Popper dressing

[Bruce Tomaselli]

Is there a place I can get some ideas on how to finish off my bluegill poppers? I have some bodies glued on, but I'm not sure how to finish them. I did get an idea already from this site. Are there any particular feathers of colors that are preferred by bluegills?

[dick tabbert]

I think that will be with what your popper colors are. My favorites are froggy green, chartreuse, white and black.

[Mark Stine]

Fill the slot with plastic wood, base coat with some primer I use Gesso on foam poppers, super glue on wood and cork, Paint it! usually takes one to six coats, the bottles of acrylic paint, about $1 each at the Walmart, are fine.  Topcoat with a clearcoat.

Check out some of these threads:

http://www.flytyingforum.com

and search forums for poppers

orange, yellow, silver and blue in no particular order are my favorite colors. 

Google poppers and click on images top left of page to see lots of pictures of poppers

typical topcoats are various epoxies, sally hansens hard as nails or some other clear nail polish, uv cured resins, Delta ceramcoat interior/exterior varnish. loon hard head, flex coat, my personal favorite right now is "envirotex lite" a pour on slow drying epoxy; however, it does require the use of a turner or some way to keep repositioning the popper to keep the epoxy from sagging.  Most epoxies will require this except the 5 min epoxies which aren't really very suitable topcoats. Devcon has a clear 2 ton epoxy.

[dick tabbert]

Mark does Gesso not  soften up when wet for awhile I know it is waterbase but now that I think about it I guess 5 or 6 coats of paint should take care of that.

[Bill Purmort]

Get a couple different color calf tails to lay down a tail that will hold up the rear of the hook white black orange and yellow are good. Once you get that tied on the hook shank tie in a hackle feather of a contrasting color and wind it around the shank and over the thread you used to secure the calf tail.

[jim cosgrove]

love to see the calf tail poppers.i was using deer hair and still do,also use hackle tips splayed out.my poppers are very small size 12.the deer hair and hackle tips look best in my opinion but also get torn up pretty bad and only hold up for a dozen fish or so.on the recomendation of david eitutis i am trying goose biot.i tie my poppers backwards,i dress them then slide the foam popper head onto the fly,so i can't have too much bulk or it deforms the popper head.so the calf tail may not work.i am currently attempting to carve some bugs out of strip balsa.let you all know how it goes.

[Greg McWilliams]

Bruce, I like to use MARIBOU, it moves in the water just sitting there!!!!!!! Rubber legs thru the body work really good and also adds movement to the popper!!!!!! Bites alot of the time occur when the POPPER is sitting still rubber leg and maribou are still moving!!!!

[dick tabbert]

Thank you Greg for verifying that. I found last time I went out to the pond I would throw the rubber spider out and twitch it and they weren't interested. Next time I would throw it out and let it set. I could see the gill come up and check it out then pretty soon bang one would hit it. I did have quit a few hits and misses though they just didn't take it far enough.

[Greg McWilliams]

Dick, It is a constant learning process!!!!!!! Lots of good stuff here, try it all and see what works best for YOU!!!!! 

Oh, I haven't forgot your legs Dick!!!!!!!!!

[Greg McWilliams]

Follow this GUY and MAKE THEM LOOK LIKE THAT!!!!

http://bigbluegill.com/photo/finished-poppers?context=user

[Greg McWilliams]

These are neat poppers BRUCE!!!!!!! http://bigbluegill.com/photo/dsci0004?context=user

[Bryan W]

Check out this site.  This guy does some amazing things with his poppers....

 

http://gotflyfishing.blogspot.com/search/label/Fly%20Tying