Every fall, the Hareline Dubbin Company releases their new catalog which inevitably has a slew of new tying materials, some of which are a little more "new" so to speak than others. Every season when that new catalog arrives at my doorstep, accompanied by a generous selection of material samples, it is like the advent of a new holiday. "I dub this day Hareline holiday"! Ok, got a little carried away there, besides I'd need a definitive date to add to the calendar as it seems there is no defined date so to speak. At any rate, its an exciting mail day to say the least every fall when this cornucopia of goodness arrives.
This year there was a pretty solid haul of entirely new materials, as well as some additions to some older materials. I am going to give you a rundown of the materials that caught my eye, and have already either 1. made my life easier in some way, or 2. are entirely innovative new products. So to get things started, lets kick our holiday off with a bang.
1. Gary Krebs Blue Water/Predator Foam Popper Jig Set.
It would only be fitting for me to start off with a product that hits on my predator senses. I have personally been waiting on this one for quite some time and am very happy to say that it is now available. Gary Krebs has been known for designing innovative jig sets for all sorts of foam related flies. His first series of foam popper jigs are great tools for constructing poppers for panfish and bass, but were lacking in the larger sizes. Now you can build poppers up to just shy of an inch in diameter, and River Road Creations also supplies the applicable sizes of foam cylinders to do so. If you are looking for a quick way to build some of those larger foam poppers for those predacious fish in your life, look no further.