No More Miss Prissy

Magnum PI

For years a popper sold by Accardo they called the Miss Prissy was the goto popper for most fly fisherman I knew. Unfortunately that popper is no longer available. I have a few left from the last batch of fifty I bought a couple of years ago but after that it is all over.

The Miss Prissy did catch fish, which of course is why it was so popular especially with the "brim" fisherman. Frequently though this little bit of fish magic would attract a large bass and you would have to pray the little hook would hold in that tough bucket mouth.

For that reason I began toying with making my on versions of the Miss Prissy in a larger, bass size popper I called the Magnum PI (Prissy Imitation). Now that the Miss Prissy is no longer available this has taken its place in my popper box. It catches bass just like the Miss Prissy but the larger size gives you a more solid hook-up when the bigmouth does explode under it.

I'm not sure any popping bug will take the place of the Miss Prissy but its absence has stirred my interest and the interest of others in crafting my own popping bugs. A material resource that I had been collecting for years was wine corks. I felt sure I could make poppers from them but couldn't seem to find the time to figure out how. In the meantime my collection of purple stained corks grew from a small bag to half a garbage can full.

Stories from a fellow angler of catching monster bass on big poppers once again had me thinking of the wine cork poppers. I made a couple and gave them to him to try that Fall. It was downhill from there. That winter we cranked out three or four dozen poppers from the wine corks. Friends began to hear about the exercise and wine corks began showing up in my mailbox and on my front porch. So many that I suspected some of my friends might have issues with wine consumption. That concern led me to saddle the wine cork poppers with the handle Wino Poppers and that has stuck.

Wino Poppers, wine corks repurposed for a life of daring and adventure.

My popper arsenal is now made up primarily of the Magnum PI and the Wino Popper. Both are catching fish, maybe not as frequently as the vintage Miss Prissy but close enough to keep me cranking them out and getting them wet.

A New Year At Last

2016 at last! I thought it would never get here. There have not been many years that I wanted to say good riddance to but 2015 was certainly one of them. I said the same thing a couple of years ago and here I am making the same comments about the year past. Some of the reason are the same but some have a great deal to do with the new Apple computer I had to buy to replace my old Apple computer that failed again just before the holidays. Ironically I got the old one working again the same day the new one arrived which I should have recognized as an omen. That good fortune lasted a couple of days so I unboxed the new machine. At one time Apple was known for "plug and play" simplicity that made using a computer simple for the technically challenged like myself. This latest generation doesn't seem to follow that mantra. I've been trying to get it setup so that it is as least as useful as my old Mac for several days now. The more I use it the more I feel like I'm shooting myself in the foot and painting myself into the proverbial corner. Maybe it's because Steve Jobs is no longer looking over anyone's shoulder but damn this is the kind of stuff that made me leave Microsoft platforms in the first place. Tonight this new wonder machine had me in an endless loop telling me there was an issue, giving me two choices 1) log into my Apple account and fix the problem or 2) a button labeled LATER. I selected LATER because I had enough issues on my plate with this machine right now. Trouble was, the LATER button didn't work so I had to select the only other option. The trouble with that was after logging into my account the computer took me back to where this nightmare started. The error message was textual but just as cryptic as the old "bomb on the screen" which told you there was a problem, something you already knew, but outside that no information that gave you a clue as to how to begin to resolve the issue.

2015 wasn't all bad. I made new friends and old friendships grew stronger. Those will be carried forward to this new year along with all the lessons learned from both disappointments and successes. Thanks to all those that taught me something last year even if it was what not to do. Special thanks to those that added to my new knowledge, new interests, new adventures and new stories. I love stories and storytellers...the spice of life. Hopefully for you and for me this new year will be full of stories of success and happiness. Happy New Year to you, everyone!