The Original Recipe
Light enough to be cast with a fly rod, heavy enough to create an impact when it hits the water and sculpted to create as much disturbance as possible when stripped across the surface, the Bass Popper has been with us for almost a century and its popularity continues to grow. Whether the term “fly” can truly be applied to it is beside the point. The Bass Bug enables anglers to target predatory fish in difficult lies with dramatic effect.
BASS ON THE FLY
Given that largemouth, or black, bass can grow to more than 20lb (9kg), are aggressive feeders and ferocious fighters, it is hardly surprising that they quickly attracted the attention of the early North American fly-fishers. Writing in 1892, Mary Orvis Marbury tells us that, “In America, ‘fancy flies’ are more numerous than the imitations, especially since their introduction as a lure for black bass.” Almost one third of all the color plates in Favorite Flies and Their Histories depict large and brightly colored bass flies, and salmon flies such as the Silver Doctor, the Kingfisher and the Parmacheene Belle were also considered very effective for bass when worked close to the surface.
However, a largemouth bass is not a salmon, and it fully deserves its name, as well as such nicknames as widemouth, bigmouth and bucketmouth. This is a fish that will consume frogs, bats, small birds and even baby alligators, and in 1907 Ernest Peckinpaugh—a building contractor and a keen bass fisherman from Chattanooga, Tennessee—came up with a way to offer it what it wanted on the end of a fly line.
Among the 60 bass flies illustrated in her book, Mary Orvis Marbury depicts the Golden Dustman, Henshall, Knight Templar, Jungle Cock (first tied by Charles Orvis in 1879), Holberton and Holberton II.
CONCEPT TO COMMERCE
The story goes that the cork from his bottle fell into the river while he was fishing. As it floated downstream he came up with the idea of a large, buoyant “fly,” and he soon made a prototype consisting of a cork with a long hook through it and two bunches of deer hair at the head. Crude though it was, it worked on the bream for which he was fishing, and he soon discovered that the voracious and highly territorial bass would go for it too. Over the next few years Ernest experimented with shaping the body, varying the size, and using feather and deer hair in different ways to refine what was proving to be a very successful fly, the flat or concave face of the design creating a popping sound on the surface that proved so attractive to the warm water predators. Friends and local fishing guides had equal success with it, and some examples of Ernest’s craftsmanship fell into the hands of writer, outdoorsman and conservationist Will H. Dilg, who was so impressed that he had a local tier make some copies and develop new models. When he wrote about the new flies in national magazines it created such a demand for these “bugs” that Ernest was virtually forced to begin commercial production in order to protect his own interests, and the E.H. Peckinpaugh Company went into business in 1920.
BOOM, BUST AND BOOM
“Peck’s Poppers” were the start of a new genre of flies that were to multiply and diversify rapidly. Many manufacturing companies sprang up in the 1920s and 1930s, selling literally hundreds of thousands of the new bugs. The creations sprouted tails and wings, fins and legs, and there was a move toward using more feather and bucktail with clipped deer hair for the heads, and giving the bugs a more streamlined profile that would cast more easily, but the essential principles remained the same. The flat-faced poppers were joined by more bullet-shaped sliders, skippers with a steeply angled face that causes the bug to jump along the water, and darters and divers that have a jutting lower lip to pull the bug under the surface. By the 1940s Peckinpaugh and his 300-strong team of flytiers were turning out some 60 types of bass bugs and flies in various color combinations, but there was a downturn on the way. From the end of the Second World War right through the 1960s spinners and spinning rods were all the rage, and bass bugging went into decline.
The demand for Ernest H. Peckinpaugh’s new creation soon transformed his hobby into a full-scale business venture as established tackle manufacturers cashed in on the idea.
Aggressive and voracious, and found in almost every kind of freshwater habitat, bass, both largemouth (above) and smallmouth, are the number one sport fish in North America, and an ever increasing number of anglers are discovering the thrill of using a fly rod to catch them.
It wasn’t until the 1970s that fly-fishing for bass, promoted by innovative flytiers such as Dave Whitlock (see this page [Dave’s Hopper]), creator of the Hairbug and many other deer hair flies, began to make a comeback. It is now the fastest growing area of the sport in North America, influencing fly-fishing methods for predatory fish in fresh- and saltwater around the world.
FISHING THE BUG
Poppers are particularly well suited to largemouth bass because these fish frequently feed at the surface and hunt by sound as well as by sight. Designed to represent any potential food item—from a fish to a frog, from a snake to a salamander—bass bugs are generally cast to structure that may be harboring large fish and are presented with as much splash as possible to attract attention. The fly is often left to rest for a few seconds while the ripples die away and then given a series of short, sharp strips, causing a noisy commotion on the surface as the water is thrown up by the face of the popper. Takes are typically explosive, which explains why the sport has such a following.
The size of the popper needs to be tailored to the fish (smaller bugs for smallmouth bass, for example), to the water conditions (larger poppers in rough water in order to make plenty of noise) and to the feeding style of the fish (larger poppers are more successful with more voracious fish).
Bass bugs will also take pike and, in suitable sizes, peacock bass in the Amazon, freshwater dorado and South African yellowfish, as well as saltwater species such as striped bass, yellowtail kingfish and barramundi.
