Tomsu Pattern:



Moorish:



Cutthroat that liked one of them:

great looking flies. thanks for sharing. Sometimes i think cutts just eat foam -- resemblance to hoppers or other living creatures notwithstanding!? Sort of a "it floats, and it's pretty big, i'm gonna eat it" mentality. It's part of what makes them so endearing to us.

Yes very nice bugs.My only issue is to me a fly must have some natural materials in it's construction.I worked on the perfect hopper/cricket on and off for years.Could barely fool a bluegill with any.My go to fly this time of year is hippy stompers in various sizes.It looks like nothing in particular but resembles lots of things.I call late August thru the first frost bug season,hoppers crickets katydids dragons damsels cicadas moths beetles wasps hornets are buzzing flying singing everywhere .Spiders have webs set up everywhere to capture any careless bug .Many end up in the water ,as the nights get cool the bugs are lethargic until the sun hits them .Many dont fly well until they warm up.The fish know and so do I.

Great Hoppers! I love the garish colors. In heavily fished waters giving them something newer or different to look at often is the trick to getting bit or a refusal.

I have mixed emotions on natural vs. synthetic materials. My general rule of thumb is that if it's more durable then I'm going with it. However, there is no substitute for rooster hackle on a Hippie Stomper. All of my Humpy patterns are tied with a foam body and Antron wing. I've all but retired pheasant tail fibers for tailing material.

I just want my flies to have a 20 fish, one tree guarantee!

Ok - I put some deer hair on it and tried to pick non-clown colors. Better?



I do love cuts for their willingness to play!

natural materials are never necessary i just feel obliged to those who invented this game we play.For stompers i use squirrel tail for the small ones and moose for the bigger ones.I have caught 1000s of sunfish on the simple foam spider.About as simple a fly as there is but boring to tie.I feel that a few wraps of hackle make them hold the fly a little longer.I was able to fish a private club one fall that has a beautiful spring fed lake that was recently stocked with trout.We were fishing in a cove and what i assumed were big bluegills were feeding on top.Caught 5 trout on 6 casts on black foam spider.Nobody fly fishes at this place,they all thought i was some kind of wizard.No one was as surprised as me.

Decided I should try to use more natural materials after so much foam.

Nice to see you are still at.It is definitely bug season here The fish go on a terrestrial binge from now til the frost. Most of my favorite ponds are slimmed up out to 30 feet or so tho which makes fishing tough Between the geese and the crap they spray the lawns with it really feeds the algae.

Outstanding!

I love the Madam-X or whatever that bullethead hopper is called.

But in my new locale, the garish colors and foam are a lot more practical. Under bright sun, the silhouette is the most important part, and most of the hoppers are pretty colorful on the bottom.

I always wonder about those cuttout legs. do they ever get in the way of the hookset? They look realistic from an art point of view, but from a fishing perspective, they seem unnatural to me.

The bullet heads really float well and make a great profile ,you can rub some clear silcone into them and the heads will last longer.I think i have finally come up with a decent cricket pattern for warm water that has the right kicking/struggling action.Live crickets are an awsome bait in still water and creeks but i have tried all the best looking patterns and the fish are not impressed.The foam legs are fine but you want really thin foam.I like the knotted legs my self for a classic look.I use silicone skirts tho for most legs.I can find them 3 for a buck in every color imaginable.

I tie the easiest hoppers to use floating the Montana Rivers. I want the angler I am fishing with to get them close to the bank and not worry about the fly. It hits with a splat and if I am fishing them I do not bother with a turkey feather over wing. I am still a bit of a traditionalist thing in a red tail.

Pattern

Hook Diaiichi 11270
Thread red Semperfli waxed 8/0
Red Tail Fibers
Body Rainy;s Float foam - small medium and large Yellow - Red and brown or Semperlfi Bodies
Over Wing Turkey feather pre finished with Spare Varnish
Legs Sililegs
Brown Hackle

I have one story I will share. The late Bud Lilly and I were fishing a tributary of the Jefferson back in Montana, I had been fishing the trico hatch and it was July. Bud asked what time it was and I stated Lunch Time. No it is upper time and I have the perfect place for it. He instructed me to tie on a hopper no bigger the 3/4 of an inch. We stopped at a hole he suggested. The first brown was 16 inches and the second was 14. They hit the fly as soon as I slapped it on the water.
People complain that I tie simple patterns and they are right I have three criteria - Simple to tie - tough - fast. When you supply all of your friends when they visit you - you have to tie flies quickly and efficiently.

Gregg

I have been fishing this hopper pattern I named the Alien Bug for the past 20 years.
What motivated me to the Alien Bug was minimum of easy to acquire materials needed, fast to tie (less than 5 mins), durability (fish all day), visibility and floatation. I do like a mix of foam and natural material (deer or elk hair for the wings).

Just use the color combination you want. Someone wanted a green upper and yellow bottom like a hopper. Use a green marker and make some green marks on the top in example shown (or mark the whole upper side in green if you prefer that). I just like it black on the bottom as I think everything looks dark when viewed from the water looking up at a bright sky. On top I want a color I can see from a distance. Because this combination looks weird when you hold in it your fingers, hence the name 'Alien' bug!

I fished the Alien Bug in the gin clear streams in Southern Germany, the alpine rivers in Austria, in the hills of the Spanish Pyrenees, Montana and tributaries of the Yellowstone river. Friends of mine fished it in South Africa, Yellowstone country, the Driftless area and Patagonia.

https://bassbug.blogspot.com/search?q=Alien+bug