What Is A Popper In Fly Fishing?

Poppers are one of the most common flies for catching fish in stillwater like lakes or ponds.

They’re especially fun if you’re targeting species like bass or bluegill!

In this article you’ll learn exactly what a popper is, how to use one and what fish you can catch with one…

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What Is A Popper In Fly Fishing?

A popper is a common type of top water fly, primarily used when fishing stillwater.

They get their name from the popping sound they make when you retrieve them.

Poppers can come in all different shapes and sizes depending on what style you’re using.

The most common style of popper is a cup faced popper.

These flies have a head that is made from a hard plastic and are often tied in patterns that resemble frogs.

Another common style is the blockhead popper, which is tied in patterns to resemble frogs or injured bait fish.

How To Use A Popper In Fly Fishing

Using a popper fly is pretty straight forward.

After casting the fly out, you strip retrieve it all of the way back, letting it pause every 3-5 seconds.

You want your strips to be hard enough to make the fly make its signature “popping” sound, but not so strong that the popper moves 2 feet with every strip.

During your entire retrieve, keep your rod tip low, sometimes almost touching the water.

This helps to keep the front of the popper in the water and makes a better sound.

One of the nice things about using poppers when fishing for aggressive fish like largemouth bass is…

The loud popping can draw in fish from a wider range than most others flies.

This can make it useful to find where fish are hanging out when you’re fishing new water.

When To Fish Popper Flies

Depending on what time of year it is, poppers work best in the early morning and late evening.

These low light conditions are when fish are already out feeding and topwater fishing is at its best.

There’s some cases when poppers can still work great throughout the day.

With Largemouth bass, there’s 2 times of year when they are extra aggressive feeders: post-spawn in late spring and early to mid fall.

If you’re fishing for bass during either of these times, poppers are going to work pretty much all day if you can find the fish.

What Fish Will Chase Popper Flies

There’s a long list of fish that will chase poppers from trout to pike.

But here’s a quick overview to give you an idea:

Largemouth bass

Smallmouth bass

Bluegill

Crappie

Pike

Musky

Striped bass (and their hybrids)

The biggest difference between using poppers for these different species is the size you use.

Largemouths, pike and stripers can eat pretty much anything you throw at them if you find a big one.

On the other hand, the biggest bluegill in the world will only be able to fit so much in its mouth.

What Size Popper Fly For Bass?

Big largemouth bass can get up to over 15 pounds in states like Texas, California and Florida…

So there’s not really any flies a big one can’t eat.

In most places you fish for largemouth bass, there are other smaller species you can catch even if you aren’t targeting them, like bluegill or smallmouth bass.

For those cases, I wouldn’t go much larger than a size 8 or 10 popper.

If for whatever reason, you are trying to catch massive largemouths on a popper, you can go up to a size 2/0, but you’re probably going to have to tie something that big yourself.

What Size Popper Fly For Crappie?

Crappie have much smaller mouths than many fish, so you have to keep this in mind when you’re choosing what size popper to use.

You can sometimes get away with using a popper up to size 6.

But in most cases, using a smaller fly will work better.

I would shoot for the size 8-10 range for crappie.

What Size Popper Fly For Bluegill?

Bluegill also have small mouths, but are smaller than crappie, so you’ll need to downsize to catch all but the biggest ones.

I wouldn’t go any bigger than a size 10 or 12.

In most cases, a size 12 will work best.

Again, if you are fishing a lake or pond that has multiple species and you want to catch whatever you can, I would use the bigger end of the bluegill size flies…

Because it’s the smaller end of flies for the other fish.