As I was driving up to fish on one of my favorite streams with an old friend who was bringing a new friend, I had this marvelous idea and remarking to myself how bright it was and wondering why no one had ever thought of it. Being the resolute and determined dry fly fisherman that I am and abhorring "bobber fishing" as I do, whenever I must fish with nymphs I try to use a fly as my indicator and quite often that means a large stimulator on the surface and a nymph hanging below it on dropper line. So there I was lamenting how difficult that makes it to change depths when you want to, or need to, from hole to hole, when it dawned on me that if I tied my stimulators on hooks with large enough eyes I could just loop the line through the eye and loop it over the fly the way you do when you put on one of those pre-made indicators and I would have the adjustable depth issue solved. Less than an hour later I'm on the stream with my new friend Mikey Wier explaining to him my great idea when he pulled out his invention of several years earlier and explained how he had solved the problem and taken it a step or two further to make sure the fly sat on the water properly. A great hopper pattern with loops on each end to run the line through! Thus the Hoppicator...

The Hoppicator
by Mikey Wier

Spring is a great time to be in the foothills. It was a warm March morning and I decided to check out one of my favorite spots on a local river. I was on my way back from doing a FISH EYE video showing down on the coast and had to drive right past my favorite river. I pulled up to the water around midday. This particular spot is known in my mind for a very reliable Ephemerella mayfly hatch that only happens in the spring. The bugs typically don't start moving till the sun has been on the water for a good hour or two. The river lies in a canyon and only gets sun for a short time this time of the year. As luck would have it, I timed the hatch just right and showed up at prime time. Not only was the air filled with big pink mayflies, but the water was also blanketed with midges. It seemed like an obvious choice to start by probing some of the runs with a dry fly. After several minutes of observing the water, I noticed a fish rising. I crept up to a good position to fish for him. It was a nice, even current drift and he was sitting in the back of the run. The browns in this area are infamous for being very spooky. I watched him rise a few more times, and then from my knees, I put a cast right over him. I was waiting for an explosion any second, but nothing happed. I put several more casts over him with perfect drifts, but he had disappeared.

I probed several more runs with a dry, but couldn't get a take. I knew there was fish in the water, so I figured they were probably getting full on emergers. The water is too swift and deep in most spots for a traditional dry dropper set up to work, so the logical step would be to put on an indicator and some weight. This particular stretch of water gets quite a bit of pressure and I have seen fish bolt from indicators. I don't like to use cork bobbers or big chunks of bright yarn there. I have been practicing for the Team USA competitions, so I had some Hoppicator with me:

The Team USA rules call for nothing to be added to the leader. No weight and no indicators. The Hoppicator is a split wing foam hopper pattern that I have adapted to double as an indicator. It fishes like a regular hopper, but is tied extra buoyant so it can hold up an impressive amount of weight. From underneath it has the silhouette of a flailed hopper or big October caddis. I have found this pattern has several advantages over most indicators out there. First and probably best of all is that; even while acting as an indicator for your dropper flies, it fishes just like a regular hopper or large attractor. The fly is tied with mostly foam and has a tuft of indicator yarn on top. You can throw it in fast water and it rides high enough to see well and holds your weight up without sinking. I also tie the pattern with a mono loop at both ends of the hook. This allows me to be able to hook the fly on with a loop-to-loop connection on the front, just like a regular yarn indicator. This mono loop feature makes the Hoppicator fully adjustable on your leader, just like most conventional indicators. You can run the tippet end of the leader through the rear loop to ensure that the fly lands on the water right and floats right side up every time, or just run it off the head loop for a perfect ninety degree drop.

I opted for a size 12. The water was about 4-5 feet in most places, and I figured I only needed a moderate amount of weight to get the flies down at that particular current speed. The size 12 Hoppicator is easily capable of holding up two bb shots, but is suited best for one. The bigger sizes can hold up to two D shots. For the past few years, I have been trying to get away from having to use shot at all, so I have gotten into the habit of tying my weight into my flies. The Ephemerella nymph is a crawler mayfly and has a fairly wide profile like a drake, so I picked out my double tungsten jawbreaker nymph. It is a double tungsten bead weighted fly that I designed to get down deep and quick. I use a tungsten bead for the head and another tied into the thorax. It has a wide silhouette and is tied on a curved hook to look like it is swimming. So now I have a high low, or hopper dropper set up, that I fish just like an indicator and weight. I can overhead cast the rig just fine because there is no shot on the line to create any hinge points. Because there is still a bit of weight to the rig, it also works well for adaptive spey and roll casting techniques. I crept back up on the same spot I had fished the dry to the rising brown and calculated my cast. After estimating the correct distance, I stripped out the right amount of line. I dropped a good cast in the head of the run. Then I watched the Hoppicator and mended my line just like I would for any other dry fly. Mid way through the run, the Hoppicator disappeared beneath the water's surface with a quick and distinct jerk. I set down stream and right into a nice fat brown. He tugged and we danced for several minutes. Finally I got him to come to hand. I cradled him lightly while I held him just under the water's surface:

My eyes admired him and examined his every spot and color, while I eased my fly out of his mouth. I thanked him for playing as he slithered out of my light grip and back to his home. That one take would have made my day, but there was still plenty of light and I had nowhere to be.

I worked downstream to the next good bucket. The water was a bit deeper there. A slow window in the current along a big submerged boulder looked appealing to me. I loosened the loop-to-loop connection at the head of my Hoppicator and slid the fly up my line. In doing so I increased the amount of tippet below my Hoppicator, so my dropper fly would sink deeper. I also added another dropper fly to the shank of the first droppers hook. I opted for a smaller beatis pattern I tie called the sprinkle. It is a small mayfly imitation, but will also get taken as a midge. In this pool I could get a little closer to where I thought the fish were by standing on and behind another granite boulder. The first prime looking drift was only about ten feet away from the end of my rod so after placing the cast, I held my rod tip up really high. I held the entire leader, leading to my Hoppicator, off the water. I fished it just like high sticking with a yarn indicator.

On the fifth or sixth cast a huge brown came all the way up from the deepest part of the bucket and hammered the Hoppicator with reckless abandon. He had spotted it from deep water and knew he wanted to eat it. It was a great visual for me as he turned sideways and lifted his head out of the water to inhale the fly. I reefed back and set the hook. Immediately he knew something was wrong. He jerked his head violently and thrashed underwater. After a hard run to the bottom of the pool, he shot up with all his speed and rocketed out of the water. He spun almost a full 360 in the air and splashed back down. Without missing a beat he was right back into another run. After a few more spectacular jumps and a mad dash around the whole pool, he dropped into the current and headed down stream. I had to jump off my perch and run down river to give chase. After stumbling over twenty yards of slippery boulders, I managed to slow him down and swing him into the soft water at the edge of a long deep run. Again I admired and thanked the mighty leopard spotted brown trout. I eased my fly out of his toothy mouth and he disappeared back into the depths. The Hoppicator really paid off. That spectacular take was worth the time it took to tie, the time it took to drive out there, and then some.

Keep and eye out in your local fly shop for a new selection of my favorite trout flies to be available soon from the good people at Idylwilde Flies. Also be sure to catch some of the best footage of the flies in action at http://www.fisheyevideos.com

Mikey Wier