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One of my favour early season still water flies this fly is dressed with a skit around a marabou tail. It is very adaptable and is a great way of tying tails of two colours of marabou or just adding a hot spot at the base of the tail which fish find very attractive. The skirt can be made of several materials but the best materials I have found for trout flies is marabou or rabbit fur.

This is a concept that I like very much and can be applied to a range of popular woolly bugger type tails and streamer fly variations.

When tying the bead head version the only difference to the following recipe is adding the 3 mm black bead head first.

Whilst not tied to imitate any natural food source it's a very buggy looking fly with heaps of trigger points including the marabou tail, the soft body and front hackles as well a the skit itself. In particular I like to incorporate blood red or orange skirts which are suggestive in the case of a red skirt as  bleeding from around the base of the tail or the claws depending on what the fly is taken as  or in the case of an orange skirt as a fish roe.

Materials for bibio bugger

Front hackle	The actual form of the front hackle is very important and what I look for in this fly is a front hackle that 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 the hook shank just behind the eye 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 suit these flies 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 hackles for my mini woolly buggers 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 well suited to this type of fly.

Process

A	Wind the thread half way down the hook shank. Understanding hooks For a size #10 tie in a length of .020 mm lead wire at the half 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.

B	Tie in a marabou tail 1.5 to 2 times the length of the hook. Form a loop in your thread just in front of the bend of the hook the same as a dubbing loop . Dubbing loops

C	Load the dubbing loop with either marabou or rabbit fur. If your using marabou I find it best to cut a section of marabou feather to size and to insert the marabou into the loop whilst still connected to the quill. You then of course trim the quill side off close to the dubbing loop. When I use rabbit fur I generally take it of a zonker strip. I always cut it too long and tease it out along the length of the dubbing loop before trimming the butt end close to the dubbing loop.

D	Once you have trimmed the excess skirting material away close to the loop, twist the loop with the marabou or rabbit fur loaded into the loop to form a rope.

E	Wind severs turns of the dubbing rope on top of each other in the same position the dubbing loop was tied in.

F	Using the single strand of thread tie the dubbing rope off in the same position and trim away the excess dubbing loop. I like to slide an empty Biro over the hook shank from the front to push the skirt into place with the tip of the Biro at the bend of the hook. Have a look right round the skirt and if the skirt is not uniform all the way round the hook shank manipulate individual marabou barbules or rabbit fur round the hook shank to achieve a uniform skirt. At that point you can either take hold of the skirt between the thumb and forefinger of your left hand and slide the Biro off before locking the skirt into place with a couple of firm wraps of thread or take the firm wraps of thread whilst the Biro is still in place and then remove it when the the skirt is locked into position.

G	Tie in a length of wire at the bend of the hook.

H	Build up a cigar shaped body from the bend of the hook to the 95% position. Tie the body hackle in at the 95% position with the shiny side facing you. Woolly bugger hackles

I	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. 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

J	Trim the excess body hackle with a blade. Tie in the front hackle, by the tip, directly behind the eye of the hook.

K	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. 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.

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