fun with poppers

[jbird]

I have been experimenting with buiding my own poppers...tube fly poppers. Are tube fly poppers used at all? It seemed like a pretty slick plan in my teeny little mind. I have been shaping poppers out of balsa. I can only find cube mould in the craft stores around here. The only balsa dowl available is 1/4" and smaller. What Ive done is ran the cube mould thru a table saw to get a shallow slot for the tube. Then I chuck the moulding up in my drill and lathe it into dowl with coarse sandpaper. I put the dowl on my chop saw at 15 degrees and chopped them into sections. Then I whittled the sections to shape with an ezacto and sanded them to final shape. It sounds like a lot of work, but the balsa is so sensitive, it's a snap! I put like 5 bodies in a row on a length of tubefly tubing and colored them with paint pens. I applied a thin coat of 5 min epoxy, all 5 at once, and slowly rotated them like little roticery chickens. The tube is pemanently epoxied into the slot . I cut the tubing at the front and back of each body and, voila! It takes about as long to make as a moderately complicated fly that requires epoxy. But it really saved time to line them up on the tubing and assembly-line them.
My thinking is that the hook being seperated from the body will offer more hookups and less damage to the popper from chewing and whatnot. I then tie up hooks with a skirt of flash to use with them.

OK. So my question is. Does this seem logical? Will they work? Should I slam on the brakes before I waste anymore time and energy on this project? The Idea hit me so hard that I just blasted off and started making them. I havnt even tested them in water yet except the sink to see if they float upright.
I would apreciate any input from you guys who like poppers.
Jay

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Pretty cool.

I have seen really big tube poppers for sailfish but not black bass size to now.

They should work great.

Very nice looking work too.

[Darian]

Jay,.... Articulated poppers have been around for a long time. Tom Nixon used to make them (I don't believe he's with us any longer ).

At any rate, your idea appears to be a logical extension of his idea. Yours appears to be a practical approach, the poppers look very good, you should try 'em soon and give us a report....

[Adam Grace]

I like the idea! I will not be carving and sanding balsa myself. I'm more lazy and tend to use formed foam but I like your idea of using the tube. If the hook or feathers get demolished by bass simply replace the hook not the whole popper, very nice!

Good luck with the poppers!

[Hairstacker]

Very NICE Jay! Especially like that frog pattern one, second from the bottoom. . . . Really looking forward to hearing out they work out.

[jbird]

Adam

I got a 4' length of the balsa for less than $1.50. So I was able to cut around 20+ heads out of it. I couldnt find a foam dense enough at any of the craft stores. I even bought a crab trap bouy for $5. It was the densest foam I could find. It just fell apart when I cut it though. I was looking at some of those BIG salmon bobbers, that looks like the right kind of foam but too expensive. To tell you the truth, I'm not exactly sure why I've decided to whittle them rather than buy the foam popper blanks....anal I guess.

Thanks everyone for the interest and encouragement. We have pretty limited bass fishing around here (that I know of) so I am mainly thinking saltwater. I bet these flies would do well in a skip jack blitz. I think ladyfish might find them amusing too....who knows what else.

My next project is to find some bigger balsa to make some sailfish/dorado heads.

Jay

[Bob Scheidt]

Very nice poppers! I have never heard of a paint pen. You must have some art talent, those paintjobs look like there is some art talent there.
Way to go, you could also make some sliders, small in front and bigger toward the back.
Very nice!
Bob

[jbird]

Bob

Thanks for the compliments. I would like to study different popper shapes to achive different comotions on the surface.

I get paint pens at the local craft store. They are hollow body pens that actually have a mixing bearing inside and you shake them up. they have a felt tip that is springloaded or something and you press it up and down on a blotter or scratch pad to fill the felt tip with the paint. They are oilbase and some are metalic with glitter. Our craft store here in medford has about 100 colors and they run about $4 a pop. I have a bunch of sharpies too that work great for general colors. Everything gets coated with epoxy so it is quite permanant.

I do have a little ability in the art department. I have even put food on the table during hard times, getting cartoons and whatnot published in magazines and papers. I really have fun creating stuff like this. I am also a finish carpenter by trade, have been my entire adult life. So, I guess these poppers are a perfect combo of woodwork, art and fishing fanatasism (is that a word)...maybe I could go into business.lol

Jay

[Bob Scheidt]

Thanks for the paint pen info. I may have to look into that. My fishing partner is also a finish carpenter. Bright guy, custom homes, he also carves fish and small birds.

[Gregg]

Tell you what Jay, if you'd like, I'll buy a handful to take down to Mexico this April. Poppers are a blast down there and they get chewed up quick. Let me know what you might sell them for, and I'd be down to pick up a half-dozen or so. Blues/silvers work the best. PM me if you can part with a few.

-Gregg