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10 weight leader Length Poppers

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yarddog59

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The two @ .023 should be roughly equal, I would favor whichever one is limper, you’re looking for weight, rather than stiffness to transfer momentum down to the fly.

JC

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Our tradition is that of the first man who sneaked off to the creek when the tribe did not really need fish. Haig-Brown
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In the mix need to come expectations. Some poppers have lips which just plain catch the wind. The length weight and diameter of your popper will have a big bearing on how well it can be cast.

Biggest probs will always accur when trying for your longest casts.

 

Side winds and tailers should be no probs. It’s head winds that will cause the headaches. Heavy short leaders then should help. A good cast is never a bad thing to have. It is probably the first place to start.

 

Mike

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On 10/24/2018 at 0:28 PM, Mike Oliver said:

Yarddog59

 

 

Fishing Poppers with an intermediate  Line is not much fun. Some say they do it but it is far from the best solution. Floater is the line to use.

 

 A 10 foot leader will work well most of the time. You can buy a tapered one or build one yourself but a simple one shot of 20 lb works very well.

 

Mike

An intermediate line is actually the only line I usually have with me when I'm in the salt. Therefore, I use it for poppers a lot. I use a relatively short leader (5 or 6 feet), but don't fine that line hard to use with poppers. If you start stripping line as soon as the popper lands it works quite well (as long as you don't stop stripping for more than a second or so). I think it actually helps to make more commotion, since it pulls the face of the popper down into the water rather than having its buoyancy result in a tiny portion of the popper face hitting the water. I've been doing this for decades. 

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Crease flies were originally intended to be fished with sinking lines. The idea being the line would sink them, and the buoyancy would allow them to dart around without snagging bottom like other flies might do. However, they work very well as a floating fly too with floating lines. 

 

I've occasionally fished poppers and sliders on sinking lines, because that's all I had with me, and the fish would be hitting bait on the surface, so had to adapt. When the hits are fast & furious it probably doesn't matter what line you're using, as long as you keep the popper moving, or use one big enough the sinking line can't pull it under. 

 

Like Mike said, I also prefer to use floating lines with surface flies, but if it works for you using a sinking line, it's not "wrong" to do it.  

No one likes to be behind the big truck, but it's better than being under it! 

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I use a floater as well, leader about 5' of straight 20. I don't use flouro ever with poppers, it sinks a bit more than mono and doesn't give me the pop I want, more so with gurglers, but maybe that's just me...

 

Also, and this might also just be me, I tend to not use any loop connections on my popper setup; nail knot and if I use a butt section it's barrel knots. It always felt like the loops I was using were causing some hinging...

Edited by stormy monday
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Mike

 

I think what happens is that when the fly line is moved through the water the head sees an upwards force from resistance of dragging the fly down as well as you pulling it from a point above the water, unless your rod tip is submerged, and a sort of "planing" effect since the running line is usually higher in the water column than the head is. Fly line being relatively long and thick for it's mass compared to a typical fishing line creates an upward force from this planing effect. This would help to combat the sinking of an intermediate line.

 

Also, the bigger and more bouyant the fly the more upwards force it exerts on the line and the harder it is for the line to drag it under. Musky guys routinely use lines faster sinking than intermediate even in shallow waters to get those massive flies down. 

 

These are all things I've noticed as well. I still wouldn't use an intermediate for a popper though. Only a floater. No option to let it sit and pause during the retrieve if I want with an intermediate line. Once it lands you can't let it stop moving. It's a compromise at best. 

Edited by RedGreen
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1 hour ago, Mike Oliver said:

Baldwin

 

I just don’t know what I am doing wrong then

 

Mike

I'm usually using rather large foam cylinders on my poppers, with 6/0 or 8/0 hooks (so the gap clears the cylinder and allows hookups). Smaller poppers can be more difficult, but they still do work with the intermediate line. I'm sure you're right that floating lines are much easier to use with poppers. You can let it sit and drift in current, pause the popper for as long as you want and work it much slower. That gives you a lot of versatility. I generally work them steadily, and start stripping line as soon as they touch down. I know you're a very proficient fly fisherman, and are certainly worlds beyond my capabilities with a two-handed fly rod. I suspect that you're not doing anything wrong, but realize that the intermediate line is less versatile and pickier to use with poppers than is the floating line that you are used to using with poppers. Just as I would probably find that the floating line is much more pleasant to use with poppers than the intermediate line that I habitually use. I've probably gotten functional at using an intermediate line for poppers because that's what I normally use for them. The same way anybody gets better at the things they do the most. 

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1 hour ago, RedGreen said:

Mike

 

I think what happens is that when the fly line is moved through the water the head sees an upwards force from resistance of dragging the fly down as well as you pulling it from a point above the water, unless your rod tip is submerged, and a sort of "planing" effect since the running line is usually higher in the water column than the head is. Fly line being relatively long and thick for it's mass compared to a typical fishing line creates an upward force from this planing effect. This would help to combat the sinking of an intermediate line.

 

Also, the bigger and more bouyant the fly the more upwards force it exerts on the line and the harder it is for the line to drag it under. Musky guys routinely use lines faster sinking than intermediate even in shallow waters to get those massive flies down. 

 

These are all things I've noticed as well. I still wouldn't use an intermediate for a popper though. Only a floater. No option to let it sit and pause during the retrieve if I want with an intermediate line. Once it lands you can't let it stop moving. It's a compromise at best. 

I tried two years straight intermediate for topwater flies and it never worked well except at first light on a stead retrieve.  I caveat that I almost exclusively fish at night (10pm to 4am not just after dark or before sunrise) so moving the topwater very very slow is important and intermediates don't allow this.  At night I am finding if I use a popper the shortest I wait between pops is a full 30 seconds.  I use very loud violent pops and painstakingly long pauses.  This is by far the only productive night popper retrieve for me.  The only caveat to this is a popper dropper rig at night.  On this rig a steadier popping retrieve works well, but the fish have never hit the popper once only the dropper.  My theory is the bass come to investigate the noise and eat the easy subsurface meal.  

 

Sliders and waking flies seem to be the best night surface approach.  The intermediate just does not cut it for this and I found the floating is the only way to go.  Rich Murphy's quarter moon special is my current favorite night surface fly.  It makes a big S shaped wake and can be crawled along the surface with a very slow two hand retrieve.  The slower the retrieve the better.   

 

I have pretty much decided intermediates are not for me except in very shallow water short distance casting scenarios.  I either use a floating line or a full sinking line, but I am not fishing same areas or the same strategies most guys are with a fly rod so take my advice with a grain of salt.

Edited by The Graveyard Shift
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That's the old Airflo clear intermediate line in the pics with the single-handed rod. The reel with the bluefish is a 12-wt Teton Tioga, a real tank at a reasonable price (I love that reel, but was discontinued some years ago).  Now that I have another 10wt reel with an extra spool I'm going to try using a floating line for uses such as poppers, sliders and dead drifting and greased line fishing with flatwings. I'll bet I'll like it much better for those applications. 

Edited by baldwin
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