FLEYE FOILS are coming!

A guest blog by Bob Popovics

I'm sure you all can imagine how happy I was when Bob Popovics agreed to guest blog at Flies of Fancy!  He needs no introduction, but I'll give him one anyway.  Bob has been fly tying for decades and has brought to the fly fishing world many innovative flies, like the Surf Candy, that have since become standards in everyone's fly boxes.  He continues to develop new products that shape the fly fishing world, and today he's blogging about his latest creation -- FLEYE FOILS.  

Welcome, Bob!

It's been a long road to get this little project started. 

Back in January, I met Ibbi Mesinovic at the Marlboro Fly Fishing Show.  He showed me something I might be interested in.  A foil!  Neat little item.  Very shiny, shape was cool, and had little tying tabs in the front to easily attach to the hook.  One foil to each side of the fleye was also right!  This looked very similar to a wish I had many years ago, but because the cost to get it started was too much, I scrapped the idea. 

But Ibbi's idea was a better one.  The tying tab was cool, but already done with Tab-Eyes; the shape was fine but needed to be re-shaped, but because it was one side at a time, I was impressed.  My idea so long ago was all-in-one to wrap around a hook.  That was the epoxy era.  NOW, we are deep into the light-cured acrylics and a wraparound foil would not be so good since it would likely shield the light from certain spots and not allow for proper curing of the gel.  With epoxy this would not have mattered.  

I asked Ibbi if he would make these to my specs, and he agreed.  I drew up a few ideas over the next month and finally the FLEYE FOILS are ready to be sold.  Three baits are featured, the Bay Anchovy, the Silverside, and the Sand Eel.  Three to four sizes in each.  Easy and quite fun to tie! The fly is a simple basic, pre-epoxy frame but with Fleye Foils on the sides.  Using the acrylics was easy because I could slide the gel between the foils from the top and bottom, cure it, and put a finish coat on top of all of it and DONE!  The belly sac was there, the stripe was there, and the eye was there!!!  Even a mouth and gill lines were there.  The Surf Candy was looking very smart all dressed up, and so easily tied! 

I hope everyone has a good time using the FLEYE FOILS and maybe they'll even bring out the fun in making something so easily that looks so good.  I sure had fun getting all this together and I am excited that people will enjoy it, too.  Bob Popovics

FLEYE FOILS can be purchased at TUFFLEYE