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My first fish on fly fell to the magic of a Woolly Bugger and many have gone the same way since then. With its origins in America where it appears to be tied, as a Leach imitation there is also an English version with bead chin eyes called a Dog Nobler. Whatever the name it's a very good fly.

The MK 2 woolly buggers evolved from standard black and olive woolly buggers as a fly that would imitate an American frog that had bright red between its hind legs. The red is a great trigger point and I find the MK2 as a great generalist search pattern.

In southern climes the hot spot is tied in any of the 'roe' colours and is widely accepted as one of the best early season search pattens.

The Woolly Bugger is often best when fished with short sharp twitching movements in order to make the marabou and hackle ‘work’ but its worth experimenting with a range of retrieves from dead drift through to “roly poly” to see what's working on the day.

• My favourite woolly buggers

Materials

Process

A	Wind the thread 1/3 of the way down the hook shank. Understanding hooks For a size #8 hook tie in a length of .020 mm lead wire at the 1/3 way mark and take five wraps of the wire forward of that position. Worry off the excess wire. Adding weight to a fly Continue winding the thread in touching turns to the bend of the hook. Tie in a marabou or rabbit fur tag about 1/4 the length of the hook shank. Tag tails

B	Tie in a marabou tail 1 to 2 times the length of the hook. Woolly bugger tails Tie in a length of silver wire at the bend of the hook. If in the process of tying in the tail or adding lead ridges have been created along the under body of the fly use a little dubbing to build up the gaps so that the under body has no ridges.There are of course other ways of adding weight to a fly.

C	Build a cigar shaped body right up to the 95% position. The body can be chenille, wool or a range of other materials but in this case I have used black dubbing. Tie a "Woolly Bugger" hackle between the body and the eye of the hook. Woolly bugger hackles

D	Palmer the hackle back along the hook shank. This involves: Taking a couple of turns of the hackle directly behind the eye of the hook and then winding 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 hackles Whilst holding the hackle in place at the bend of the with your left hand pick up the silver wire with your right hand and wind the copper wire forward to the eye of the hook taking three or four wraps of the wire that are equally separated from each other. Body segments on flies Take a final wrap of the wire just behind the eye of the hook and then whilst holding the hook firm with your left hand worry the copper wire off.

E	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.

F	Whip finish and varnish the head.

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