Capt. Pete Moore holds a larger schoolie bass. The fish struck after a downward rod stroke.

Webbed feet under its shoulders and haunches, and tail angled low in the water like an idling outboard, the 6-footer lay poised at the mouth of the run. Sure enough, a fish swirled in the hole, and with a tail flick the reptile sprang across the hydrilla like an overgrown Jesus lizard, then plunged its jaws into the black water. The snout raised triumphantly, the jaws crunched, the white throat opened, and the little bass became natural history.

“He needs to chew his food more,” Pete quipped, “or he’ll give himself gas.”

We took the cue and cast our No. 4 chartreuse poppers into those spots. But up and down the canal, the staccato explosions of schoolie bass made it difficult to ward off the temptation to make constant, reactionary presentations. Evidently, the fish were keyed in on a hatch of invisible insects, chisiwinks perhaps, so I eyed the popper skeptically before casting it.

“Twitch it into the hole,” Pete counseled, “let it sit a while, and pop it with a hard downward stroke of the rod.” I popped the bug, and the echoing rings hadn’t radiated out to the edge of the hole before a 2-pound bass exploded on my bug.

During these months, Pete almost exclusively targets bass with the cork poppers he buys from the folks who made Uncle Bob’s poppers. These fish take big deerhair bugs, as well, and yes, bigger flies catch bigger fish. But, most summertime bass run one to four pounds; further, the big bluegills can’t wrap their mouths around a big wad of deerhair.

Pete has also experimented with closed-cell foam poppers, but even the smaller foam bugs land with the grace of a drowned muskrat. And although they make great big poppers, small foam bugs often ride too low in the water, and hence fail to make that satisfying, confidence-inspiring bullfroggish gurgle that cork makes.

“The whole idea behind a popper is to make a fly small enough to cast but that looks like a mouthful to a bass,” Pete said. “The high-floating cork bugs with cupped faces also make the popper sound like more of a mouthful. You can tempt a big fish with a smaller cork popper. I like sizes 4 through 8, which will also spare you ‘9-weight elbow.’ Just don’t go so small that the tiny panfish suck them down first.”

Pete paints his poppers with yellow, red-rimmed faces and chartreuse bodies. He also favors a chartreuse bug with green scales painted all around it. He wraps white rubber legs along the hook shank, so they splay out to the side. Then he attaches a short marabou tail. If you wrap under the back of the marabou, lifting it slightly, you reduce the frequency with which the tail fouls around the hook bend.

A bass blitz on tiny insects. They would not take a wet fly.

Pete’s popper philosophy departs from my own when it comes to weedguards.

“I only use weedguards around lily pads, they cost you too many fish,” Pete says, insistently. He has a point. Every few trips, a slob sucks down one of his creations, and he’d rather not risk any chance at missing a big fish. But, I’m willing to assume the risk, especially around hydrilla. Cork is soft enough you can easily bore a hole with a big needle in the cork. Glue a single strand of 20-pound Mason hard mono, or 15-pound on smaller bugs, that extends slightly past the hook point. The mono works like a vaulting pole to make the bug leap off the matted vegetation; it keeps the bug clean and in the water, which leads to more strikes.

Bass either strike poppers viciously, or they suck them down almost imperceptibly. If you want to learn how to set the hook while fly fishing for bass with popping bugs, pay a visit to the aquarium at Slim’s Fish Camp on Torry Island around feeding time. They don’t chase a shiner down, they breathe it in. You can see the scales squirt out of the gills. So, lifting the rodtip is the absolute worst response to either strike; usually the bug just flies back out the wide opening on a dangerous trajectory. Strip strike, and wait until you feel tension in your line hand before lifting the rod.