Old Style Peck Poppers

[Kirk Dietrich 0]

Wish these were original Peck's but they're just my version of Peck's original poppers on double salmon hooks that he made before imports to US were stopped or to hard to come by from Europe where he got his hooks.

 

 

 

 

 

[mikechell 0]

Very cool, Kirk!!!

[shoebop 0]

I like the one with the hair wing the best.

[Kirk Dietrich 0]

Thanks Mike.

 

Yeah Shoe, I think that one might fish better too. If this rain ever stops, I hope to fish them and find out.

[Hatchet Jack 0]

Peck made an Interesting choice of hook for a popper.

 

Any particular reason he had, for going double instead of single ?

 

 

Both the hair and feather wings should leave a great footprint in the film.

[Kirk Dietrich 0]

Hatchet, not sure. Only thing I can figure is the double hook is wider and may have made the head more secure on the hook as he made these prior to kink shank hooks.

 

I'm looking forward to see how the hooking is, may or may not be better than single hook.

 

Kirk

[ditz2 0]

Nice Kirk....I do remember at least a few other similar bugs made with single hooks too. I think Heddon made some as did several smaller and more local manufacturers. Most of the ones I saw were quite large and heavy. Not something one would throw with a 6wt today. I do think that 8wt and 9wt rods were the norm for bass back then. Might I ask the size of these beauties?

[Kirk Dietrich 0]

Thanks Ditz,

The hook size is #4 on the Crow wing and #6 on the hair wing - did'nt measure the overall size but they were made from tapered cork bottle stoppers that I wouldn't hesitate to cast on a 7wt and the #6 maybe even a 5 or 6wt.

The popper makers back in the early 40's went to the single hook after WWII started and they couldn't acquire the double hooks. I believe in the early days, some guys would solder a piece of tin to the top of the single shank hooks to help prevent head from twisting; not sure when the kink shank was introduced to the industry.

[tidewaterfly 0]

Kirk, they look great! Those older styles are very cool!

 

It's highly likely too that the glues used back then may not have been as good as those currently available. I've epoxied various types of bodies to plain shank hooks with nothing more than a good thread base & never had one turn on the shank. That double hook may also have been from the idea of more points were better for hooking fish. If you look at the old wood plugs from that era, they all had some big trebles & some with multiples, more than was really needed. That seemed to be the mind set back then & that was before catch & release became widely popular. Back then most folks kept everything they caught.

[Kirk Dietrich 0]

Good points Tide.

Do you know when epoxy came onto the market? I think Lefty told me Bill Gallash used epoxy to glue his heads on hooks in the 1950's.

Good chance too they thought double hooks meant double the hookups!

 

Kirk

[tidewaterfly 0]

Kirk, I found this on Wikipedia:

 

 

The first commercial attempts to prepare resins from epichlorohydrin were made in 1927 in the United States. Credit for the first synthesis of bisphenol-A-based epoxy resins is shared by Dr. Pierre Castan of Switzerland and Dr. S.O. Greenlee of the United States in 1936.

 

So, it seems epoxy was around during that time, but can't be sure it was widely available or even known to fly tiers of the era. Even if it was, that doesn't mean it was necessarily the same as what we have now.

[Kirk Dietrich 0]

Interesting. I wonder about the quality too. I think I remember Lefty saying they used epoxy paste, maybe the liquid wasn't available yet or being thicker made a better slot filler.

When I began making poppers in the 1980's, I used PC-7 epoxy putty - came in two film canisters. I recently found some PC-11 Marine epoxy and it works pretty good; got a little nostalgic.

[tidewaterfly 0]

I'm familiar with PC-7. I tried using it for the belly area on George Anderson's McCrab back when I was tying commercially. Didn't work exactly how I wanted, so scraped that idea.

[Big Fly Bob 0]

What time frame were those made Kirk?. I used to use a lot of Pecks poppers in the late 60's and early 70's and they didn't look any thing like that, I always thought his body dimensions were absolutely perfect for his more conventional poppers as they had the popper sitting at the 45 degrees downward slope I like. I've always made mine to sit the same.

[Kirk Dietrich 0]

Good looking bug Bob.

 

Peck used the double salmon hook, from what I've read, from 1939/40 till they became unavailable once WWII started. Heddon may have still made some on double salmon hooks but I'm not real familiar with that history or even Peck - there is so little written about it.

 

Kirk