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.

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.