+ Reply to Thread
Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 21

Thread: wooly buggers - nymphs??

Hybrid View

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Sep 2006
    Location
    Ontario Canada
    Posts
    363

    Default wooly buggers - nymphs??

    Although they can be used to imitate dragonfly nymphs or hex nymphs and maybe a few others I was wondering how many of you out there classed wooly buggers as streamers?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jun 2006
    Location
    NE Gwinnett Co., GA
    Posts
    5,933

    Default

    It seems to me wooly buggers are the utility infielders of the fly fishing world. I probably tended to think of them in terms of a leech but depending upon the colors they can imitate a sculpin or another small fish or fry.
    Want to hear God laugh? Tell him Your plans!!!

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Dec 2002
    Location
    Lakeland, FL USA
    Posts
    2,186

    Default

    I'm with Uncle Jesse on this one. I've always classified them as leech patterns rather than nymphs or streams.

    Jim Smith

  4. #4

    Default

    I just look at them as something fish eat.
    It Just Doesn't Matter....

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jun 2006
    Location
    SE MN Driftless
    Posts
    460

    Default

    I think it depends on how I'm fishing them. Sometimes I'm fishing them with a tight line and active retreive -- eg stripping them in or swinging them -- then I would consider them streamers. However, I also sometimes fish them dead drift like a nymph. Sometimes I'll do both in the same cast -- ie, cast up or up and across stream, dead drift back, and then strip in on a tight line.

    Harry Murray used the term "Strymph" to refer to those flies which could be fished either way and the Woolly Bugger fits in that class for me.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Mar 2000
    Location
    aimless wandering
    Posts
    2,042
    Blog Entries
    12

    Default

    I fish em both ways. If I have a dropper under them and am dead-drifting them, it's a nymph. If I am swinging or stripping, it's a streamer. Doesn't have to fit in just one box.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Nov 2008
    Location
    Rothschild (Wausau), Wisconsin
    Posts
    1,530

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Tig View Post
    Although they can be used to imitate dragonfly nymphs or hex nymphs and maybe a few others I was wondering how many of you out there classed wooly buggers as streamers?
    I think it depends on how you define a streamer .
    Regards,

    Silver

    "Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought"..........Szent-Gyorgy

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
    Location
    Nunica Mi U S A
    Posts
    2,509

    Default

    A woolly bugger can be whatever the fish want: crawdad, nymph, leach, minnow, polliwog, probably some other things as well. It just looks alive no matter how it is fished.
    I can think of few acts more selfish than refusing a vaccination.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Location
    913 Jackson Lake Rd, Chatsworth, Ga. 30705 (423) 438-1060
    Posts
    2,619

    Default

    The Woolly Bugger is something of an enigma. It does not fit the design parameters to be called a streamer, but can be fished like one. Likewise for a nymph pattern. and even the wet fly, yet it can be fished as any of these. Even trying to classify it as a generic bass fly is programmatic, because every fish I know of attacks them viciously under the right conditions, including carp, walleye, pike, catfish, some marine species, and I'm told even salmon are not immune to it's charms. In fact, the only classification I can come up with that really fits it is ultra-successful. So much, in fact, that some places have actually considered banning it from their watersheds.

    Credit for the Woolly Bugger's birth is usually credited to Russell Blessing of Harrisburg, Pa. in 1967. He wanted a smallmouth bass fly that closely imitated the local helgramites. In actuality, the Woolly Bugger is a modification of an older Fly called the Woolly Worm designed by a California Fly Fisherman, Don Martinez, in the late 1920s, which itself is a modification of a much older British fly called the Palmer Fly, that dates back to before the time of Izaak Walton in the 1500s. It was originally designed to imitate the Woolly Bear caterpillar.

    The addition of a long flowing tail, and weight evolved the fly into a whole new league. Depending on how it is fished, it can represent a leech, helgramite, baitfish, crawfish, a nympth, or maybe nothing in nature at all. By making an extra-long tail from long, thin streamer feathers, it even works as a purple worm (thanks to Richard Komar, of Plano, Texas for coming up with this one, called the Hard-Hackled Worm. Richard is one of us, on FAOL). The only sure thing is that the fish really like them, no matter what they think they are. Tied in smaller sizes, they can incite a feeding frenzy of sunfish and crappie. In medium sizes, they can be like a magnet to trout and smallmouth bass. In larger sizes, they can be irresistible to large bass, striped bass, redfish, seatrout, and practically anything else that swims, anywhere in the world. If you can get the fly to them under the right conditions, the Woolly Bugger will catch anything, period. If you could only have one fly to fish with, this would be it.

    Personally, I use them as an easy-to-tie crawfish pattern. It is simplicity itself to put a little weight on the top of the hook shank (or use Clouser Eyes) so that it rides hook-up, and can be fished right on the bottom. It is also easy to tie weed-guards on them, using very heavy monofilament, for fishing in heavy cover for LG bass.

    If there is a wrong way to fish this pattern, I have not found it, yet. You can strip it in, hop it in, or just let it drift. You can fish it in fast water, slow water, clean water, dirty water, in cover, or out in the open. You can fish it deep, or shallow, and anywhere in-between. Using an extra-long shank hook, and omiting the weight, you can tie the pattern behind a popper, or deerhair head, and use it as a topwater "chugger". I have even tied this pattern onto the back of jigheads ​(they are super-deadly tied on stand-up jigheads...), and in-line spinners, and used it with an ultralight spinning rod, and it works just as good. It is as close to a fool-proof fishing bait as there is, even better than live bait, in most cases.

    If you haven't guessed, the Woolly Bugger is one of my all-time favorite patterns. I have considered writing a book just on the Woolly Bugger, it's variations, and ways of fishing it. It deserves it's own book.
    Last edited by Gigmaster; 03-03-2013 at 04:24 AM.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Feb 2005
    Location
    Woodinville, WA, USA
    Posts
    272

    Default

    Gigmaster:

    There is a book on the bugger called "Woolly Wisdom " by Gary Soucie.

    Dr Bob
    Bob Widmaier

    My biggest fear when I die is that my wife will sell my fly fishing gear for what I told her I paid for it!

+ Reply to Thread

Similar Threads

  1. If santa tied wooly buggers,
    By Panfisha in forum Fly Tying
    Replies: 4
    Last Post: 12-23-2008, 09:36 PM
  2. wooly bugger
    By Justice League in forum Fly Anglers Online
    Replies: 17
    Last Post: 12-12-2007, 10:50 PM
  3. How to fish wooly buggers?
    By TNJeff in forum Warm water Forum
    Replies: 11
    Last Post: 09-05-2006, 01:34 PM
  4. wooly buggers help
    By standstall in forum Fly Anglers Online
    Replies: 20
    Last Post: 08-15-2006, 03:53 PM
  5. Question on wooly buggers and wooly worms
    By ranchwife in forum Fly Tying
    Replies: 8
    Last Post: 03-08-2005, 03:43 PM

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts