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Hackles are added to woolly buggers and woolly bugger variants for a couple of reasons. Firstly they add what may well be representative of legs on what ever the woolly bugger is tied to represent. The second reason to add movement to the fly. In most cases it's varying degrees of both ... what ever the reason for the hackle or hackles they are an intrinsic part of perhaps the quintessential wet trout fly.

This a standard woolly bugger and has 'true' woolly bugger hackle and has a couple of wraps of the hackle behind the eye of the fly and then part of the same hackle palmered along the full length of the body..	'True' woolly bugger hackles are not always my first choice for my woolly bugger type flies. This skirted bugger is dressed with a body hackle with barbules about as long as the gape of the hook and a separate front hackle.	Also dressed with a separate body and front hackle the body hackle of this Magoo has been stripped on one side to create a lighter dressing on the body.

You will gather from  the above there are basically two options when adding hackle to a woolly bugger or woolly bugger variant. The first option is to use a single hackle, but you need to choose that hackle carefully.

True woolly bugger hackles are those that:

	Are relatively soft so that they will move in the water. Are about twice as long as the overall hook length. Have barbules that are about twice as wide as the gape of the hook at the butt end and then reduce in width along the full length of the hackle to be used until they are as wide as the gape of the hook. Palmering a woolly bugger hackle

Alternative woolly bugger hackles.

Unfortunately true woolly bugger hackles are getting much harder to get. If that is the case for you a good alternative is to use two feathers to create an appropriate woolly bugger hackle type dressing for your fly.

The first part of creating a alternative to a full woolly bugger type hackle is that part of the hackle which dresses the body of the fly.

A	In recent years selective breeding of birds for production of hackles for fly tying has  focused on delivering long uniform hackles, and many of those hackles, particularly in grades 2 and 3 are really good for wet flies. Select a wet fly hackle with barbules as long as the gape of the hook Tie that body hackle in at the 95% position with the shiny side facing you. Its important that you have the shiny side facing you as that will ensure that the barbules of the hackle slope slightly backward as you wind the hackle back along the body of the fly.

B	Palmer the hackle down the hook shank to the bend of the hook taking three or four wraps of the hackle that are equally separated from each other. Palmering a hackle Whilst holding the hackle in place at the bend of the with your left hand pick up the wire with your right hand and wind the wire forward to the 95% position taking three or four wraps of the wire that lock tare equally separated from each other but serve the dual role of locking the body hackle into place. Take two full wraps of wire directly in front of the 95% position and then worry the excess wire off. Body segments on flies

C	If a full hackle creates too many legs on your fly, or you just want a lighter body dressing, strip one side of the hackle away as on the Magoo fly. Select a body hackle with barbules about as long as the gape of the hook. Hold your hackle with the shiny side forward and peal away the barbules off the bottom side of the hackle. The remaining one sided hackle is then tied in with the stripped side of the hackle at the bottom. By following these steps you will ensure that the remaining barbules of the hackle slope slightly backward as you wind the hackle back along the body of the fly.

D	Palmer the hackle down the body to the bend of the hook creating 3 nor 4 segments along the body of the fly. Whilst holding the hackle in place at the bend of the hook with your left hand pick up the wire with your right hand and wind the wire forward forming just 3 or 4 segments along the body of the fly. Body segments on flies Tie the copper wire off behind the bead and worry off the excess wire.

You can of course on many woolly bugger variants and other flies substitute a 'fuzzeled' body for a dubbed body with a Palmered hackle. This is a pretty simple process and involves:

E	Build up a dubbed cigar shaped body. Wind the wire forward forming 4 or 5 segment on the body of the fly. Body segments on flies Take one extra wrap of the wire behind the eye of the hook and then worry off the excess wire. Using a section of Velcro tease out dubbing fibres evenly around the body of the fly. This is a great alternative to Palmering a hackle down the body of many flies.

The second part of creating a alternative to a full woolly bugger type hackle is make an alternative  to the couple of wraps of true woolly bugger hackle that you take behind the eye of the hook on many woolly bugger type flies. aka Woolly bugger front hackle.

A	The actual form of the hackle you select for this job is very important and what I look for in a front hackle depends on the design of the fly. For some flies the hackle I select has barbules long enough to partially hide the bite of the hook and don't have a stem that is so thick that it bulks out the head of the fly when wound round the hook shank just behind the eye of the hook. For others I select a hackle that has barbules about as long as the gape of the hook. The barbules must also be fine and not too webby so that they move in the water. You can find hackles that meet these requirements from a wide range of birds and whilst it's very sad that so many birds are hit by cars on our roads it's always worth carrying a plastic bag in your car just in case you come across such a tragedy. Pluck out the feathers that you need and move the body of the bird well away from the road so that it wont attract scavenging wild life onto the road also putting them in jeopardy. In recent times I have added to my collection of feathers suitable for front hackle on woolly bugger type flies by collecting small chest, neck and back feathers from crows, swamp hens of various colours, a couple of parrots and even a falcon which provided fantastic brown feathers. There are of course commercial feather such as partridge, guinea and pheasant available that are also make good front feathers for woolly bugger type flies.

B	Once you have selected your front hackle tie it in, by the tip, directly behind the eye of the hook.

C	Trim off the tip of the feather where it is tied in. Take two or three turns of the feather in the gap you left between the body and the eye of the hook. Two is generally plenty. Tie the feather off and trim the butt with a blade rather than scissors.

D	Stroke the front hackle back with the fingers of your left hand and build up a neat thread head directly behind the eye of the hook. Whip finish and varnish the head. The overall length of these mini bugger should only be between 25 and 30 mm.

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