Small Bass Popper Fly - Fire Tiger Color - McFly Angler Fly Tying Tutorial

The most exciting way to fish for bass is with a popper. To watch them come up out of the water after a fly is absolutely exhilarating. Poppers however are not easy to make, but I think this video will help you learn how to make your own easy enough to be worth while trying. They do take a while to tie, but luckily, if you fish them right, you should not loose them. They stay durable through many fish strikes as well. In fact I have one popper that I have caught dozens of bass on, and I tied 4 years ago. It still is going strong without much damage at all. So tie up a few, and they should last you for years. Just do your best not to hang them up in a tree.
You really do want to coat the foam with resin. It will not only protect the colored finish you put on the foam, but it will also help keep the fly buoyant. Even foam can soak up water over time, so you need to insure that it doesn't. When selecting resin, you want to make sure that the resin is flexible. This Solarez Flex formula I used is perfect. I know there are some other brands that make some flexible resin, and you can use them, however I find the Solarez to work best. And when cured with a high powered light, like the one that Solarez sells, it will cure without any tackiness. Not many of the flexible resins can boast on these results.
I decided to color this one up with some bright fire tiger colors, which will work great for sunfish and bass. Being a smaller popper, I can catch some smaller mouthed fishes as well as large mouth bass. Smallmouth bass actually love these brighter colors, so this would be a perfect smallmouth river fly.
If you want some better priced hooks, check out the #200's from Risen Fly. The hook shank is a bit longer than the B10s that I used, which actually could benefit you here. You will want to drop down in hook size 1-2 sizes. It will give you more room to tie materials on in the back, and set the hook point further back on the fly to help with short hits. I always used to tie these with the b10s hooks however Im starting to reconsider this because I think for bass poppers, the 200's from Risen might be a better option, However its ultimately up to you.
As you all know, I work closely withwww.risenfly.com and they have offered every one of my subscribers a discount. So go to their shop, and type in "McFly" at checkout for 15% off of anything you buy on their site.
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Materials
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Hook: Gamakatsu B10S (size 4) - amzn.to/3S6Kbqc
Popper Head: Flymen Double Barrel bodies (Small/white) - amzn.to/3dCxxQK
Thicker Thread: Veevus 140 (chartreuse) - amzn.to/3BvsQRN
Thinner Thread: Veevus 6/0 (hot yellow) - amzn.to/3DH6vSV
Stabilizer: 25lb Mono - amzn.to/3d4uNLG
Glue: Loctite Ultragel - amzn.to/3Bv4TtO
Markers: Colored Sharpies (Black, Yellow) - amzn.to/3d1llso
Ad Markers (chartreuse, Cadmium Orange) - amzn.to/3TYuBOy
Wire: Lead Free Wire (size .030" or .035") - amzn.to/3d1lrAg
Resin: Solarez Flex - www.solarez.com/product/fly-t...
Eyes: Living Eyes (5mm, Ice) - amzn.to/3dxxd5I
Tail: Chickabou (chartreuse, and chartreuse grizzly) - amzn.to/3f7zwgi
Soft Hackle Feather - www.feather-craft.com/grizzly...
Soft Collar: Whiting American Label rooster Saddle (grizzly Chartreuse) - www.bearsden.com/product6760....
Legs: Bass Skirt (speckled chartreuse) - amzn.to/3RXKxix
Tools
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Vise: Renzetti Traveler - amzn.to/2t2FFmo
Bobbin: Stonfo Bobtec - amzn.to/2YWOf39
Scissors: Risen 4.5" Straight Hair - www.risenfly.com/collections/...
Whip finisher: Dr. Slick brass - amzn.to/2tGYwDW
Fly Tying Bench: Oasis Walnut Compact Bench - www.oasisbenches.com/oasis-be...
Disposable Paintbrush - amzn.to/3BFj4v9
UV Light: Solarez UV Cure (high output) - www.solarez.com/product/uv-cu...
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[@honeyholeangling]

Great tip with the mono!!

[@McFlyAngler]

Glad it helped.

[@jeanfrancoisgirard6899]

Wahouuuu merci beaucoup pour le partage et bonne santé à vous et à toute votre famille

[@charlieboutin3341]

Having great success last few weeks using frog patterns. Fall bite is on! Great video..Thanks Mcfly!

[@McFlyAngler]

Thank you, glad you liked the video. And yeah that’s awesome! Frog patterns are fun to fish

[@Swamp-Fox]

Awesome popper tying tutorial! Thanks!

[@McFlyAngler]

Glad you enjoyed it, thanks for the comment

[@davidleimeister5027]

What a great tutorial. You are a great teacher.

[@McFlyAngler]

Thank you sir! I appreciate the kind words. We all have gifts, God had given me the gift of filming I guess. Haha! I appreciate you.

[@AsianRedneck239]

What a beautiful popper!

[@McFlyAngler]

Thank you

[@MichaelDogan]

Well done! Looks great!

[@McFlyAngler]

Thank you.

[@PaintballShyguy]

Gorgeous popper 👍🏻

[@McFlyAngler]

Thank you

[@jasonhill1520]

Great work

[@McFlyAngler]

Thanks man

[@scottnock5241]

Very nice!!

[@McFlyAngler]

Thanks!

[@garybissell8449]

Brilliant thankyou❤

[@McFlyAngler]

Glad you like it

[@jerrystreeter4692]

Your flies are so artistic and functional. What weight rod would you use with this fly? My thought is an 8 wt based on a similar fly I’ve tied previously. Rest assured my fly was no near where as good as yours.

[@McFlyAngler]

Thank you. So this is a small one. I recently casted this same fly on a 5wt no problem. Check out my latest fishing video on Boerne lake. I started off casting this and that was a 5wt rod. Did pretty well and I got some decent distances. Like I said it’s a small popper. Larger ones for sure need an 8wt

[@Goober-pm8sz]

Know that I am pretty late so probably no response, but is it possible to just get everything in the video but make it smaller or bigger to make it versatile? Just wondering because I want to tie but I only have larger versions

[@McFlyAngler]

Yeah they make larger popper heads, go ahead and tie them larger for sure. I’d do a different tail though, but this also could work

[@davisracquet]

Instead of UV resin, can clear nail polish be used and then just wait an hour?

[@McFlyAngler]

I think probably yeah, but you will need a way for it to spin, or it will drip.

[@jeffjackson5331]

I really like these poppers you tied in this video and the one you recently tied in another video. Would this one work for sunfish too or would this be too big? Thank you for sharing with us bud.

[@McFlyAngler]

Thank you, this could work for large sunfish, I’d go with a smaller hook and the mini size popper head for more of a specific sunfish fly though. They do make these popper heads in a mini size.

[@jeffjackson5331]

@@McFlyAngler sweet! Thanks

[@jeffjackson5331]

@@McFlyAngler you are very welcome also