Choosing the right hopper

When was the last time you actually held a real live grasshopper in your grubby little butt scratchers? Oh...you're too cool these days to be seen lunging about like a drunken river gnome? Well, the up side to not occasionally picking up and inspecting the living versions of what you are trying to emulate with a $2 artificial is getting to maintain some semblance of aloofness and coolness among your fellow fishermen. The down side, though, is you forget what the belly of the bug (THE SIDE THE FISH SEES) looks like!

I use large hopper patterns (#6,#8) with light tan bodies and small hoppers (#10,#12) with yellow bodies. I like all my hopper bodies to be tied with some type of foam or another. Foam floats high every time. A healthy dose of elk hair on top is always nice. Too much synthetic material on a fly never looks lively...and elk hair is a good counterbalance to the foam.