Spindler Popper Body Tool
Popper bodies for exciting top water action is nothing new. The variety of shapes, sizes and colours is truly great today but, if we are going to tie our own flies, let’s make our own foam shapes!
make your Own Popper Bodies
Mike Corrigan, from the Manitoba Fly Fishers Association, turned us onto a tool for turning out popper bodies for fly fishing with a Dremel tool. Called the Spindler, it is a take on an old way I used to spin popper bodies. I burned out my old Dremel making them.
We’d take an industrial sewing needle (because they where thick enough to put in the Dremel’s chuck and also some bite to the foam. I used to make foam cylinders sharpening a bit of copper tube and hammering it into beach sandals. They were called “beach sandal poppers. Then stick them on the needle and run the rotary toll on high and apply an emery board to shape and smooth.
Introducing “The Spindler”
I bought mine from The Caddis Fly Shop but they seem to readily available online and in some stores.
Now the next stage is I got some “Hollow Punch” drill bits to create some raw popper shapes
Here’s a video of successes and failures