Woolly Buggers

[Threedayweekend]

I know that most of use woolly buggers a lot so I am just wondering what is your go to woolly bugger? Mine is a black bead head with a lot of flash in the tail.

[quivira kid]

I tend to fish mohair leeches instead of buggers, personally. Easier to tie, and nothing to really "tear apart" in my opinion.

[poke flyfisher]

For bass my "go to" bugger is a bead head tied in various color combinations of orange, lime, chartreuse, green to simluate sunfish. For stained water conditions I use solid white and maybe use a soft plastic curl tail in place of a marabou tail or even put a propellor blade at the front of bead. I usually use a #2 hook. I've caught bass up to 4 pounds on those patterns. Next to a Clouser, Woolly Buggers are my post productive pattern for warm water species.

[James Smith]

I'm with Quivira Kid on this one. I stopped tying buggers a number of years ago when I "discovered" mohair leeches. If I want a larger body profile, I switch to a leech pattern tied with a dubbing brush. Either way, I find them much faster, easier and cheaper to tie, more durable and every bit as productive. I tie mainly all black leeches. I may add a bead either for weight/color depending on what I'm fishing for or the water conditions. In small sizes 10-12, they work great for bass, bream and trout. In larger sizes (2 - 6) they work great for bass and larger trout.

Jim Smith

[Eight Thumbs]

I'm with Quivira Kid on this one. I stopped tying buggers a number of years ago when I "discovered" mohair leeches. If I want a larger body profile, I switch to a leech pattern tied with a dubbing brush. Either way, I find them much faster, easier and cheaper to tie, more durable and every bit as productive. I tie mainly all black leeches. I may add a bead either for weight/color depending on what I'm fishing for or the water conditions. In small sizes 10-12, they work great for bass, bream and trout. In larger sizes (2 - 6) they work great for bass and larger trout.

Jim Smith

Jim's dubbing brush leech patterns are absolute killers for bass and big brim. He was kind enough to send me four of these flies and some extra dubbing brushes a few years ago and I gave them a complete test in the next couple of years. Absolutely deadly on bass and all panfish. Absolutely indestructible, except by fire and very few fish smoke these days. Jim definitely knows his stuff. 8T

[tailingloop]

My buggers for bass are tied with saddle hackle, angora goat, and flash and incorporate a weed/snag guard made from multi strand nylon coated stainless steel wire. I use different amount of weight under the materials. I mix my own goat dubbing using a primary base color and mixing in smaller amounts of other highlight colors, though I'm sure just one color would work. I usually mix some raw antron fibers into the dubbing for a bit of sparkle.

To speed the tying process I make dubbing brushes using saddle hackle and the dubbing mix. Depending on fly size I can get from 2 to 6 flies per brush. After the head is finished I quickly pick out the obviously overwrapped hackle and goat fibers. Real seal or imitation seal fur also works well. I can make them sparse or full. If I want to get really wild I will toss in some rubber legs when making the brush. If I want a more slender fly I will skip the hackle. I make them in size 12 through 4.

The same fly tied in white/grey makes a great threadfin shad imitation.

A couple of examples. Note the weedguards which you can see if you look closely. The guards allow me to toss these into fairly heavy cover.