Foam Popper
By Elaine Cook
Here is a simple top water pattern, to go for those bass and bluegill. One of our members used this very successfully last year on the O'Connell-Bourdet Ranch fishout. (Forgive me for not remembering who gave it to me.)
Foam Popper
By Elaine Cook
Here is a simple top water pattern, to go for those bass and bluegill. One of our members used this very successfully last year on the O'Connell-Bourdet Ranch fishout. (Forgive me for not remembering who gave it to me.)
Hook: TMC 5263 size 10 or 12 (std wt 3XL)
Thread: 6/0 black
Tail: Grizzly chicken marabou (fluffy underfeathers)
Body: 3/16 inch thick white closed cell foam, marked with red and black marking pens.
Hackle: Black rooster
Legs: Rubber (translucent green with black or glitter specks)
1. Crimp barb.
2. Cut foam in the shape shown in the diagram.
3. Cut a slit lengthwise in the bottom of the foam, about halfway through the thickness.
4. Start thread behind eye, wrap in close turns to the end of the shank, tie off and cut thread.
5. Glue foam onto the top of the hook shank. The foam should be butted up against the eye with the shank in the slit you cut. Use super glue (cyanoacrylate) such as Krazy Glue or Zap-A-Gap.
6. Color the nose of the foam with the red marking pen. Make small red dots on the top, bottom and sides of the foam. Make three larger black dots on top and three on the bottom of the foam.
7. Restart the thread on the shank behind the body.
8. Tie a marabou feather in by its stem, just behind the foam body. The feather should be the length of the shank and mounted with the flat vertical (like a fish tail).
9. Select a hackle feather with stiff barbs and with barb length twice the hook gap.
10. Tie hackle in by the stem, tip to the rear and shiny side toward you.
11. Bring thread to the rear of the body.
12. Wrap the hackle forward to the rear of the body in four to six turns, tie off, trim excess feather and whip finish. Apply a drop of super glue to the whip finish, taking care not to get any on the hackle or tail feather.
13. Thread a five inch length of rubber leg material in a large needle, so that an equal amount of the leg material is on each side of the needle.
14. Starting on the side away from you, push the needle diagonally through the foam body, left rear to right front. Pull the rubber legs through until you have the same amount of leg material on each side. Cut the loop of leg material at the eye of the needle.
15. Repeat steps 13 and 14, starting the needle on the side closest to you and going from right rear to left front.
16. Tie up a bunch of these. You will lose quite a few in the reeds, and retrieving a snagged fly will put the fish down.