{{+1}}Woolly bugger{{-1}}

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. It's also very versatile because the body can be made from a range of materials such as chenille, wool, dubbing, peacock herl, Estaz chenille etc. and eyes in various shapes and forms including dumb bell eyes, lead shot, bead heads, jiggy heads etc. can be added for appearance and weight.

In Australia it's probable that fish take it as a Yabby, small fish, mudeye or even a Leech depending on the colours of the dressing and the way it's fished.

It's also likely that on many occasion fish take a woolly bugger as an aggression response or because they are just interested.

The Woolly Bugger can be fish in all sorts of fisheries, on all sorts of fly lines, at all sorts of depths and using all sorts of retrieves dead drift through to “roly poly” to see what's working on the day.

The tie I have shown below is the basic black woolly bugger as I was taught it many years ago. These days I tie them basically the same except that I tie longer tails for waters that contain smelt of any kind and I tie them smaller for most of my fishing. By adding, subtracting and changing the type or size of materials you use you can of course tie a range of woolly bugger type flies and variants that is only limited by your imagination.

Here is a range of woolly buggers and variants.

Materials for a "midge" bugger

Hook	Weight	Tail	Rib	Body	Hackle
Size 8 to 12 Tiemco 3769	(Optional) lead wire, bead chain, dumbbell eyes, bead head, cone head or split shot	Black Marabou with 4 strands of Pearl Flash or Krystal Flash	Silver wire	My personal preference is peacock herl but dubbing, chenille or wool work well also.	Grizzly hackle

Process

A	Tiemco 3769 is my preferred hook for my woolly bugger flies but it's getting hard to get. You may have to substitute a close alternative. Look for a medium shanked 2X heavy, down eyed nymph/wet hook with a sproat or perfect bend and long bite. There are plenty of hooks that cover most of the criteria but so far each of those have been on 1X heavy wire and that is just not heavy enough to create a good keel effect for the fly. If you know of a hook that meets all the criteria please let me know. Tiemco 3761 is not a bad alternative but it is a little long. Wind the thread in touching turns to the bend of the hook. Understanding hooks Tie in a marabou tail 1 to 3 times the length of the hook. I favour a tail around 1.5 times the length of the hook (based on Tiemco 3769) for fisheries without smelt and 2 to 3 times the length of the hook for fisheries where smelt or other small fish are the dominant food supply. Woolly bugger tails

B	Tie in a length of silver wire at the bend of the hook. If your going to use chenille pinch the dressing off the end of a length of chenille. Alternatively Tie in a several strands of peacock herl and form a herl rope body and then go to step D4,or. Peacock herl rope bodies Go through the process of creating a dubbed body and then go to step D4 Dubbed bodies

C	Tie the chenille in at the bend of the hook by the bared cord. If you going to add weight to the fly by adding lead wire now is the time to do it. Wind the lead wire around the hook shank placing it as far forward as possible. This will enhance the swimming action of the fly. Wind the thread forward and then back over the lead to secure it in position. You can also add a drop of head varnish if you like. Adding weight to a fly 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.

D	Wind the thread forward 4/5 of the distance along the shank of the hook toward the eye of the hook. Wind the chenille forward in touching turns to the thread. Tie the chenille off and trim the excess. Tie a "Woolly Bugger" hackle between the body and the eye of the hook. Woolly bugger hackles

E	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. 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. Take two full wraps of wire amongst the first two or three wraps of hackle and then whilst holding the hook firm with your left hand break the copper wire off.