How to Tie the Morrish Hopper Fly Pattern

Learn how to tie the Morrish Hopper fly pattern, including step-by-step instructions, a video tutorial, pictures, and much more. Improve your fly-tying skills here.

The Morrish Hopper was created by Ken Morrish and is considered by many to be one of the most effective hopper patterns out there. It utilizes a foam body which is easy to form using The River Road Creations cutters. These cutters are available in a 2-piece set in various sizes containing a body cutter and an indicator cutter. You can also purchase large and small hook-size sets containing 4 cutter sizes each. As a bit of a variation for this fly for the rear legs, I will be using the River Road Hopper Leg cutter instead of the original round rubber legs.

Material List

• Hook: TMC 5262 size 10
• Thread: Uni-Thread 6/0 in Brown
• Body: Hairline 2mm Foam in Tan
• Hairline: 2mm Foam in Yellow
• Rear Legs: Hairline 1mm Foam in Tan
• Front Legs: Hairline medium Round Rubber Legs in Dark Golden Stone
• Indicator: Hairline 2mm Foam in Orange
• Body Cutter: River Road Creations Morrish cutter size 10
• Rear leg Cutter: River Roads Rear Leg Cutter size Medium

Video Transcript

Hello, I'm Carl at Trident Fly Fishing. Today we're going to tie the Morrish Hopper. The Morrish Hopper was created by Ken Morrish and is considered by many to be one of the most effective hopper patterns out there. It utilizes a foam body which is easy to form using the River Road Creations Cutters. These cutters are available in either a two-piece set in various sizes containing a body cutter and an indicator cutter, or you can also purchase a large and small hook size set containing four cutters each. There's a bit of a variation for this fly - for the rear legs, I'll be using the River Road Hopper Leg Cutter instead of the original round rubber legs.

The first thing we're going to do is cut out the body components for this fly. They're made up using Hairline Fly Foam in 2mm. The indicator is also the same except a different color. What I've done here is I've taken three pieces of foam - two of the tan in 2mm and one in yellow in 2mm - and I've glued them all together using some spray adhesive that you can pick up in any hardware store.

The cutters come in a package like this. This one's a size 10 and this is the body cutter. It also comes with a hard rubber backing so you can make the cuts without hurting any of your table surfaces. We're going to place this on top and just push it through. You can see that it's cut all the way through. Sometimes the tail of the fly stays in the foam, which makes it easy to pull out. And there we have our foam body.

Now this needs to be trimmed up to look a little more hopper-ish. We're going to take our scissors and cut back at an angle starting here, all the way back to what would be the back of the abdomen. We're going to do the same thing on the other side. A good sharp pair of scissors really helps here. The rest of it is relatively easy - we're just going to soften the edges up all the way around. And for the head, we'll just make a couple of quick cuts to shape it. There's our basic body.

Now it can be a little hard to see in the water, so they've provided us with an indicator cutter. This is some orange 2mm foam. It works the same way - just press the cutter down until it comes all the way through. A lot of times it leaves the tail in like that, which makes it easier to remove.

Next is going to be some rear legs. Once you've got all these components cut out, the fly really ties fast. This is the package that the hopper legs come in and it comes in three different sizes - large, medium, and small. This is a small for size 10 through 12. It comes with a cutter and a backing and it works the same way as the body, except it always gets stuck in the cutter, which is pretty easy to get out. The cutters are very sharp so be mindful of that as you're using them.

Last are some rubber legs. For that we're going to use some Hairline medium round rubber legs in dark golden stone - it's kind of a tan color. This is a finished leg. All it is is a piece of that round rubber leg that I've tied an overhand knot in and taken a dab of Zap-A-Gap and placed it over the knot to hold it in place. Just a quick overhand knot and a little bit of Zap-A-Gap. Give that knot a stretch to set it. Alright, now we've got all the components ready to go and we can tie the fly.

The hook we're going to use today is a TMC 5262, size 10. Our thread is going to be some UTC 70 denier in tan. We'll start our thread right behind the hook eye and run it back to the hook bend. This is going to form a base for the foam body of the fly. Run this back and forth just to give it some material to grab onto, because we're going to glue this body on with some Zap-A-Gap.

To prepare the body for the hook, we're going to use a razor blade and cut right down the center of the body all the way through the yellow foam. Don't have to go any deeper than that. Place this on top, give it a bit of a squeeze, and we'll take a couple of thread wraps to form our first segment of the body.

Now the legs are going to go in next. I think they're just a little bit large so I'm going to marry the two legs up and cut about a millimeter and a half off. Really easy to tie in - one on either side with just a couple of wraps. Don't worry if the legs splay out far like that, we'll fix that.

Next we're going to tie in the indicator, which I've already cut out. It's going to sit right on top, just a little bit back from the head. A couple of turns is all you need to hold it in place. Then we're going to run our thread back up across the top of the fly - that will be hidden by the indicator - and this will form the head of the fly.

Next we're going to tie in our front legs. These are Hairline's medium round rubber legs and all I've done is tie them in a simple knot with a drop of Zap-A-Gap at the knot so that it won't come undone. I've placed the knot back where we made the first body segment. Take a couple of wraps, not overly tight, and you can still position the legs the way you want. I'm trying to position them so that the leg behind the knot is pointed down. Take our second leg and tie that in at the same point. Those look pretty good.

We're going to take some more Zap-A-Gap and place it at the tie-in point of those legs so that they don't move around when we do our whip finish. Just a daub there, a daub there. Same thing on the rear legs - it just reinforces them. Now because the rear legs are kind of splayed out the way they are, on our bodkin we'll put just a little bit of that Zap-A-Gap and sneak that in behind the leg. Then we can push the leg up against the body and it'll stay there. Once again, just a little bit of that Zap-A-Gap behind the leg - push it up against the body and give it a second or two to set.

Now we're ready to do a whip finish on the fly. Three turns ought to do it, doesn't have to be too many. Cut our thread and cut our legs to length - this is purely up to you. The front legs on these tend to be kind of short.

Last, we're going to add a little bit more Zap-A-Gap to the bottom of the fly at our tie-in points, right there and kind of along the bottom. Almost done. Got to have eyes. With a Copic marker here, we'll move that leg out of the way, paint an eye, paint another eye. And our fly is complete.

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