First Tracks

I know some people see great significance in the first fish of the year. To me, it’s more of an “It’s about time” moment, no matter how early that first one comes to the net. I’m usually a nervous, self-guessing wreck until something takes a whack at my fly, no matter what time of year it may be.

Here are my first two fish of the year. A rainbow, which came during an annual winter freeze trip in January. And a Guinness can-sized largemouth, that I brought to the bank on Saturday afternoon.

The trout hit a Copper John drifted as a dropper under a #14 Parachute Adams during a light snow. My hands were pretty well frozen and I remember being hungry. The trout looked a little skinny, as many winter trout do.

The bass pounced on a minnow imitation in about four feet of water in a pond near my home. The weather was still too cold, the water looked stark and lifeless, and I was just thinking about calling it a day after about an hour when the fish smacked my fly halfway into the retrieve. Another one, slightly larger, followed. I decided that was a good way to end the afternoon. Another week and the season officially begins.

There’s a steelhead jaunt scheduled for early May and I hope to make a few small-stream stops before then. April draws crowds to the streams in New York and New Jersey, so it’s tough to get properly motivated.

Giving Poppers a Shot – Part I

I tied up some poppers last week for the first time in my 15+ years of fly-tying. I was never particularly motivated to take a stab at them until recently, although I can’t say why. Probably the thought of sanding, gluing, painting and then tying a fly was the big turn-off, as I imagine that’s the case with most who haven’t gone there. After all that effort in crafting the bug, losing the fly in an unforgiving limb or lily pad had just been unfathomable.

I’m not sure why I suddenly overcame those fears, but as the holiday season trickled in, so did an urge to tie some bass and panfish patterns. Maybe it was the gaudy lights and decorations that crop up every December in the name of holiday cheer, or shoppers clad in flowing scarves, bobbing hats, and bright shopping bags that reminded me of overdressed poppers.

I did some Internet research on what kind of paint to use — some swore by vinyl jig paint, others said they prefer acrylic. There’s even a branded popper paint, which I plan on trying down the road but seemed a little too professional for my rookie ties. I ordered some vinyl jig paint for no other reason than I like the way it looks on jigs. I got jars in black and white (to make eyes and because I like black poppers), green and yellow (for frogs), along with a jar of thinner. After I placed the order, I thought I should’ve ordered some red, but I figured there were enough colors to keep me busy.

For hooks I took the easy route and ordered the pre-formed hooks that come with closed-cell foam heads in various sizes. Sure, shaping and sanding down heads from a piece of buoyant wood is probably the purist route, but I didn’t need to make things more complicated. I feared frustration would lead me to give up, and I wanted this to stick.

So after all the parts arrived, I sat down on a cold Saturday afternoon and dutifully glued the popper heads to the special curved hooks with one of those adhesives that makes your fingers stick together if you’re not careful. After letting them dry for a few hours, I jammed a sewing needle in a wine cork and heated up the needle to poke holes through the foam bodies for rubber legs. This was a little tricky, but I only ruined one popper out of five or six so I consider it a victory.

After painstakingly poking the rubber legs through the tiny holes (by far, the most painful part of the entire process), I popped open a jar of yellow paint, opened the window after nearly passing out from the fumes, and started painting.

The vinyl paint coated the foam heads extremely well and dried with a nice, glossy finish in all the colors. I had some trouble forming eyes — they looked more like amoebas than eyeballs — but for the first go-’round, I was happy.

I knew tying poppers involved a few steps, but I was struck by the amount of work that went into each fly, even before a bobbin became involved.

Here are a few pics from stage 1: