So in my search for a way to make very large pike flies suspend, I came across some foam ear plugs. While sitting here experimenting I have also decided that they are just about the perfect size for a popper body as well, they color easily with a sharpie, and they are easy to trim. I am thinking just add some silly legs a presto, cheap fast poppers. I am thinking I can do these for well under a buck.
flyfishgeek
I have done this as well. What I learned is it depends on the foam the pluggs are made of. If the cells of the foam are open you will need to seal them. I liked the yellow ones that are smooth on the out side. I also found that if you coat them with a lite coat of epoxy they are more durable and it seals the foam. Just be carefull what glue you use to attach them to the hook as some glues will cause the foam to melt.
Do you have kids? My kids used to have these foam blocks and foam letters from when they were very young. Kept all of those. A few years ago, started working on some poppers with them. Take a coppper tube with sharpened edges or something that can cut a cylinder and you can cut out different sizes. From there, you can do what you want. I have an old dremel type tool that I attached to the cylindar, would spin it, and use a emery board (for fingernaisl) on it to shape it. Can make cool divers with it that way too, or shape the back end of the popper to be more tapered. I haven't made many in awhile, but it was fairly easy to do, even for a novice tyer like me.
Came across this blog on pike flies. The material he used seemed interesting, but it was from the UK.
http://pikeflyfishingarticles.blogspot.com/2009/03/ballydoona-bomber.html
http://pikeflyfishingarticles.blogspot.com/2009/03/ballydoona-bomber.html
UPDATE: I finally fished my simple popper today. Let me just say that I am very impressed. First off, it casted like a dream, popped like a champ, never water logged. I cheated and just used rabbit for the tail and it is prone to fouling on the hook, this is easily fixed by using some stiffer feathers and silly legs. Problem #2, I did not choose my hook wisely enough, it needs to be a VERY wide gap hook, I got hits but could never set the hook, after looking at the fly I decided it was the hook and not just me.
I like the idea of the rabbit tail - but I can totally see how it would be fouling the hook cos it's so floppy.
I remember something about using a hard mono 'spike' to keep that from happening in a streamer pattern that used a long strip of rabbit - I'm almost thinking if you could use an adhesive like softex or something like this to glue the 'leather' side of the rabbit strip to some hard (like 30-40# hard saltwater) mono that might do the trick.
Might try a jig hook as well - they tend to have a bit of a wider gap, and definitely longer shank. And most of 'em are designed for bass rigging anyway!
I remember something about using a hard mono 'spike' to keep that from happening in a streamer pattern that used a long strip of rabbit - I'm almost thinking if you could use an adhesive like softex or something like this to glue the 'leather' side of the rabbit strip to some hard (like 30-40# hard saltwater) mono that might do the trick.
Might try a jig hook as well - they tend to have a bit of a wider gap, and definitely longer shank. And most of 'em are designed for bass rigging anyway!
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