dairydave

i want to thank everyone for their ideas getting started on popper making... my fishing season is about wrapped up here in southwest pa i do have a trip planned hopefully the water is good next week i am going down to the New River in fayetteville WV for a day trip. after that i am most likely done topwater for the year. most likley as grass mowing comes to an end and the honey do list gets done for this year i will sit down and start making some poppers and share them. talk again later this year. dave

if i show up to fish with DANCEU on my jeep someone's gonna drown me. i would expect no less

you know i looked all over the internet for ideas for a fly fishing plate and i couldn't find much you guys came up with lots of ideas. whatever i put on my jeep the women are going to give me grief anyways.. hahahahahaha

so i have always had personal license plates on my vehicles. last fall i decided i wanted one with something to do with fly fishing. i came up with FLYRODZ. after i put it on my car my wife and daughter gave me grief that it looked like a name of a Rapper or HIP HOP Artist.... so i got another IFLIFISH and they still give me grief... i can't win with these women.

this popper is one that i punched out from that foam block in grizzly... the foam is a little different but it looks ok. only concern i have(i am not sure what you call if so forgive me) is that the foam cylinders that i bought are firm and this block is a softer material. i don't know if this one is going to start absorbing water?? will see i hope to get out this week not much time left here in Pa. it was 48 degrees this morning. meaning top water with poppers anyways

these are awesome... that paintwork is neat.

so last night i tried to make poppers using the set of punches from harbor freight. it wasn't easy really have to use some force to get thru. someone in the thread i saw using a .357 casing so i decided to try that route and from my hunting days i had .257 weatherby casings. they go thru that foam with no effort... really easy. look at how the casing shaped to the jaw of the drill when i tightened it down. that was a happy mistake i just used a hack saw blade to slice off a section of the foam. my friend was over last night hes a carpenter and has a band saw and table saw. hes going to cut this block in to slices for me then i can start punching out popper bodies.

my foam block in grizzly came yesterday. i used the cutters from harbor freight and it worked ok but i think the set for a drill would make quick work for popper bodies. one post showed a brass shell so i was looking thru some of my old ammo leftover from my hunting days and i found some weatherby .257 casings. they look to be about the right size for cutting foam. i didn't get a chance to make a cutter yet i will later this evening.

yeah fishing the yough anywhere from layton down to west newton... but i really love going up the allegheny and fish in franklin, oil city, tionesta or west hickory... the yough is either hit or miss one day will crush them then the next maybe only 1 fish... the allegheny is almost guarantee a lot of fish and twice the size.

i am from uniontown pa... around 45 minutes south of pittsburgh. i am the operations manager for United Dairy here in Uniontown. 20 years for me... we have 3 locations that bottle milk . our home office/plant is in Martins Ferry, Ohio. Another plant in charleston, WV. and here in uniontown we do all the bottling. we have branch locations in fairmont WV, beckely WV, Lancaster ohio, portsmouth, salem and galax va. We ship milk to 6 states. WV, Ohio, Pa, New york, maryland, Virginia... we even go up in to Maine with our ice cream. In the fall we Bottle Egg Nog for Costco and deliver it to 2 warehouse on the east coast. They distribute all along the coast from maine all the way down to Florida

i am probably missing out on catching more fish since i only use poppers and nothing else. i did meet a guy earlier this year and he fishes year round for smallmouth. i am in western pennsylvania and the season for smallmouth on topwater is anywhere from mid april until the first frost. anyways this guy was going to take me and show me some other tactics for smallmouth after the temperature change then Covid hit. hes and older fella and he doesn't want to be around anyone until this passes hopefully soon. my friend that i do all my fishing with hes a stubborn one... he only fishes poppers as well. he likes hunting as much as fishing so after the first frost he starts to focus on hunting seasons. i don't hunt anymore and i am missing 6 or 7 months of the year when i could be catching bass using another tactic.

denduke.... you have some nice looking bugs!!!

that set listed above i didn't see when i was at harbor freight today. i like that those are ready for a drill.. the ones i got just turn by hand i might have to take mine back and look for those.