Tube popper

[Philster]

Someone on the salt side asked about converting a Miyawaki Popper to tube. This actually isn't a conversion, but here is a down scaled version of one of my mexico patterns that I tie for the sound. The idea came about when I started tying tube file 4 or 5 years ago. A decade before that, a Panga Captain pointed out a Sail Fish and asked If I had any poppers. It was a 2 week long tour of duty and I didn't have any left after handing them out daily. He cut off my fly, punched a whole in a plastic bottle cap, slid that up the leader and voila! Instant popper!

So here it is. This is one of my basic sound baitfish ties left with an extra long tube extension. I'm not claiming any originilaty here. This has been done forever on the east coast. In fact Bob Popovics does it with regular hooks and doesn't glue his Banger heads on, letting him convert them from surface to subsurface by slipping them on or off.

[Steve Rohrbach]

Phil, I always carry some dinks in my fly box for just his reason. I like your baitfish. What is the material? The multicolor must really light up in the water. Thanks for sharing. Steve

[obiwankanobi]

I like the popper you provided and the pattern looks great. I prefer to tie any and all my poppers using yak hair, just like what Miyawaki uses since the motion is unparallel compared to synthetic hair substitutes.

[Philster]

Phil, I always carry some dinks in my fly box for just his reason. I like your baitfish. What is the material? The multicolor must really light up in the water. Thanks for sharing. Steve

The material is "kinky fibre". They went out of business 6 or 8 years ago I think. Still up to my knees in the stuff from the commercial days. I assume slinky fibre is the same thing. Both come out of South Africa.

My basic blend, which works everywhere I've tried it, east, west, north, south (kinda backs up my color doesn't matter theory, as opposed to my color selection genius) is 35% olive, 35% percent grey, 15% blue, 15% yellow (substitute chartreuse if you want). those are rough numbers but the point is twice as much olive and grey as blue and yellow. That's my dark minnow. For my light minnow I add another slight pinch of yellow which lightens things up like you wouldn't believe. Flash is good old rainbow crystal flash.

[Willie Bodger]

How about blending, how do you accomplish a good blend? Do you cut the materials, hold them together and then comb thru them?

[cabezon]

Hi Phil,

That is a great idea. By switching the orientation of the foam, you can have a loud popper or a more subtle slider. That will give me something to think about.

Steve

[Philster]

How about blending, how do you accomplish a good blend? Do you cut the materials, hold them together and then comb thru them?


Well, it's up to you. I generally cut full lengths of materials from the hanks, blend them, and then cut "a fly's worth" from the long section. crystal flash is shorter than most other synthetics so much like the hotdog/bun dilema, you come up with your own way.

For blending, you can either lay the materials down on each other, and repeatedly "cut the deck", which can be the only way to get some stiffer thicker stuff together, or you can use a "bone" or "horn" comb. plastic combs can generate static electricity with some synthetics, which combined with "fuzzy" (worn rough skin on fingers and thumbs) tier's fingers can slow you down. If I'm tying 2 or 3 quick ones, I cut the deck. for serious sessions, I'll comb it. But like I said, it's up to you.