Foam Hoppers - smallmouth and panfish foam flies.

I follow Kevin at Fly Waters Edge. I was hoping to link the instructions to his Diablo Hopper but the site is down.  This is my version. Kevin made a foam skirt with wings that encompasses the abdomen from side to side. I'm not sure about my indicator though. Bryan has a few photos at atlasfishing.blogspot.com/2013/elk-river.html.  I'm sure something will hit it.  I do well on custom hoppers and especially those that are large.

I copied this pattern from an image I saved from some website months ago.  This has legs and I love legs.  I took photos while tying this pattern.  Well, until about half way but I'm planning on posting instructions.

Here's a nice smallmouth bass I caught on a custom pattern.  This was a good one.  The wings didn't stay on though.

Here's another smallie caught on one of my foam hoppers.  A few years ago, I was using the King Kong fly pattern I purchased from riverbum.com.  The hook was probably a 4.  I can't be sure but the hook wasn't big enough - or, so I thought.  I think the body was large and mushy and somehow, it interfered with the hook set.  Time after time, I would watch smallmouth bass take the fly down to the bottom and release it.  Perhaps, three sets of elk hair wings are a bit much, I don't know but once I made the foam body larger and got rid of the mushy elk hair, the pigs were gettin' stuck.  I tie my foam flies large and use size 4 or larger hooks.

Once the heat dies down, I'm gonna be throwing some hoppers at smallmouth and panfish.  Can't wait to post a few more pics.

Tight lines.