Blockhead Popper Field Test, 7-17-2014

In my previous post, I showed the first blockhead-style flyrod popper I tied.

I went flyfishing after dinner last night for a couple hours.  When I arrived at one of the local ponds, I made my first cast with the other foam-head style popper that I've been having good success with this year.
I cast to an area where I've lost a really nice bass on 2 previous trips to this pond this year.  The first one broke the line, the second one threw the popper.  Well, last night the fish broke my line again.  10 lb test tippet!!!  The fish probably is 5lbs or less, so I'm not sure why it keeps breaking my line.  Maybe it has genetically mutated giant sharp fangs.  HA!  Unfortunately, I'm not sure how many more times I can trick it into hitting a topwater!  Its gonna get wise.

The good news is, my popper floated to the surface maybe 10 seconds later.  The bad news is the wind blew it farther from shore, and I was unable to retrieve it.  Maybe I'll find it later this year.

Anyway, so then I tied on the blockhead-style popper.  I like it.  Casts better than I expected given its shape, and that square flat face gives a better pop than the other style.  I can't argue with all the bass I've caught on that other style, though.

The first fish to take the blockhead popper was a bluegill.  What was she thinking??

The next fish was a truly giant Sunfish.  I suspect it is a Hybrid Sunfish, but it really has strong Green Sunfish features.  It measured 9.5":

Then I caught 3 bass on it:

The third one was the biggest one (picture above), an while trying to drag it to shore through the algae mats, my TFO BVK 6 wt. rod broke in 2 places!  I'm BUMMED!  Fortunately, TFO has a Lifetime "No-Fault" Warranty.  So, I'll need to ship the pieces back along with $25 to get replacement sections or a new rod.

There were grass carp around, so I went back to my car and got my switch rod.  I put on a floating grasshopper pattern and spent the last hour trying for Grass Carp…even put some blades of grass and weed leaves on the hook, but they would look but not hit.  Actually they might have hit once or twice, but they didn’t submerge the hopper for very long, so I never set the hook.  I caught one more bass and a crappie on the hopper.

Grass Carp sometimes seem to be like Geese.  They always seem to have one “sentry” at the surface keeping watch, while the others are feeding.  There was a BIG one with his back, fin, and top of his tail out of the water, and he sat or slowly went back and forth in front of me pretty much for the entire hour I fished for them.