Foam Poppers, Fresh and Salt

Fulling Mill fly popper blanks

Foam poppers aren't our most used flies, but I thought it would be good fun to knock some up for Pike around here, but also some Bass when travelling south, and maybe some bigger trout on the smaller ones.

I am also heading to Sicily soon, where I hope they will get a fair bit of use!

I have played around with making some foam frogs out of thick green foam from rig winders, but I after some googling I came across the Fulling Mill fly popper blanks. I got a couple packs, the large saltwater, and X large freshwater patterns.

Fulling Mill freshwater popper X-large, with a marabou tail

Now the tricky part was finding a hook.. The gap that the hook can go in (seen in the right hand freshwater popper pic) is for very thin gauge wire, not the strength of hook I was planning on for big pike, and definitily not for Sicily!

So I got the dremel out and widened a few, which then meant I could tie in on a thicker gauge hook. I also tied in a gamechanger link (to be seen on a gamechanger post when I get them looking a bit tidier!) and then a short shank small hook, rather than a big heavy hook all the way through. I sealed them in with a little UV resin, and then coated them in clear UV resin for the white ones, and then a range of nail varnish colours. A quick marabou tail with a bit of flash, and they should be good to go! Hopefully they will feature in some reports soon!!

Fulling Mill saltwater popper Large, with a marabou tail