Question about hopper flies

[dennyk]

I love fishing hoppers in the mid to late summer months. I tie mine with a combination of foam, deer/elk hair and rubberized or silicone leg material. As mentioned, I tend to keep the hopper twitching on the surface. What it looks like from the stream bottom is everything!

Good Luck!

Denny

[mikemac1]

Foam Hopper, Easy As Cherry Pie | J. Stockard Fly


Easy to tie, very productive, especially in turbulent waters. The key to a good hopper is lots of contrasting colors in the fly and good angler visibility.

[rangerrich99]

I have never used hopper flies before, but am looking to give them a try this year. I have looked at some foam hoppers and some hair tied ones and am wondering if one has any advantages over the other? Does one type look more real on the water, or make a little splat like a real hopper when it hits the water, or does this even matter to a fish? Thank you for your insight on this.

I fish a lot of hopper patterns, both foam and natural, as well as plenty of 'imitator' patterns. Big ones, little ones, realistic ones, others that resemble something tied by a member of the Grateful Dead . . . In fact, I fish hoppers more than any pattern of fly, year-round.

So welcome to the club; I hope you end up enjoying hopper fishing as much as I do.

To try to answer your questions:

In general, the natural patterns are more realistic, with one exception: they don't "splat" well when cast. Especially when first cast and completely dry, a natural pattern hopper tends to light upon the water fairly gently. I like my hoppers to land aggressively, to splat, like a miniature version of an Apollo CM splashing down in the Pacific Ocean. To aid me in this I like to be a bit sloppy about applying floatant (on a natural) to add a bit of weight to it, and I aim my cast a bit lower, so that the fly turns over on a downward arc. Splashdown.

Foam hoppers seem to splat better, as well as Madame X patterns. My go-to foam pattern for the last 12 years has been a Moorish hopper, in every color they make, but with a decided bias towards yellow, brown, orange or pink hoppers. Moorish hoppers are narrow-bodied, which allows them to float a little deeper in the film than one that's got a flat bottom, and also cast a little better, again due to their narrow profile, IMO.

I also fish a lot of imitator patterns, such as stimulators, both with and without legs, mostly rubber ones, chubby Chernobyls (supposed to be a stonefly, but works just as well as a hopper), Turk's tarantulas, PMXs, and Madame Xs. Of those I tend to either stims or PMXs, just because at this point.

I find, in general, that the clearer the water, slower moving, better the light, the natural hoppers seem to be more effective than the foam ones, though I've still caught thousands of fish on clear bright days on slow gin clear water over the years. Foam hoppers have always been more effective for me in shadow lines, low light, more turbid water.

Personally, I like Joe's hoppers or Schroeder's for my naturals, but I've fished several other patterns, like Letorts or Dave Whitlock's with good success over several years.

As I said earlier, my favorite foam hopper is the Moorish in a variety of colors; pink or orange ones seem to do best in the spring to early summer, when yellow or browns ones seem to take over for the summer to mid-to-late fall. For winter hopper fishing it's a bit "fish what you got," but recently I've seen some success fishing small purple ones; had to tie those myself. You could buy a foam hopper in a light color like yellow or grey and simply "purple-ize" it with a Sharpie though.

Another advantage to natural hoppers is that they sink easier. Foam hoppers will eventually sink, but it takes a lot of time underwater before they do it. Easier by far to tie on either a specific "drowning" hopper pattern, or simply soak a dry natural hopper in the water or your spit and fish.

This is great when the fish are really on "drowned" hoppers. Many times when this is happening I'll tie a double hopper rig, giving the fish a chance to hit either a floating hopper or a sinking one; many times I've had a fish swirl on one and then crush the other a second or two later.

Also, as someone already said, don't be afraid to twitch your hopper. One tactic is to twitch (tiny twitch; try not to allow the hopper to move forward much at all, just cause some rings) your hopper within five seconds of touchdown. Another is to let the hopper dead drift normally, and as it passes into/approaches a shadowline/seam/stick, give it a good 3-5 inch jerk. Remember to throw a bit of a mend immediately after, and be ready for an epic smash take.

And so on. There's a thousand ways to create different presentations to your hopper, which is one of the reasons I love fishing them so much. Almost nothing you can do is really wrong when it comes to hoppers.

For instance, you can hopper/dropper rig, dropping a nymph (I tend to Hare's Ears), damsel flies, another dry, a cripple, even an egg pattern or whatever. Been there, done that hundreds of times. The damselfly nymph trailer is a killer here in AZ in late spring-summer. But if I'm honest, I've caught more fish on the Hare's Ear sz 14 BH than any other trailer. On dozens of different waters in six different states.

My advice to you is to try a few naturals and a few foams and see what works for you. Oh, I'd try sizes between 8 and 12 to start. I usually tie on a sz 10 hopper and go up or down in size from there.

Peace.

[Lonnie Utah]

I

I tie a very similar pattern, except I use a thin craft foam strip wrapped around the hook for the abdomen instead of hair. Not enough foam that it floats too high, and the foam doesn't get waterlogged like the deer hair.

[Lonnie Utah]

In a lot of the streams that I fish, a hopper is a waste of time

What about crickets? When I lived on the east coast I had good success fishing small black crickets on just the sort of streams you are describing.

[The op]

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...pPfPXRLlnVnE4B


This in different colors and sizes is all i use for hoppers