Today was repair day

[The Mad Duck 0]

Today I went through all of the fly boxes that contained poppers and pulled out all of the injured ones. I spent a good part of today taking off legs that had dry rotted,pulling off hackles that had gotten ratty, etc...

I put new legs on,re-tied hackles and touched up paint that had gotten chipped. At last count, I had repaired close to 100 poppers and still have a bunch more to do. Here are a few of the patients

[WWKimba 0]

Any with COVID?

[MuskyFlyGuy 0]

That is a terrific pile of poppers. That looks like a 5-10 year supply. 

[The Mad Duck 0]

2 hours ago, MuskyFlyGuy said:

That is a terrific pile of poppers. That looks like a 5-10 year supply. 

Yea, the problem is ,that's maybe 1/10ths of the poppers I have. I have a bit of popper problem😳

[skeet3t 0]

Nice.  I never put legs on poppers or cut them off the bought ones. Got tired of little fish grabbing the legs and pulling the popper under.

[The Mad Duck 0]

1 hour ago, skeet3t said:

Nice.  I never put legs on poppers or cut them off the bought ones. Got tired of little fish grabbing the legs and pulling the popper under.

In the areas that I fish, If you don't have legs on a popper, the popper just sits there. Funny how different parts of the country,some stuff works,some doesn't.

[Philly 0]

I had to look at pictures of my fly boxes.  All my poppers have legs, so do most of my sliders.  The only slider that doesn't is my version of Tony's Froggie.  It's thinner than the original, tied with strips of craft foam and has a shank length marabou tail rather than two split feathers.  It's been an effective fly without the legs. 

When I initially started tying foam top waters I followed the pattern of the store brought poppers and used long legs, but like skeet3t got tired of small sunfish just grabbing the legs.  I did two things.  One quit tying them on "panfish" size hooks.  All my panfish flies are tied on size 6 1x or 2x long hooks,  and I shortened the length the legs.  The rear legs are no longer than the tail of the fly and the length of the front legs are even with the hook eye.  Come to think of it my floating mop flies don't have legs, tied on size 6 Gamakatsu B10S hooks, and they've been very effective  I wonder if the Froggie would be more effective with legs.  It wouldn't be hard to "repair' them by adding legs.  Might make them more effective. I'm retired I've got plenty of time

[Capt Bob LeMay 0]

I do something similar - only I call it re-cycling where you take old chewed up flies (and poppers) cut down to where you still have usable materials -then re-build... Of course fishing in salt or brackish waters there's more than a few times where you're saving materials and replacing the hook.  Unlike freshwater anglers I'm not using any legs on my poppers (legs of any kind are reserved for crab patterns mostly )with an occasional bug meant for a bonefish... This time of year my bookings are few and far between (that will change towards the end of February and by April I'll be lucky to have any days off the water..).  So for now I'm filling lure orders, sorting out rods (still have two to put new guides on as well as one brand new rod that will go on my skiff as soon as it's done....).  Just posted a pic over on Instagram of a part of an order for anyone interested (under lemaymiami...).

[DFoster 0]

On 1/29/2022 at 6:06 PM, The Mad Duck said:

Today I went through all of the fly boxes that contained poppers and pulled out all of the injured ones. I spent a good part of today taking off legs that had dry rotted,pulling off hackles that had gotten ratty, etc...

I put new legs on,re-tied hackles and touched up paint that had gotten chipped. At last count, I had repaired close to 100 poppers and still have a bunch more to do. Here are a few of the patients

Yup, for me it's that time of the winter.  I love tying but I start looking for something else fly fishing related to do.  When I pull some line of a reel just to hear the click I know it's getting bad.  Clean and lube the vise, lube the reels, clean and treat the fly lines, tying leaders, organize the boxes and packs (again).... Is spring ever going to get here?  

[skeet3t 0]

On 1/30/2022 at 8:55 PM, The Mad Duck said:

In the areas that I fish, If you don't have legs on a popper, the popper just sits there. Funny how different parts of the country,some stuff works,some doesn't.

Make the popper jiggle and move.

[robow7 0]

23 hours ago, DFoster said:

Yup, for me it's that time of the winter.  I love tying but I start looking for something else fly fishing related to do.  When I pull some line of a reel just to hear the click I know it's getting bad.  Clean and lube the vise, lube the reels, clean and treat the fly lines, tying leaders, organize the boxes and packs (again).... Is spring ever going to get here?  

We're to get our first snow of the season today, 1-2 ft. of the white stuff, so I'll being doing the same over the next couple days.

[vicrider 0]

On 1/30/2022 at 6:37 PM, skeet3t said:

Nice.  I never put legs on poppers or cut them off the bought ones. Got tired of little fish grabbing the legs and pulling the popper under.

Years ago a buddy and I were in my tiny plastic boat on a small pond in the Barrens in WI. We were throwing fairly large bass poppers with rubber legs and long hackle. The bluegills, some of fairly good size, would tug the bug underwater or partway under by grabbing something they could mouth and trying to go with it. We'd just flick the popper away from them and go on fishing. We were on a WI bog lake where the bog floated and there was 10' of water right next to the bog. My popper went down with hardly a splash or ripple. I told my buddy, "Damn gills" and flicked the popper away. 10 minutes later or so I landed a bog black bass of around 6#s, still my biggest bass on a fly rod. 

Back when folks were alive and living in Washburn WI I used to fish the Barrens a lot and there were bog lakes all over where the bass were darn near as dark as bullheads. Black back tapering to a yellow/cream belly from their living conditions and the tannic acidic water. Fine eating and one lake in particular was more fun to fish than anywhere else I'd ever fished. You'd take your boat out to the floating bog island wherever it might be and walk the bog and fish the holes almost like ice fishing. Holes from 3' - 20' in the bog but you learned to never stand too long in one spot as you'd slowly sink until you had to scramble up out of the bog hole. We always brought a heavy rope with a loop to rescue someone if needed.

Anyway, I wander from OP and that's quite a collection considering you used to buy Betts poppers $3 for a card of 12 and now they're $3 apiece. 

 

[skeet3t 0]

11 hours ago, vicrider said:

Years ago a buddy and I were in my tiny plastic boat on a small pond in the Barrens in WI. We were throwing fairly large bass poppers with rubber legs and long hackle. The bluegills, some of fairly good size, would tug the bug underwater or partway under by grabbing something they could mouth and trying to go with it. We'd just flick the popper away from them and go on fishing. We were on a WI bog lake where the bog floated and there was 10' of water right next to the bog. My popper went down with hardly a splash or ripple. I told my buddy, "Damn gills" and flicked the popper away. 10 minutes later or so I landed a bog black bass of around 6#s, still my biggest bass on a fly rod. 

Back when folks were alive and living in Washburn WI I used to fish the Barrens a lot and there were bog lakes all over where the bass were darn near as dark as bullheads. Black back tapering to a yellow/cream belly from their living conditions and the tannic acidic water. Fine eating and one lake in particular was more fun to fish than anywhere else I'd ever fished. You'd take your boat out to the floating bog island wherever it might be and walk the bog and fish the holes almost like ice fishing. Holes from 3' - 20' in the bog but you learned to never stand too long in one spot as you'd slowly sink until you had to scramble up out of the bog hole. We always brought a heavy rope with a loop to rescue someone if needed.

Anyway, I wander from OP and that's quite a collection considering you used to buy Betts poppers $3 for a card of 12 and now they're $3 apiece. 

 

Used to sell Betts and Peck's poppers. Went like hotcakes. There was a time when gas was 17 cents a gallon and you could buy a new Ford convertible for $2800.