Cherry Pie Hopper

By Mike Cline.

Description

Over a decade ago I stumbled on to a foam cutter by Riverroads Creations called the Beavertail. I had always been frustrated with attaching foam hopper bodies to hooks at the hook bend. The Beavertail cutter gave me an opportunity to try a new approach—attach the foam body to the hook bend with superglue instead of thread. The result was the Easy as Cherry Pie Hopper. I call it that because when hoppers are abundant here in SW Montana, so are the cherries—pie cherries to be exact. And. Nothing could be easier than cherry pie. A single beavertail foam cutout provides a good hopper profile and a large hopper head that protects the deer hair wing material.

Tying Process

The rear of the foam cutout is secured against a trimmed hackle body with superglue. Once the deer hair wing is tied in and the butts trimmed, apply a generous coat of head cement to the butts before folding the cutout back over the deer hair. DO NO USE SUPER GLUE AS IT WILL CAUSE THE VINYL LEGS TO BECOME BRITTLE.

Materials

• Body: Beavertail Foam Cutout
• Body: Fly-rite dry fly dubbing
• Hackle: Cape or Saddle dry fly hackle
• Legs: Vinyl Centipede Legs
• Tail: Deer or Moose
• Thread: UTC 140
• Wing: Deer Hair

Hooks

• Firehole 718 #4-10 barbless

Target species: Trout

Fly types: Terrestrial