Poppers and Pork Chops

The recent fly swap went well. So well in fact it gave me motivation to try some new types of flies. I'm going to the Shenandoah Valley next week, I decided I'd tie some poppers for smallmouth.

I ran across this Bass Popper Tutorial on the blog Proven Patterns. The tutorial made this look easy enough and I have been thinking about tying poppers for awhile. Even though the tutorial says to use cork I decided to try foam. After getting everything I realized why these flies cost so much. You always think some how you will come out ahead when you tie flies yourself. It never seems to work out that way. Especially for me. I never take into consideration the time it takes to tie a fly. Each one of these took awhile. I found out some interesting things along the way.

The tutorial instructs you to heat up the bodkin then stab it through the head of the fly. I forgot what melting Styrofoam smells like. I was instantly brought back to the days of throwing a cup into a camp fire. Although the memory was fond the smell is horrible and I had to get up a few times. Knowing the fumes are toxic kind of bugs me even though the level I was breathing in probably wouldn't do that much damage. Once getting the legs threw, I painted the fly with sharpie markers. I think Sharpie read this persons blog before selling their products. Because they didn't have a set that had just the three colors I needed. Black, light and dark green. You either had to buy each color separately or buy a set that has colors you probably will never use. Or you will use them just because you want to get your moneys worth. I have to admit coloring the flies was probably the funnest part. After allowing the marker to dry I moved on to applying a seal. The tutorial says you should use Hard as Nails and explains if you don't let the marker dry the ink will smear. I'm not sure if it was because I was using foam instead of cork but the smearing seemed to be based on how much Hard as Nails was on the brush. The more liquid the more chance you were going to smear the ink. The first fly I did that was designed to be kind of a sneaky pete pattern did smear and I think it looks good. Some of the other poppers the ink smeared even though I was trying my best to not let that happen. I still like how the flies came out I just with they looked a little sharper. The last part was tying the tail. The tutorial never goes into how or what materials you should use to tie the tail. I googled poppers and looked on youtube to find ideas for tying the tail. It looked as though you could use anything. I mostly went with bucktail, flashabou, rabbit strip and marabou.

From Summer2011

I'm debating putting rubber legs on the fly in the top right. I like the look of it without them but I think it would look even better with them.

My mother-in-law is from Louisiana. When she goes back home to visit she always brings Cajun delicacies back home for us. I love most of them but there is one in particular that I look forward too. It is called a stuffed pork chop. You can cook it many ways but I recently found it's great coming right off the grill.What is it stuffed with? Oh just a Cajun seasoned meatball. Genius!It takes about two days to digest it but it's more than worth it.