Hippie Stomper 01/11/2023 Photo Album

Should I categorize the hippie stomper as a terrestrial or an attractor? Guess what? It is irrelevant. The beauty of the hippie stomper is that it consistently catches fish regardless of the time of day, season of the year or type of water. The hippie stomper is simply my number one dry fly, as it delivers time after time. I encourage you to click on this link, Hippie Stomper – 01/30/2022, to gain access to all the background on the hippie stomper, or you can just sit down at your vise and tie a large quantity of these flies. If you are not a tier, hippie stompers are abundantly available at western fly shops, and purchasing a batch will help out my buddy, Andrew Grillos.

Left Side

Olive and Peacock Body Clump

Quite often I begin my dry/dropper fishing with a hopper and trail one or two beadhead nymphs as droppers, and frequently the fish ignore the droppers and refuse the large hopper. I adopted the strategy of downsizing from the size eight hopper to a smaller foam fly, and that approach often results in a hippie stomper as my top fly. The stomper is lighter than the larger foam flies, yet it is capable of supporting two beadhead nymphs up to size 14. Another frequent technique that incorporates the hippie stomper is casting a double dry arrangement. The hippie stomper is typically the front fly, and I attach another smaller dry fly that matches the naturals on a six to eight inch dropper. In many instances the hippie stomper out-fishes the more imitative second fly.

Red Version

My overwhelming favorite body color is peacock dubbing. Nine times out of ten the peacock hippie stomper resides on my line, although I did manage some success this summer with some constructed with red flashabou bodies. For this reason I tied both peacock and red hippie stompers for the 2023 season. The trout do not have a chance.