Poppers

Poppers were my gateway drug to fly fishing. Although I have added (many) other types of flies to my arsenal in years since, poppers remain my favorite fly for warm water fish.

My introduction to poppers came decades ago on grandpa's farm pond in Iowa. Here, thanks to the magic of the interwebs, is what that spot looks like today. Gone are the house and barn and most of the outbuildings that I remember.

The farm was one of my favorite places. Summer visits there were idyllic, with me having free rein to roam pretty much at will. Usually though, most of my time was spent at the pond. Aside from the cranky bull grandpa had that shared the pasture with the pond, it was a pretty safe place for a youngster. Grandma's kitchen window looked toward the pond, and that was as close as adult supervision came most of the time.



Dad had a fly rod. It was a fiberglass rod, equipped with an  "Oren-O-Matic" reel. None of us really knew how to use the rod very well. But for a kid who didn't have the attention span to stare mindlessly at a red and white bobber for more than five minutes, fly fishing was perfect.  The activity of casting and then working the bug to make it gurgle and pop vs bobber fishing with bait was my salvation - and probably dad's as well.

The poppers we used were not fancy spun and stacked deer hair bugs. These were purchased for pocket change  at the hardware store in town. Yes kids, back then there were few stand alone-sporting goods stores, especially in south central Iowa farm country.

Most of the time, poppers were displayed on a piece of cardboard, stuck in rows.



These were hard body poppers, mostly designed for panfish (though the bass in our pond were blissfully ignorant of this). Some of the bugs might be sold in an assortment pack in hard plastic containers or individually in small plastic bags.



The costlier poppers were made of balsa wood, but we bought the cheaper ones made of cork. Reinforced with layers of paint (including the hook eye), the cork was somewhat impervious to fish teeth, at least for a while. The feathers were usually  lost first, but sometimes the hook pulled out of the cork, likely due to my horsewhip casting style. I had no leaders, just a length of 12 pound monofilament jam -knotted to the end of the flyline, so rarely were flies lost by breaking off the line.

We had no flyboxes, so the poppers resided in dad's tackle box, alongside Hula Poppers, Jitterbugs, and Lucky13 lures.



I had enough ability to cast these flies just beyond the mat of moss and cattails that seemed to always guard the south end of the pond. Thankfully, many panfish and bass were immune to my lack of style and sophistication. Evenings were the most productive time, and I spent many of them dueling with big pugnacious bluegills. My casting became more frantic as the sun dove to the western horizon, a trait I retain to this day.

I often still fish poppers when it isn't logical to do so. First and last light are the best times for poppers. On bright sunny afternoons streamers fished deep are usually more effective. But I have arrived at a place in life where fishing in a fashion I enjoy is more important than the number of fish I fool.

So if you see me on the water in the heat of the day, casting poppers and fishless, just smile and wave. Don't be offended if I don't return either gesture. It may look like fishing, but it is much more.

Some people are tethered to the past by visits to graveyards.  My tether has a simple cork popper at the end, propelled by the felt rhythm of an old glass rod.

Comments

Jim Clarke said…
Magnificent, Mark.

Jim

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