In Praise of Poppers

One of the ways anglers can strengthen and invigorate their fly-fishing proficiency is to hone their skills with poppers. Poppers are highly effective in both fresh- and saltwater environments, and when fished skillfully will entice a wide variety of gamefish species to take at or just under the surface, resulting in dramatic, heart-pounding strikes.

Over the last 50 years, I’ve used a popper more than any other type of fly. They are fun to fish, draw strikes like crazy, and elicit exciting, splashy topwater takes. Many days I’ll wrap it up at 2 P.M. with the same popper I tied on at daybreak. And poppers are among the most versatile flies. They can imitate frogs, mice, dragonflies, grasshoppers, and many types of baitfish. You can fish them slow, fast, or somewhere in between, depending on your quarry and circumstances. A popper can be used to imitate specific prey for selective fish, or to elicit reactionary “anger strikes” from otherwise hard-to-trick territorial lunkers.

The basic concept of poppers has changed little since 1920, when the firstcommercial one was made available by Chattanooga businessman E.H. Peckinpaugh. It’s said he got the idea after witnessing a fish attack a bottle cork that he’d dropped in the river. Since then, inventive fly tiers have conceived different body shapes and experimented with other floating materials, as well as cork, to achieve high levels of success.

My own early days of popper making were onerous. In the beginning, it was tedious shaping the cork bodies, sanding, sealing, painting (two coats of lacquer), and finally completing the tying process. It took me nearly a week to create a batch. Today, I’ll admit, I can fill my fly box with ready-to-fish poppers in one evening.

Foam, of different varieties, has largely replaced balsa and cork. My favorite material, EVA foam, comes in a variety of colors, eliminating the need to paint. The Krebs Popper Jig is an ingenious device for cutting foam popper heads from EVA cylinders in sizes ranging from ¼ inch (for panfish) through 15/16 inch (for saltwater and blue water). Deer hair, whether stacked or spun, is a classic and is deserving of a category all its own. Aside from size, the shape of your popper will indicate its purpose. Sleek, bulbous, angular, or cupped—all these choices will influence the “pop,” or water displacement, when you strip it across the surface. Let’s look at a few different options.

Grab a copy of the August-September 2025 issue for the full story!