Poppers for gills

Does anyone fish gills in the fall with poppers any more? Years ago I would see to good old boys doing this with a lot of luck.Wouldn’t mind giving it a try this fall my self.What kind of conditions and lures does one look for.Thanks for any info!!!

I used to use flyrod poppers for ‘gills years ago. Some days were hot, some were blah. If the poppers weren’t working, I would switch up to emergents and usually they would provide some action.

I was never able to put together a pattern as far as what conditions turned on the fish to surface baits.

what length and what test leader line do you use? Is your line weight forward? What Make?

I started out with 8-weight, double-taper floating line, with an 6-foot tapered tappet going down to 2lb test. I don’t remember the brand name, but I know that I got it at Fin and Feather CR.

After snagging enough trees to decimate my expensive leaders, I started using about a 4′ section of 4lb test mono (the really cheap, stiff stuff). It seemed to work about as well, although the large difference in line diameter meant you had to use a needle knot to the flyline. I don’t recall ever casting more than about 10 yards, so I’m not sure how it would work out if you were really whipping things around.

I am trying to get out to say twenty or thirty yards to catch those quiet evening bluegills & Bass. The distance helps in not spooking them. {John}

Based on what I know of flyrodding, I can safely say that 90 feet is well beyond my abilities. It always seemed that to get beyond about 30 feet there’s a lift required in your cadence that I could never get the hang of. The other limiting factor was always enough room behind me to get that much line out. Most of my flyrodding was on the Cedar right there around CR, so the trees are pretty thick and you end up doing a lot of roll casting. It works pretty well with cork or foam poppers, since they don’t need ‘air time’ to dry, but with hair poppers, they would eventually get soaked and start sinking (even if you waxed the thread heavily when tying, the hair will eventually soak up enough water to drown it).

I would guess with a WF line, you could get some more distance, probably another 10 feet just from shooting the line. Where are you thinking about heading?

Gianni: I’m thinking about those quiet sunny afternoons in my boat on Mcbride, possibly Pleasant creek, Seguema, Lake Big creek,… Sometimes the last two or even three hours in the evening, the fish seem to like to rise to the surface. {John}