Fly Tying Group: At the Vise
Backer Rod Popper
Al and Gretchen Beatty

(first published Winter 2006 Issue of the Flyfisher; first posted July 28, 2010; last updated August 8, 2010)

Introduction

Today we are taking all of you in a different direction. The general theme for this issue of the FlyFisher is striper fishing and quite frankly we’ve only fished for that species in fresh water a couple of times and never in the salt. There is no way we can pass ourselves off as experts in catching stripers but we are fairly good fly dressers and do tie a lot of poppers for the bass in the waters near our Idaho home. Therefore we present here today an inexpensive popper style equally effective in fresh or saltwater environments.

Before tying the fly we need to take a moment and give the backer rod design credit where it is due. Tim Paxton, a fellow federator from California, sent us several such patterns for Fly Pattern Encyclopedia published in 2000. His patterns were designed for use in saltwater but it didn’t take us long to figure out they would also do a great job on freshwater fish as well. The best thing about the design was its low cost per unit. In the past we either spent a lot of time shaping balsa wood/cork with a Dremel tool or purchased preformed heads; one was costly in time and the other in dollars. Tim’s design was a fast tie and cost just a few pennies per fly.

It’s hard to keep a good idea down and it wasn’t long before we introduced our east coast customers to the backer rod design. They in turn introduced them to a variety of fish including striped bass. And those east coast stripers loved them just as much as if they were one of the more expensive patterns.

So, what is backer rod? It’s the round foam insulation used to fill voids around windows during the installation process. It comes in several sizes but the only colors we’ve found so far are gray and white. That’s OK because they accept water-based craft paints really well so color isn’t an issue. We thank our good friend Ron Pugsley for that idea. The foam is available at most building supply businesses like Home Depot or Lowe’s. A lifetime supply costs less than twenty dollars. So get yourself a coil of backer rod and let’s tie this fun fly.

Materials

Hook: Saltwater, sizes 2/0 to 4

Thread: Red, color of choice

Popper head: Section of backer rod

Eyes: Stick on, gold and black

Coating: Craft paint/glue, Aqua Flex

Tail: Bucktail, flanked by four feathers, color of choice

Hackle: Two part, contrasting colors

Step 1: Cut a piece of backer rod about half as long as the hook shank. Impale the foam cylinder over the point then place the hook in the vise. Slide the foam forward to meet the hook eye. Use single strand floss bound to the back part of the foam cylinder to anchor it in place and also provide a taper back on the popper head. When we slipped the foam forward we added some crazy glue to the hook shank to further facilitate anchoring it in place. We like to make several dozen at a time up to this stage then prepared the head in the next step.

Step 2: Coat the head with any water based craft paint/glue. We used Ross Craft Glitter Glue on the illustrated fly. After coating the head place it in a rotating dryer to cure. We allowed our fly to dry over night but follow the directions on the bottle you use. Return the fly to the vise, coat the head with Aqua Flex (or other clear water based varnish), and place the stick on eyes. Return the unfinished head to the rotating dryer. We coated the illustrated popper head three times before continuing with the fly’s construction.

Step 3: Return the popper head/hook to the vise and attach the tying thread behind the popper head. Select a length of white bucktail and tie it to the hook shank to form a part of the tail that is equal in length to the complete hook.

Step 4: Top the first part of the tail with a second contrasting color – we used red to better match the head. We adjusted the length so the red hair was slightly longer than the white.

Step 5: Tie on a tail flank using four cape feathers. We used the beautifully marked Whiting hen cape feathers on this fly but any color combination would be appropriate. Also, the feather could have been tied splay style but we elected to tie them streamer wing style on the illustrated fly.