On the morning of November 1, 2024, legendary New Jersey fly tier and surf angler Bob Popovics passed away at the age of 75 due to injuries caused by a hit and run driver in Seaside Park back in September. The following profile by Jim Hutchinson, Jr. was featured in the October 11, 2018 edition of The Fisherman. Semper Fidelis, and fair winds Pop Fleye.
After returning home from Vietnam in 1970, Bob Popovics joined friends Jimmy McGee and Butch Colvin to do some weakfishing off Harvey Cedars, NJ. That trip took an amazing turn when a school of bluefish sent Butch and Jimmy scrambling for a couple of fly outfits. “Oh, fly fishing, I always wanted to do that,” Popovics remembers telling his friends. “They said ‘not now Bob, we’re not going to teach you now’,” Popovics recalls with a laugh. The next day, Popovics was at Cap Colvin’s tackle shop for an individualized lesson out along Central Avenue in Seaside Park.
In the 48 years since, Bob Popovics has become a pioneer in saltwater fly fishing, leading the way in the use of epoxy in tying flies. His original Surf Candies were built and tested on Jersey bluefish in the 1970s, and in turn gobbled up by a hungry angling public by the 1980’s because of the durability and realistic translucency imparted by the 20th century resins. They were truly a game changer for salty flyrodders.
“All this stuff actually derives from the need to improve something,” he said. “When I first got started one of the greatest things for a young fly guy was catching bluefish. They’re made for the flyrodder, and when I started back in 1970 there weren’t many bass around.”
Known for ground-breaking, Northeast tested fly designs, what Popovics is perhaps most prideful of today is that he’s continued to pay it forward; just like in those early days learning to fly fish with the Colvins, he loves freely teaching new people the art of the cast and the tie. “That’s the tradition,” Popovics told me recently as we sat down for lunch at his restaurant, Shady Rest, just west of Barnegat Bay. “This is supposed to be passed on from one guy to another, that’s sportsmanship, camaraderie,” he said.
“Lefty Kreh called you ‘the most innovative fly tier I’ve ever met,’” I say to Bob as he scrolls through his cellphone showing pictures of flies from the bench at home. “Awww, he always said that,” Pops replied with a dismissive, humble groan. “He was a great mentor, everything I made I would put through him.”
After the Salt Water Flyrodders of America folded in the mid-1970s, Bob threw open the doors to his Seaside home for Tuesday night fly tying meetings in the mid 1980s, eventually giving birth to the Atlantic Salt Water Flyrodders, a group that still meets regularly (www.aswf.info). During the club’s formative years as Popovics was honing in on what would eventually become the Hollow Fleye, the Bucktail Deceiver and the Siliclone, Lefty Kreh wanted to see first-hand what was going on up in New Jersey.
“We didn’t tell anybody,” Popovics said with a laugh. “Larry Duckwald brought him up from Maryland, he spent the whole day here,” he recalled of the well-kept secret for that particular Tuesday night gathering.
Bob has fished and collaborated with some of the very biggest names in fishing, and can instantly rattle off a page full of names who’ve contributed directly to the continuing evolution of his craft. “Richie King, he was a great observer, a terrific observer, and I’d pick up on that,” he said of another of his mentors who taught him to see through the water and understand that there’s a reason for everything in the surf. “A little flip, a bird, whatever, it all means something, and the more you can become a great observer the better fisherman you’re going to be.”
While his advice transcends tackle selection on the beach, Bob Pops himself never really returned to the traditional methods of his youth. “I’ll fish 40 mile an hour winds in the surf at the proper time with the fly and I’ll catch fish,” he said. “When we get a new nor’easter that’s just starting, and the water’s still clean and it’s got that nice, clean green and white foam on top that’s fresh and new, those fish are there,” he says with a clap of his hands.
Before folding up my notebook and taking a final swig of iced tea, I look across at Bob for one final question. “You’re stuck with one fly for the entire fall run of stripers, what do you go with?”
“Probably the Bucktail Deceiver,” he replies matter-of-factly. “You can make it in any length and in any shape, I can make ‘em sand eels I can make ‘em bunker, I can do squids or mullet, the Bucktail Deceiver is just perfect.”
Appropriately, that’s the same fly Lefty Kreh once called one of “the very best” ever created by his friend Bob Popovics.
