I got tired of buying bass poppers at the store for $4-5 only to have them get destroyed or lost within 24 hours... and by that I mean, I bought 2 of them and thought, "hey these can't be that hard to make". Since then, I've been making my own and my wallet thanks me.
I've found that online there are not many detailed descriptions of how to make your own bass poppers so I've put this together to hopefully help you figure out exactly how to go about making your own.
The Glitterbug (name courtesy of Rich), is a basic styrofoam bodied bass popper. To make it more durable than a painted popper, I've decided to epoxy the whole thing. This has allowed me to use the same popper over the course of several days of fishing while withstanding tons of abuse. So not only are they cheaper than store bought ones, they're also extremely tough.
The materials you'll need:
- closed cell white styrofoam (I got a 1 inch thick disk of it from Michael's for real cheap)
- any color glitter you want
- hackle colored to match the color of glitter used, I've been using hen hackle
- rubber legs (I prefer using white legs for all of my poppers but feel free to mix it up)
- hooks: I prefer using Eagle Claw plain shanks in size 4 (they're a lot cheaper than orvis hooks, but work just as well)
- 5 minute epoxy: I use Z-poxy
- pad of post-it notes
- bendable razor blades: I looked all over for these. I finally found them at Walmart in the shaving section. The brand I got was called Personna Double Edge
- toothpicks (to stir and apply the epoxy)
- heavy wire (I've been using old guitar strings) or large sewing needles
Instructions:
First cut out a piece of styrofoam that's rounded on top and flat on the bottom. I do this by taking the razor, bending it, and cutting out a piece off of a flat side of the styrofoam. I've found the best way to get it to be cut evenly and smoothly is to line up the razor where you want the cut and then pressing down on it with something else (I use my pad of post-it notes).
I then taper the front of the head and the back so that it looks like below:
Next I carefully push the head of the hook through the foam near the bottom. So that it ends up looking like so...
Next step is to epoxy the face and belly of the popper. To do this, put an equal amount of the z-
poxy hardener and resin on the post-it note pad and mix them together. For this part, I don't like to put any coloring because I'd like to think that it makes it look more like a frog without it. While doing this I make sure to put plenty of epoxy on the hook shank and shimmy the head forward. This ensures that, once the epoxy hardens, the head will remain stationary. I put enough on to successfully cover the belly and the face and then let the epoxy dry while keeping it moving (I don't have a rotating fly drier quite yet... I'll probably make one out of a microwave motor in the near future.) While this is drying, I'll usually start making others so that when it comes to epoxying the rest of the head, I'll have several ready.
Next step, I pour out more z-poxy onto a post-it note pad and mix it well before adding a decent amount of glitter. (Note: if you add too much it gets very clumped up and your fly will look like some kind of lumpy mutant. Play it safe and add a little at first, mix it in and see if you think the epoxy can hold more glitter.)
Then put this over the body of the popper making sure that it meets up with the edges of the clear epoxy from the belly and face. This takes a couple tries to get good at while making sure that the end result isn't uneven or ends up with too much epoxy.
Once it starts to dry up, you'll have to move quickly to put the legs in before the epoxy gets too hard to work with. Basically, once I can touch the epoxy and it doesn't stick to my fingers I can start putting the legs in. To do this I take a large needle or a tough wire (like an old guitar string and make a sharp bend in it). I then push this needle/bent wire through the side of the popper and out the other side. At this point it'll look like this:
Now all you need to do is thread a leg through the body as seen below:
Next, just repeat the same procedure to put in another set of legs (unless you're making a smaller one, in which case, only one set of legs should be enough).
Once the legs are in the right position, I'll usually put some head cement where they enter the epoxy to make sure they don't slip out. Trim the legs and then start a thread behind the head and bring it back down the curve of the hook a little ways. I like to build up a little bit of a ball of thread at the farthest back point because I think it helps to splay the hackle out better.
Take two tips of hackle (or only one if you're making smaller poppers) and tie them in on one side of the hook making sure the bend in them is away from the hook. Repeat the same thing on the other side of the hook with two more.
Finally, take one more hackle and tie in a decently long piece with the bend of the feather pointing towards the back of the hook. Like so:
Wrap the hackle forward with several turns and then tie off and trim the hackle down so that it is just a little longer than the space between the hook shank and point. Whip finish to tie off the thread and then just clean things up! Here's the final product:
I hope you find this helpful. It you have any questions or need clarification, feel free to contact us.
As for how to fish these, just throw then out near the stream shoreline where the water is from 1-3 feet deep preferably under some kind of tree cover. After about a 5 seconds, if you haven't had a bite yet, pull in about a solid foot of line giving the popper some action, making some sound and vibrations that will be sure to grab the attention of hungry bass.
