YourYour FFishingishing FieldField GuideGuide photos by the author The Popper-Dropper Rig by Carl Haensel My younger brother and Over a number of sea- I began angling as blue- sons, a few key points be- gill fishermen, just two gan to stick out. We learned kids fishing for panfish. to make sure the tippet tied When we started fly-fish- to the popper is much ing, catching bluegills heavier than the dropper and crappies on the fly tippet. For largemouths and came naturally. Our fa- bluegills, 3x tippet to the vorite flies were tiny pop- popper and 5x to the nymph pers and small nymphs, works well. A length of tip- which often caught fish pet 18 to 24 inches seems when nothing else would. about right in most places. Our top fly wasn’t any- Longer tippets make detect- thing special, just a size 12 Hare’s Ear, gold-ribbed if we ing a strike a challenge at times, and they wrap up in debris. took the time to tie it that way. Occasionally, we’d hook up Long pauses of your retrieve catch larger, warier panfish, with a nice bass by accident. Largemouth bass, including as well as nice bass. A nymph by itself often moves too fast some truly large specimens, cruised the local lake where I for the biggest fish. Interestingly enough, if you viewed a spent my childhood summers. school of bluegills underwater from the side, clustered Try as we would, however, we never had the patience to around a popper, you’d find the smallest fish near the sur- fish larger poppers consistently for the bass. It was just too face. Many times this means the larger fish are right next to low a yield. And there was the competition. In the eve- your nymph. nings, my brother would wade into the lake and start catch- We’ve also adapted this rig to many different scenarios. If ing fish after fish. Meanwhile, I would stand calf-deep in you’re catching smaller panfish than you want, to exclude the bulrushes 50 feet away casting a big popper for what the smaller fish try adding a small Woolly Bugger instead of seemed like forever to nothing. Finally, someone men- a Hare’s Ear. If you’re headed to the river for smallmouth tioned that we should try fishing both flies. bass, fish a size 8 Woolly Bugger behind your popper. Combining the best of both worlds, we tied a length of Over time we tried different types of poppers and nymphs tippet to the bend on the popper hook and stuck the nymph for this rig. A “standard-head” hard-foam popper works well on the end. It worked like magic. Many times the popper for the job on top. Subsurface, an extra-small beadhead actually attracted more panfish than the nymph alone, and Bugger around size 10 or 12, tied without the hackle, takes it acted as a small float, keeping it out of the weeds. To boot, the fish well. The bead gets the fly down, which can make a we would occasionally catch the big largemouths that would difference at times. The lack of hackle seems to hook blue- wander through and scare away the sunfish. Even random gills well, although we have no definite data on this. Note northern pike would try to bite off the poppers from time that tungsten beads can be a bit too heavy and weigh down to time. the popper to a point where it fails to “pop.” If you’re catching smaller panfish than you want, to ex- clude the smaller fish try add- ing a small Woolly Bugger in- stead of a Hare’s Ear. If you’re headed to the river for small- mouth bass, fish a size 8 Woolly Bugger behind your popper. 17 www.fish.state.pa.uswww.fish.state.pa.us Pennsylvania Angler & Boater •• July-AugustJuly-August 2005 1717.