Fishing and some poppers

I managed to get out for some stream fishing yesterday. I got out on the water slightly before 8am and when I arrived a downstream wind was already starting to blow. We had some rain earlier in the week as well and the river was flowing quite a bit stronger than I expected. Never the less I rigged up and headed down to the river. It was one of those days though where you wonder if it wasn't better to stay in bed. On the first cast I manged to get a tangle in my leader which had me cutting everything off. From there things just got worse. As mentioned the river was a bit high and the by now strong downstream wind made getting a decent cast in next to impossible.  I did manage to get about 8 fish and also missed a few, but after numerous tangle's, a head first plunge into a deep pool and hooking myself and every branch around me, my heart just wasn't in it anymore, so I just mechanically kept on fishing till my exit point.

No, the sparkles weren't intentional. Only realized afterwards my new camera has a "add sparkles" feature.

Today I was in the mood to tie some flies, buy after my piscatorial misadventures yesterday I thought it might be best to stay away from the small stuff, so I tied a few poppers.

Some popper bodies in the curing rack

Poppers

If you haven't seen the awesome poppers on the FLY FISHING AND TYING OBSESSED blog then check it out. If you are a regular reader of my blog then you will know that I mostly tie small flies for trout, but these poppers looked so cool that I had to tie myself a few.

These are not quite up to the same quality or standard but they sure are pretty.

The above two flies were tied on a #8 hook, and the below photo is just to compare them to the normal flies I tie.

POPPER SBS

POPPER

MATERIALS

Hook: Mustad C68S

Head: Foam

Tail: Ostrich herl and flash
Eyes: Stick on
Legs: Grazy legs
Hackle: Olive

STEP 1

 I use some foam that I got from a tackle shop. 

 I think the bait guys use it for putting inside bait to help it float.

                         STEP 2                               
Use your scissors or knife to shape the  foam and make a shalow indentation in the front of the foam.





                           STEP 3
Use thick needle to push a hole through the middle of foam for
where the hook must go through.

                          STEP 4
Push your hook through the hole and centre the foam.
I put some superglue on the hook shank to prevent
the foam from slipping or spinning

                                              STEP 5
Tie the foam down with your thread. You can now let your imagination run wild and colour the foam any colour that you want. I went for the polka dot look here, but it didn't turn out to great in the end. You can also colour it after your first coat of epoxy, but I like to do it now as the colour seeps into foam which to me looks better. If you want sharper colours then do it after the first coat of epoxy.

                                            STEP 6
Put on your stick on eyes and cover the foam in 5min epoxy and let dry.

                                           STEP 7
Thake a mix colour of ostrich herl and flash and tie in as a tail. You can off course substitute the herl for any thing you like.

                                         STEP 8
Tie down 3 piece of the ostrich herl and wind forward around the hook shank.

                                        STEP 9
Tie in your hackle of choice and wind forward and secure. Whip finish at this point and cut of thread.

                                       STEP 10                                         
Poke a hole slightly to the back and below the eyes. Stick your threader through and insert some crazy legs into the threader. Pull through and center the legs. I pull the legs slightly to much to one side and the add a drop or two of super glue before centering the legs again.

FINISHED FLY