Not really, any wool will work, but of course wools with long staple fibres like mohair, angora, and similar stuff will usually give the best results on this particular zonker. One may also use ordinary sheeps wool, and various synthetic mixtures. However, depending on the type of wool, and the weave, it may be more difficult to achieve the bushy effect generally desired on this type of fly.
One may also use this technique on nymphs etc, and it works well there too, for this I often use “mixes” of synthetics and wool, like darning wool. I also dress various other flies using this and similar techniques with wool. Of course, some types of wool are better suited to some flies than others. Any wool and fabric shop shop will usually have a huge selection of various wools and quite cheaply as well.
As with all these things the exact nature of the material determines the properties of the resulting flies, and the effects that may be achieved with them.
Normally these wools are pretty cheap even in wool shops, and one can pick up such stuff in lots of other places besides. I have often picked up large selections at flea-markets and similar. If I see a wool which has a nice colour and looks OK for something I usually buy it.
One can dress a huge number of flies from a single ball, card, or skein of wool, and even the expensive wools like Angora etc only usually cost a couple of dollars at most, even in a normal fabric or wool store.
I have used various wools for lots of things for a long time now. This is probably one of the most famous wools used for a fly from Frank Sawyer, known as the “Grayling Killer Bug” ( often simply called a “killer bug” or “grayling bug” nowadays, but it works well for trout too);
I still have a couple of cards of the original, and a number of substitutes, and have also used a fur blend to match the original"Chadwicks 477 wool". This was a fawn coloured darning wool, immortalised for fly-dressers, and others, by Frank Sawyer, who used it to dress his famous “Grayling Bug”.
There has been quite a lot written and related about this stuff over the years, and there are a fair number of substitutes extant, (the original is now only rarely obtainable, and is very expensive), many of which don’t work very well. The most striking property of this wool is it’s apparent ability to attract fish! Indeed, fish will actually move a good way to pick up “grayling bugs” tied with it, which are lying static on the riverbed. They will not do this with most of the substitutes, for the simple reason, that these are poor substitutes. Why this is so is not so easy to determine.
When wet, and with the correct underbody, this wool takes on a peculiar glowing pinkish/purple/brown colour, which is very attractive to fish. This is as much to do with the red copper wire underbody as the wool used.
Bugs tied with thread underbodies don?t work very well at all. At least the fish ( grayling) will not pick up static fliess as they will with the original!
The hare bug (gammarus imitation) from a previous article, with just ordinary mixed fawn/tan hare body fur, is a very good fly, and will take fish practically anywhere, but if you tie it with the following dubbing mixture, it becomes absolutely deadly!
Just as for the original wool, the fish will actually move a long way to pick up static examples, and fished on a rolling dead drift, close to, or on the bottom, or even twitched and retrieved, it enjoys phenomenal success. The fly is simple and very robust indeed. I have had hundreds of fish on this simple fly. Often several dozen in a day.
Here is a pattern and the mix:
Hook, size 16 to size 6 long shank!
Underbody 1. Lead wire, Overwound with thread, and varnished either with clear varnish to seal the lead before applying silver tinsel, or with the colour as desired, for the particular dressing. Here, Margaret Astor Diamant Red No. 488, which is a dark blood red. This simulates the original underbody of dark red copper wire, and I fancy is somewhat more effective. One may also use orange or other red shades as well.
Underbody2. Silver lurex. Best over the “damp” varnish.
Body. Dubbing made of the following mixture *.
Rib. gold (brass) wire.
Add two pinches of teal blue hare fur (or soft seals fur), one pinch of hot orange hare fur (or soft seal fur), two pinches of white antron, one pinch of clear antron, and one pinch of crimson hare fur (or soft seal fur), to twenty pinches of pre-blended fawn hare body guard and underfur. Blend well so that the colours “disappear” in the general fawn colour.
The basic blend should like this;
The exact shade can be adjusted by using darker fur and other blending colours. One can obtain almost the exact shade of the 477 and its varyingn texture. Indeed, when corretcly mixed and tightly dubbed, one can not tell the difference, either dry or wet.
You can dub sparingly, keeping the fly slim, but still covering the lurex. Or you can dub a bit more heavily, and brush the fly to shape afterwards. The lead underbody must be varnished (nail polish) before winding the lurex and dubbing, as it will otherwise bleed and ruin the fly quite quickly. If you use the red varnish underbody, then leave out the crimson hare fur. The underbody must be completely dry before you dub or wind the body, and especially when using the red varnish underbody.
This rather weird purply brown colour ( the colour of the wool when wet over a copper or red varnished body) is very attractive to grayling, (and trout!), and they will actually pick it up off the bottom. The lurex is necessary to make it “shine” when wet. It will work with a white painted hookshank as well, if you prefer lighter flies, but it is most effective on the bottom. The lurex or white shank underbodies give different effects compared to the red / orange varnish underbody.
Doubtless there are other effective mixes, but this one works well. A version with a pinch each of bright green, bright yellow and dark red/brown dubbing added to ten pinches of hare body fur, over a white hook shank ( denso tape), works very well for trout in summer, and a version with white Antron mixed in the same hare dubbing (White, not transparent) works well as a shrimp pattern in the ocean.
I have not found any major differences in fish taking capabilities. The copper wire underbody is important, as I tried lead underbodies, and although they too caught fish, they did not catch as well.( Except when varnished red etc) Siver tinsel underbodies caught better than thread etc, and dark red varnished underbodies caught best. I have also used from light to dark red lacquered transformer wire, and have not noticed any difference. Plain fine grey wool also works, but not quite as well. Also, as noted, I have also use some lead underbodies lacquered with dark red nail varnish, and then overwound or dubbed. These worked just as well as the copper wire underbodies.
This nymph also varies in success depending how it is fished. Grayling like it trundled across the bottom slowly, and given a twitch now and again. Trout take it well when “sight nymphing”, and there it is the weight and the slightly fuzzy but still streamlined body which seems to make the difference. Very smooth yarns don?t work as well. After a couple of fish the flies also develop a “halo” of roughed up dubbing which makes then even more effective.
I use a couple of these very simple wool bodied flies, and they are often quite deadly, but none have "magical " properties. Presentation is also still paramount in many situations
Here is another very simple old pattern which also takes very many fish;
?The ?creeper? was the name used for large stoneflies, which were often used as bait. I knew a couple of people who used very rough imitations of these flies, and caught a lot of fish on them. Indeed, I think this may have been the forerunner of the woolly bugger! The flies are quite simple, a long shank hook ( Size 8 LS Hook shown here ) about an inch long is wound with lead, and then overwound with wool of the appropriate colour, and then ribbed with tinsel or wire. Often dark green was used, but I have also seen brown and black variations. These flies were also used in various sizes as ?sheet anchors? on various working rigs
This is a well used example from one of my boxes. As you can see, it looks very much like a very simple Woolly bugger! When I dress these things now, I brush the wool ( it is mohair wool) out well, after dressing the fly. These flies are quite deadly on grayling. But will of course also take trout. I knew one old guy who used nothing else, and he caught a huge number of fish!
One or two people I knew used several such simple wool and similar bodied flies to great effect.
As ever with these things, it is extremely difficult to determine whether one variation is “better” than another. All the variations I tried worked, including a simple grey darning wool nymph dressed with black thread. The whole nymph including abdomen, legs, thorax cover, etc is just grey darning wool. When fished using an “induced take”, they all work more or less equally well.
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