When All Else Fails

Like Rodney Dangerfield, the woolly bugger just doesn’t get enough respect. Plain and simple. Why is that? Is it just too easy to tie? Too simple? Not enough exotic parts?
The truth of the matter is that it works. It not only catches fish consistently, it’s almost impossible to fish it wrong.

Reliable and Consistent: Trout eat woolly buggers!I have to admit, that when I flip open my streamer box, I usually glance past the neat row of woolly buggers, and search out a more impressionistic offering. Spun deer hair heads get my attention, as do streamers with combinations of rabbit zonker and marabou. Throw in some bead chain eyes or sili legs, and I’m hooked. The woollies will just have to wait.

By the end of the wade, however, my woolly buggers are usually wet, and I have fish on the memory card as a result. Why didn’t I tie the woolly on first? So confident are Linsenman and Galloup in the woolly bugger’s fish-catching ability, that they include it among their impressive streamer line-up in “Modern Streamers for Trophy Trout.” Don’t overlook the woolly.

It’s hard to fish a woolly wrong. In smaller sizes (6-10) you can bottom bounce them like stone fly nymphs, or fish them under indicators. In fact, who hasn’t heard about the “egg sucking leach” for steelhead? Guess what that is . . . a woolly bugger tied with an fluorescent colored chenille clump for the head. On the other hand, tie them up in the larger sizes (2-6) and you rip ‘em, strip ‘em and swing ‘em just like any other streamer.

The recipe is simple. Start with a long shank streamer hook, like 3x or 4x long in the hook size of choice. Tie in a marabou tail, with a few strands of flashabou or krystal flash. Wrap the hook shank with chenille to form a level body. Finish off by palmering a saddle hackle from back to front (tie in the saddle hackle by the tip of the hackle).

The woollies that I intend to use as streamers are ALL weighted. They all have 10 to 14 wraps of .020 lead, covering the front third of the hook shank. In addition, some of my woollies are tipped with a bead head, others are not. If I intend to use the smaller buggers for indicator fishing or bottom bouncing, I forego the bead head and lead wraps. I want the current to have free reign over the fly’s undulations.

Tan/Brown/Furnace WB (bh)Peacock/Olive/FurnaceThe two best color combinations on the Sturgeon seem to be tan body, brown tail and furnace saddle hackle; followed by peacock herl body, olive tail and furnace saddle hackle. I’m sure each stream has its own preferences as to color combinations.

If you’ve never seriously tried woolly buggers on your home water, here’s my suggestion: Tie up a series of woolly buggers in 4 or 5 color combinations, both with and without bead heads. Then, dedicate the next two or three outings to fishing the buggers EXCLUSIVELY. By the end of the third outing, you will know what works on your home water.

Then, the next time your venture out to the stream, tie the woolly on FIRST.