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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. The woolly bugger has its origins in America where it appears to be tied, as a leach imitation but there is also an English version with bead chin eyes called a Dog Nobler. Whatever the name it's a very good fly.

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.

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.

• My favourite woolly buggers

Materials

Dubbing	You will notice as you tie this fly that I don't add any flash to the marabou tail. Through experience I have found that in these medium sized flies that the traditional flash in the 'woolly bugger' type tail tends to put more fish off than it attracts. Woolly bugger type tails As an alternative I do however add a little flash in the body of the fly in the form of Peacock dubbing which I include as 25% of my dubbing mixture. The other 75% is brown, black or olive seals fur. By just adding this little bit of peacock dubbing in the fly it's surprising how alive the body can look and the colours that body pick up as the fly is retrieved.

Hackle	The actual form of the hackle is very important and what I look for in this fly is a black feather 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 and many other soft hackle type 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 soft hackle 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 well suited to soft hackle type flies and of course you could use a section of a hen hackle for this fly. I however prefer a crow hackle for this and many of my black woolly bugger and streamer type flies.

Process

A	Wind the thread half way down the hook shank. Understanding hooks Tie in a length of .015 mm lead wire at the half way mark and take four 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 violet marabou under-tail 1.5 to 2 times the length of the hook.

C	Tie in a black marabou over-tail on top of the under-tail and the same length as the under-tail. Tie in a length of wire at the bend of the hook.

D	Build up a cigar shaped body from the bend of the hook to the 95% position.

E	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.

F	Tie in a hackle, by the tip, directly behind the eye of the hook. Woolly bugger hackles

G	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. Tie the feather off and trim the butt with a blade rather than scissors.

H	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 the tassi bugger should only be between 35 and 45 mm.

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