Panfish On The Fly

For those following along with my adventures in making poppers using synthetic cork, I have found a way to effectively deal with the fuzz left behind by sanding this material. Several of you mentioned in one of my first posts on the subject that applying thin CA glue and then sanding would leave a smooth finish. The technique works extremely well!

The first photo is a finished size 8 popper for panfish. The end result is a smooth, glossy finish. The second is the popper body, which was coated with the glue, allowed to dry, and then sanded down with an emery board. The last photo shows the "fuzz left behind after sanding, an example of the problem the CA glue fixed.

I could get a smoother finish with fine sandpaper if I wanted to, but this process took seconds instead of minutes. My goal here is to quickly create fishable poppers to fill some holes in my boxes, not to make works of art.

Sorry, the photos are not of the best quality. A storm knocked out power today, and the natural light in my basement tying room sucks!

I have been enjoying working with synthetic cork for making popper, slider and bass bug bodies lately. It carves and sands easily and is absolutely bomb proof. This Gerbubble Bug is an old time bass bug that has always been one of my favorites.

One of the finished poppers from a carving session yesterday afternoon. Winston, my canine companion, wanted to give it a try as well. His techniques still need a little work.

The new JP Ross Fly Rods & Co. Phat Glass with a smallmouth themed real seat painted by Jeffrey Kimball. The Phat Glass is an S-Glass eight foot 8wt that combines incredible craftmanship and art to produce what has become one of my favorite fly rods for bass and other larger fish. Modern S-Glsss fiberglass is an amazing material, making the rod feel alive in your hands. It provides power to throw big bass bugs and pull big fish away from cover yet bends deeply under load for an immensely satisfying feeling when casting and fighting a fish. This is NOTHING like your grandfather’s fiberglass fly rod! Look for a Panfish On The Fly themed version coming soon or customize one just for you! 👍👍

Trolling a dragon fly nymph behind a float tube along a mid-lake w**d line produced some pretty pumpkinseed sunfish. With the spawn just about over a few days of unseasonably warm weather has pushed these fish out of the shallows and into deeper water.

While I normally tie warm water patterns at our fly tying meet ups like the one we had yesterday evening Tindall Road Brewery trout flies were on the menu for this event. I am gearing up to head off to Montana for a few weeks of trout fishing, and my trout boxes are pretty beat up after a busy guiding season. I have tied and fished the Iris Caddis for many years but never thought of using pheasant tail for the body until reading Craig Mattews and company’s new book Pheasant Tail Simplicity (highly recommend it!). I tied some for the first time last fall and they proved to be one of my most successful patterns this spring. Two dozen were added to the fly box this morning. The rush is on to fill the rest of the holes in the box before leaving!

Following on the success of the JP Ross Fly Rods/Panfish On The Fly collaboration, we are doing it again! This time, the focus will be on a different species. Stay tuned more info coming soon…

Earlier in the week the bass ponds called louder than the trout streams. Yesterday the trout stream’s voice came in stronger. It was a fine evening of brown trout sipping mayflies and the occasional caddis.

As I get older it gets harder to see the eye of smaller hooks, especially in the low light conditions of early mornings, late afternoons or shady river banks. Over the last two seasons I have been experimenting with large eye hooks from . These big eye hooks make it easy to tie on flies in any light. I have even been able to tie on a fly in complete darkness using a method shown to me years ago using your tongue (I know it sounds weird but it works). My first worry is that the extra large eyes would affect the performance of the fly. As it turns out there have been no such issues. The large eyes can even be painted, as in the case of this small woolly worm, to create a hot spot at the head of the fly. If you struggle tying on flies these hooks (and finished flies tied on them) may be worth looking into.