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From what I can understand Dan Popovics conceived the original Nobby Hopper. It has undergone a number of changes since it was designed including the change of the body to yellow chenille by Noel Jetson when he developed the Noels Nobby. Whilst I don't think either the Original or any of the variants represents any of the naturals that I've seen it is a good buggy general purpose hopper pattern. If you experiment with bodies of different coloured chenille, yarns and tinsel matched with different coloured deer hair you can come up with combinations to suit most small hoppers.

Materials

Process

A	Because the head of this fly is spun deer hair you have to leave that area of the hook shank free of thread. Wind the thread in touching turns along the rear 2/3 of the hook shank. Understanding hooks Select a piece of chenille and strip the fluff off the end exposing the chord.

B	Tie the chenille in at the bend of the hook by the exposed chord and wind it forward along the rear 2/3 of the hook shank in touching turns. Tie the chenille off and trim the excess. Tie in 15 or 20 Golden Pheasant feather tippets creating a down wing that is about as long as the hook. It will do no harm to put a drop of head cement on the thread where the wing is tied in.

C	Select a bunch of deer hair about as long as the hook shank and stack it in a "deer hair stacker" so that all of the tips are together. Take the deer hair out of the stacker with your left hand by gripping the tips of the stacked deer hair. Transfer the stacked deer hair to your  right hand, bunching it up into a tight mass as you do, and carefully hold the tight mass of hair along the top of the hook shank at the tie in position. The tips of the stacked deer hair should be positioned above the back of the hook. Spinning deer hair

D	Without moving the tight mass of deer hair swap your grip from the right hand to the left hand. Get used to sliding the thumb and fore finger of the left hand onto the material to be tied in and the shank of the hook ready to undertake a fly tiers pinch. Using the fly tiers pinch take two loose wraps of thread around the deer hair and then slowly pull down on the thread. As you do this the hair will spin around the hook shank and flare out. Use your finger nails, the end of a pen or a similar tool to force the deer hair back as tight as possible.

E	Now repeat the five steps C and D as many times as is required to  fill the front of the hook shank with spun deer hair.

F	Take the thread forward to the eye of the hook and take a couple of double hitches of thread tying it off. Trim the thread and apply head cement.

G	Use your fingers to hold the Golden Pheasant tippets and the tips of the first deer hair that was tied in.

H	With a sharp pair of scissors trim the remaining deer hair in a neat head shape.

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