Poppers for Ultra-lightweight rods?

[Deuterium]

I am planning on fishing for sunnies this season using a 1 wt rod. I would like to tie up a popper pattern that I can cast with this light line. Suggestions?

 

[Ramcatt]

any beatle pattern

 

[Fishidiot]

Ramcatt wrote:
any beatle pattern

+1

Some small, foam "spiders" with some hackle or rubber legs might cast easier on a 1Wt than the traditional cup faced poppers. But yeah, small terrestrials will cast better and catch as many fish - just remember your hemostats as bluegills absolutely inhale flies and getting them unhooked with such small mouths can be a challenge.

 

[Deuterium]

Thanks guys. And they are easy to tie!

 

[thetonyage]

griffiths gnat- i know its not a popper but panfish in my local pond love em.

 

[Swattie87]

Fishidiot wrote:
just remember your hemostats as bluegills absolutely inhale flies and getting them unhooked with such small mouths can be a challenge.

^Agree on that piece. Of the four common PA sunfish, Redbreasts and Greens have bigger mouths and are pretty easy to unhook, but Gills and Seeds have much smaller mouths. Hemos are a must for those guys.

If the water's warm, they'll generally eat anything that looks buggy and floats. As the other guys have mentioned, I probably wouldn't use a traditional "popper" style fly, even in smaller sizes. Just a normal trout fly will suffice and be easier for the little guys to get in their mouths. Tan EHC (sz 12-14) are probably my favorite...easy to see, they float well, and are durable and can take some abuse. If you're fishing for Sunnies, 50 or 100 fish in a few hours is a common occurrence and they'll tear up more delicately hackled flies. I'll often stand in the middle of a WW stream and make longish casts with the EHC to the shoreline riprap. If you want to weed out the little guys and entice the occasional Bass as well, then a small mini/micro popper is probably the ticket. May be tough to cast on a 1wt though.

Sunfish are funny...they're generally not very picky, but they tend to be much more inquisitive than trout IMO. They'll sometimes wait 30 seconds after a fly hits the water to decide they want it...even if you're sight casting and basically hit them in the nose with it. With a good pair of polarized glasses it's fun to just watch them inspect the fly. Any twitch or movement usually induces a strike, but sometimes I wait and just watch them. Trout have grown on me a lot in the last couple of years, but Sunnies are still my true love.