Posts Tagged ‘Woolly buggers and variants’

BH woolly bugger

I tie brown, black and olive versions of my bead head woolly buggers for my bugger fly box but its worth keeping in mind that whilst standard combinations like silver bead and wire on a black bugger or a brass beads on an olive or brown bugger work well this fly is a great fly to tie in a few different colour combinations. In any case I like to fish my bead head buggers on the point generally on intermediate to type 5 lines and to muck round with retrieve rates until I find the one working on the day.

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BH Tassi bugger

I have used it and this bead head version many times since to great effect. Like most woolly buggers it 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.

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Bead head bibio bugger – Chatto’s original

I use this fly as a point fly for when both boat and bank fishing and have developed three versions. The standard non bead head version is tied on Knapek L series hook in size #8 and has 6 wraps of .015 lead wire hidden in the body and an overall finished length of around 45 mm. A mini bugger version is tied on Knapek L series hook in size #10 and has 4 wraps of .015 lead wire hidden in the body and an overall finished length of around 30 mm. I also tie a bead head version on a Tiemco 3769 hook in size #8 which incorporates a 3 mm black tungsten bead.

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Olive damsel bugger

Keep an eye for swallows dipping on the water feeding on midge. That's a sure sign that there will also be damsel nymphs around and then of course further up the food chain there are likely to be trout feeding on both the midge and the damsel nymphs. This is the time to start thinking about fishing either damsel buggers or olive woolly buggers.

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Brown woolly bugger

This is my favourite. I have absolute confidence in this fly and it's my default point fly in fly fishing competitions. That of course doesn't mean that I don't fish other woolly buggers or woolly bugger variations with specific applications in particular fisheries but it does mean that if the buggers that should work (eg a Magoo in Purrumbete or a Tassi bugger in Arthurs lake) isn't working then I will always give my brown bugger a swim.

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TBH hot butt caddis bugger

If your fishing in water with reasonably numbers of caddis your going to want to give this 3 cm bugger a swim. Caddis represent up to 70% of a trout's diet and whilst this fly is bigger than any caddis nymph I have seen trout love it. It is also a must tie on fly for discoloured water. You can fish it as a nymph but my preference is to fish it across, down and on the swing.

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River Jig Bugger – CDC orange TBH and black

This is really good representation of a woolly bugger for river fishing. It sinks well and the jig hook encourages the fly to bounce along the bottom hook point up which of course mitigates snags. Whilst I have set the recipe out below for the brown, black and olive jig buggers I also tie my sparkle bugger and skirted buggers in the form of a jig bugger as shown in the photos below.

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Sparkle bugger

Woolly buggers and their variants would have to be close to the quintessential wet fly. This woolly bugger version is one of my favourate late season still water flies.

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Tassi bugger – Chatto’s version

I was introduced to this variation in the lead up to the 2002 Tasmanian One Fly which by chance I won. Whilst I was not comfortable enough to use this fly in that contest I have used it many times since to great effect.

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Bibio bugger – Chatto’s original

There are a few flies that I have absolute confidence in and consequently have no hesitation in tying them on if I am in unknown territory and am up for a bit of prospecting. This fly is really a merging of two of them and it is so consistent that its has earned its own place amongst my top 10 or so trout flies. The two flies that were merged to form this fly were of course the bibio and the standard black woolly bugger. Whilst the bibio still holds its own place in my top 10 or so trout flies this bibio bugger has displaced the standard black woolly bugger.

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