Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Blockhead Popper Conclusion

Nope...its definitely NOT the last time I will be using these.  They are fun to make and they CATCH FISH.  I just don't know how much more I can really say about them after this post.  So...the "Conclusion" part of the title just means I won't belabor the issue further.  Do expect future mentions of them and picture of them in fish's mouths, though.

I tied up some more blockhead poppers.  I tied 2 larger ones on Umpqua/Tiemco 8089 #6 hooks...those bass-style ones that are ginormous for their stated size.  I also tied up a couple more on the #10 size hooks of the same style.

Last night I visited 3 new-to-me ponds in my town.  Yes, and there really are even MORE that I still haven't visited in the past 13 years of living in this town!  :)  Can you believe it??  Life is good.

I fished all night with the larger size blockhead popper.  Since I recently broke my favorite 6wt rod, I was using a fast-action 7 wt rod to cast/fish these.

The first pond had a VERY WIDE and solid ring of floating algae around the edge of the pond.  I probably made 5 casts total, caught a bluegill on that larger popper.

Next pond, resulted in one 11" bass caught, and I missed a pair of great strikes from something I feel was larger.  Disappointing result from that pond.

The third pond gave up at least 5 nice bass in the 14"-16" range (guesstimate...I didn't really measure any of them).  They hit very aggressively, and fought well.  That was FUN!




A couple of the bass even struck, got off without being hooked, and then struck another time or two on follow-up casts back to the same spots before getting caught!  You can't always count on the fish being THAT aggressive!

Those #6 poppers were noticeable more difficult to cast than the #10's.  I think I will go back to using the #10's for the immediate future, but I will keep some of the bigger ones with me at all times, in case they want the bigger mouthful.

4 comments:

  1. Dave, this is just an amazing story about how a little creativity can go a long way. Really like the looks of those Blockheads. Of course, I see Chartreuse, again!

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    1. That bright chartreusy-green color is da BOMB for Largemouth Bass. They can't leave it alone! :)

      As far as the creativity...the Blockhead-style popper design was created by others. I just wanted to tie some and test them to see if they worked well for my situations.

      This has already been a good year for catching bass on flies for me. I've already pretty much caught more bass this year than in any one of the 5 previous years. And many of them have been decent-sized! :)

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  2. I've seen good deals on flip-flops at the dollar stores.

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    1. We've tried those. They work pretty well, and the colors are great...can't beat the price! The foam is slightly softer than on flipflops from other places...the only issue I've had with this softer foam is it more difficult to thread the foam over the hook eye and onto the shank, even after making a hole ahead of time with a bodkin. Just a minor issue. They definitely DO catch fish! :)

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