Steve Hudson
Senior Member
As we move through summer and towards fall, fish far and wide savor an increasing bountiful buffet of bugs, especially big and meaty terrestrials such as grasshoppers. This week's fly, the Bullethead Hopper, is designed to let you get in on the excitement that hopper fishing can bring.
The Bullethead Hopper is one of my favorite grasshopper patterns. I am confident that you'll enjoy tying and fishing it too!
Our Bullethead Hoppers use a combination of traditional and non-traditional tying materials. The list below shows you what you need.
By the way, while testing a couple of prototype Bullethead Hoppers, I managed to fool two of the biggest small-stream bluegill I've ever seen!
I look forward to seeing you this Saturday on The Tying Bench!
Materials List
Hook: Dry fly hook, size 8 or 10, 2XL or 3XL. Note that you can us the same techniques to tie smaller bullethead flies to imitate insects such as caddisflies.
Thread: 3/0 or 210 denier. You'll be putting some tension on it, so don't go too small. I prefer to use tan or cream or yellow thread to approximately match the head/wing color, but often I'll simply use black thread. So far, no complaints from the fish!
Body: Yellow or variegated yellow/brown chenille, or yellow dubbed thread.
Underwing: There are two ways to form the underwing.
The easiest way is to use a strip cut from a piece of yellow or tan or light green 2mm foam.
Another approach uses a section cut from a turkey feather and strengthened with a coat of water-based urethane varnish or a similar material; this is a more classic approach, but it's a bit more trouble.
I'll demonstrate both approaches on Saturday. If you would like to tie along with the quill-strip wing portion, you should go ahead and cut some quarter-inch-wide strips from a turkey feather, tape them to a card, and then coat one side of each of them with water-based urethane varnish (available from almost any large craft store) or some other flexible-when-dry material such as Flexament (ask your local fly shop what they might have that'll do the job here). Doing this in advance gives the strips time to dry before Saturday. Note that Hard As Nails may be too brittle for this application.
Bullethead and wing: Elk or deer hair, cleaned of fuzz and stacked. You want to use hair with long fibers -- at least twice as long as the hook. The length is important.
Legs: Rubber leg material in white or tan
Tools you'll need:
1) Hair stacker
ZOOM MEETING INFO
Date/Time: July 23, 2022 - 10:00 AM Eastern Time
Meeting ID: 849 7667 2231
Password: FlyTying23
The Bullethead Hopper is one of my favorite grasshopper patterns. I am confident that you'll enjoy tying and fishing it too!
Our Bullethead Hoppers use a combination of traditional and non-traditional tying materials. The list below shows you what you need.
By the way, while testing a couple of prototype Bullethead Hoppers, I managed to fool two of the biggest small-stream bluegill I've ever seen!
I look forward to seeing you this Saturday on The Tying Bench!
Materials List
Hook: Dry fly hook, size 8 or 10, 2XL or 3XL. Note that you can us the same techniques to tie smaller bullethead flies to imitate insects such as caddisflies.
Thread: 3/0 or 210 denier. You'll be putting some tension on it, so don't go too small. I prefer to use tan or cream or yellow thread to approximately match the head/wing color, but often I'll simply use black thread. So far, no complaints from the fish!
Body: Yellow or variegated yellow/brown chenille, or yellow dubbed thread.
Underwing: There are two ways to form the underwing.
The easiest way is to use a strip cut from a piece of yellow or tan or light green 2mm foam.
Another approach uses a section cut from a turkey feather and strengthened with a coat of water-based urethane varnish or a similar material; this is a more classic approach, but it's a bit more trouble.
I'll demonstrate both approaches on Saturday. If you would like to tie along with the quill-strip wing portion, you should go ahead and cut some quarter-inch-wide strips from a turkey feather, tape them to a card, and then coat one side of each of them with water-based urethane varnish (available from almost any large craft store) or some other flexible-when-dry material such as Flexament (ask your local fly shop what they might have that'll do the job here). Doing this in advance gives the strips time to dry before Saturday. Note that Hard As Nails may be too brittle for this application.
Bullethead and wing: Elk or deer hair, cleaned of fuzz and stacked. You want to use hair with long fibers -- at least twice as long as the hook. The length is important.
Legs: Rubber leg material in white or tan
Tools you'll need:
1) Hair stacker
ZOOM MEETING INFO
Date/Time: July 23, 2022 - 10:00 AM Eastern Time
Meeting ID: 849 7667 2231
Password: FlyTying23
LOOKING AHEAD
To help you plan ahead, here's what's coming up on The Tying Bench:
July 30: Back by popular demand: The Stealth Bomber
