it does work LOL !

 

I've got to dig through my hooks and see if I have some wider gap 2-3x long dry fly hooks in #10. those I think would be ideal for this pattern. But ya know last year I caught this foolish small Pumpkin seed on a #1 bass diver I tied up. Just how he hit it I guess and it was lip hooked too, and the fish was just a dink. He must have gotten threaded on somehow, no way his mouth opened wide enough to span the entire #1 hook.

[Poopdeck 0]

I do a lot of river SMB fishing with Zara puppies with my spin gear. The puppy is a smaller version of the spook but still has two treble hooks. Blow ups and misses occur OFTEN. Sometimes I have more misses then hook sets even with the two treble hooks and no tails.

 

Missed hook sets are not necessarily the fault of the fly. SMB frequently miss. I don't know if they are all missing the lure or if they are just to small to get hooked but I do know that blow ups and misses are part of the top water game.

[Dave G. 0]

I think I was late on the hook set. I'm accustomed to setting the hook on smallies that head and tail on the fly as this one did ( I saw air under his curved body), as the fish goes down with the fly. But I had some slack in my line trying to gather up and set the hook too. I felt the fish but he wasn't on anyway, it was probably 3 seconds later than my usual tactic which is more like one fell swoop ( I lift my rod as the fish just disappears under the water with the fly). Also they like to slash to the right with the fly, you often hook them in the left lip. This one went head and tails from my left to right onto the fly, if he slashed right with the fly that would have been an odd angle for a hook up. Also, You can be way slower setting the hook on these compared with wild trout for sure but not that slow lol ! I wasn't expecting the fish at all, a skier had just dumped right near there about 20 minutes earlier , then we drifted through on a light ESE breeze ( big pond 729 acres).

 

I haven't smallie fished there along that shore line in a couple of years but I'm going back, maybe today. Right there in that spot is like a shelf that has a slight gradual decline in it, then it hits a ledge that drops first to about 28 ft then to 50ft of water. It's like steps that run probably 1/3 mile of shore line there. If you can set up a drift where the 13 ft hits the 28 ft, generally the smallies will hit poppers there. If you move from 13 into where there is 5 ft it's all panfish this time of year with tons of little yellow perch. I also have about a 5-1/2" perch fly I have high hopes in. We have caught large fish there, smallies, large mouth and pickerel, even trout using perch colored Thomas spoons with spinning gear or trolling, species depends on time of year.. My wife must have caught a dozen yellow perch yesterday on a Thomas Colorado spoon . There is another whole section of pond about 3 miles back towards the landing with an 80 ft hole in it, that's where the beach and stuff is that I got booted from on foot a couple of days ago. But that can be good too. Lots of bottom feature in this place but they are very broad, so you gotta know where to set up attack LOL !

[Dave G. 0]

I just discovered Charlie Craven's video on the Charlie Boy Hopper. I also discovered I have no rubber legs. I do have some short thin rubber bands . Somewhere around here I had some spinner bait skirting but I'm not finding it right now of course. But yeah, that's a cool looking hopper pattern, I'll figure something out for legs and tie one up tomorrow..

[FlaFly 0]

Do you have some bungee cords? The nylon-encased ones are full of a whole bunch of individual strands that make good legs if you're not tying too tiny.

[Dave G. 0]

Do you have some bungee cords? The nylon-encased ones are full of a whole bunch of individual strands that make good legs if you're not tying too tiny.

Wow thanks FlaFly, I have a bunch of stretched out bungee cords that were holding the tarp down on my boat over the winter. We had a couple of batches of 50-60mph winds that kind of did them in.

[Bimini15 0]

If you are tying really small, the elastic from a pair of old underwear also has the same strands, just thinner.