Fishing poppers for trout is not exactly new, not exactly traditional either. It's not a magic-catch-all-the-fish-in-the-lake method, but it's great fun and sometimes popping one of these small bastard across the surface brigs up a few trout when everything else fails.
I need a few black ones in the box, which is why this step-by-step is done with a black popper - I also use, yellow, white, chartreuse and olive, which are all effective colors. I can't really say if one is better than the other under certain circumstances - sometimes they work, sometimes they don't :-)
It's not exactly a hard fly to tie - hell, it's hardly a tied fly :-). Tie in tail and flash and rubber and push on a popper head of choice, and you're done :-). You can glue on eyes, you can drill small holes in the head and thread rubberlegs through etc, but the basic tie is this:
Small Popper
Hook: Light wire, large gape - here Mustad C47SD size 4.
Thread: Uni 8/0 - color to match.
Tail: Marabou and Gliss 'n' Glow flash on the sides.
Legs:Rubber - here chartreuse and black barred.
Body/head: Rainy's PeeWee popperhead.
This is the PeeWee popperhead from Rainy's - there are other interesting models from size "very small" to size "very large" for pike poppers and big saltwater poppers.
The front is semihollow, so to speak, in lack of a better word, and if you tie in (glue on) semi-hollow face forward, you'll get a noisy little popper that splashes and dives. If you tie in with the tapered end facing forward, you'll get more of a sliding action from the fly - both can be effective.
Tie in a clump of marabou - keeping it short(ish) reduces the number of "short strikes", and tie ina few strands of flash on both sides of the tail. Tie in a piece of rubber on both sides of the tail and cut off excess rubber.
Now you're ready for the popperhead - put on a dab of superglue on the hookshank, and push the head in place with a quick, firm hand - be careful - the glue bites straight away on the rubber - done!
Happy Poppin' :-)
Lars Chr. Bentsen (Viking Lars) (lars@sexyloops.com) is a medieval archeologist flyfisherman - possibly the first. When not plundering, he either flyfishes the salt "concentrating at all times" or else investigates ruined castles, abbeys and burial mounds (this is true-life stuff). He is an FFF Certified (or at least certifiable) Master Flycasting Instructor and has a bag fetish. Lars lives with Pauline and their daughters, Anna and Elvira, and they try to live with him.