Foam flies for Trouts and Basses / anything

[Brian K. Shaffer]

Foam really works well for bass flies - and I use all blank for ants and beetles.

The key is to have VARIETY. Not all the same shape and size drives fish crazy. 

I like that shade of yellow because I am color blind. Fish like it too, especially in the early AM.

the fly below is painted foam - QTpie

Ants are favorite - but these little yellow things come off right away - poo

 

[netboy]

I use a foam body for all my larger dry flies... Elk hair Caddis, Sulphurs and BWO's. Floats really well.

[jdmidwest]

Throw a couple thread wraps over the chart foam on ants and it will hold.

[kjackson]

I've used small Gurglers in saltwater for cutthroat both stripped and skated.  Haven't tried the Gurglers in a river, though, so YMMV.  

Also, I hooked one of my largest trout ever on a small midge pattern that had a small, foam block as a wing. I was sitting on a rock, flipping the fly in the run at my feet when the bugger did a perfect head-and-tail rise to take the fly.  Since the nail knot was inside the guides, he didn't stay around long.

[Flysmallie]

Gurglers are perfect for smallmouth. They pop, they swim, they skate, but some of the best takes are on a dead drift with the tiniest of wiggles occasionally. 
 

[Nick Adams]

My gurglers are not as pretty as Flysmallie's. I have a few tied in white and yellow.

I tied a few woolly worms with foam bodies once. I thought they'd be good for panfish. I called them the Unsinkable Molly Brown's b/c I used a brown body. But I've never used them, so who knows!

Foam beetle is literally top 5 fish catcher for me. I tie on a yellow scrap instead of gluing, fwiw.

[tjm]

I only make two foam flies, my gurglers look like Flysmallie's far left model, basic, simple, easy to see and Neosho bass love them; my "beetles" look like nothing natural but the RRSP trout gulp them.

[Flysmallie]

9 minutes ago, tjm said:

I only make two foam flies, my gurglers look like Flysmallie's far left model, basic, simple, easy to see and Neosho bass love them; my "beetles" look like nothing natural but the RRSP trout gulp them.

Most of mine that I fish look like the far left. The ones with long legs give you something a little different when dead drifting. The ones with rabbit get a little water logged and are good for swimming or blooping along like a frog. But one of those white ones skated on a 5 wt is my favorite for smallmouth. It doesn’t produce huge fish, it doesn’t provide great hookups, but it does provide big fun. 

[tjm]

 

17 minutes ago, Flysmallie said:

it doesn’t provide great hookups,

I don't seem to miss hookups using 4XL hooks on the 14" and bigger fish, but I've smaller ones hit the fly on 4-5 consecutive casts.

[Flysmallie]

1 hour ago, tjm said:

 

I don't seem to miss hookups using 4XL hooks on the 14" and bigger fish, but I've smaller ones hit the fly on 4-5 consecutive casts.

I’m not speaking in general but skating one across a tail out for smallmouth will result in multiple misses. It’s just the nature of it. 
 

Using one as a popper or dead drifting it you won’t have any issues.