Hopper Legs

[CaptMatt]

Hey guys. I have been on a hopper kick lately and have been experimenting with different leg styles, rubber, hackle stems etc... What do some of you terrestrial tiers like for legs?

 

[PennsCreek]

IMO rubber legs are the best for terrestrials. I only really tie beetles and ants with them but they are easy to tie when making body segments on the beetles and ants

 

[CaptMatt]

I have been taking 3 or 4 rubber strands and tying an overhand knot in them for the joint. seems to work well but wanted some other options as well.

 

[JackM]

If you are looking for options, here's one I don't particularly care for, but it is often used: take a few strands of pheasant tail (stiffer strands) and do the overhand knot thing. I have taken to buying hoppers as I cannot get a satisfactory imitation on my own.

 

[CaptMatt]

JackM wrote:
If you are looking for options, here's one I don't particularly care for, but it is often used: take a few strands of pheasant tail (stiffer strands) and do the overhand knot thing. I have taken to buying hoppers as I cannot get a satisfactory imitation on my own.

I have taken that road as well but Florida shack nasties (red tide, 105 heat indexes, mosquito’s etc…) are far worse than any thing I have experienced before. I keep playing with different patterns and am finally getting some acceptable results. I am playing the pheasant tail fibers but haven’t quite got the hang of knotting them yet. I think they look nice on patterns I have seen and owned.

 

[plumbob]

I'm all for tying in a lot of detail on a fly but when it comes to legs on hoppers I think simple is better. You want movement on them, the more ridged you make them the less effective I think they become as a trigger for a stike. I like the plain rubber legs but have used these silicone ones which have a lot more movement then even the rubber. Picture of a cricket pattern I use with the silicone.

 

[sandfly]

Plum :-D Bob you takin lessons again from lou?????????????????????

 

[RLeeP]

In all the times I've been on the water in PA and grasshoppers were actually something that mattered (not that many times actually...), I've never seen a situation where fish would refuse a simple Letort Hopper, a fly that makes absolutely no accomodation or attempt to imitate legs other than the few fibers from the deer hair over wing that ride down into the water.

But that's just me.

Almost all my ants are deerhair with a few fibers separated and stood out to the sidesbetween the humps for legs. When I make deerhair beetles, I generally put a couple turns of black hackle over the body and then clip it flush on the bottom.

I thought I was doing ok.

But maybe I'm only scratching the surface in terms of how many fish I *could* be catching if I were to start to fiddle with complicated legs...

 

[plumbob]

Hey sandfly ya don't see any woven body there do ya? :-D

RleeP I did use the letort style out west and it worked. But I had tyed some hopper with and without legs and the legs always did much better It only takes an extra minute at the most to put two rubber legs on. You should try one or two and see how it works.

 

[dryflyguy]

I haven't had much success with hoppers in PA fishing, but have done pretty well out west with them
My favorite pattern? A Henry's Fork Hopper, which is a bullet head type. For the legs however, I didn't really care for the look of rubber, and always used trimmed hackle stems, with 2 knots put in. But I admit that's a little time consuming, and they're kinda fragile - after catching a few fish, they just seem to get twisted up everyway but where they should be.
On the ones I tied this past year, I went with the rubber legs - hopefully they'll work just as well