Am I crazy to use these colors on this Woolly Bugger or is all fair? Also any constructive criticism is welcome.
Skip
No those colors are fine if they catch fish—test one out at your local pond. I tie olive ,olive and more all olive BILL
looks like a killer too me!
AA
Looks good to me. I tie a similar one, but swap the colours. Yellow body and tail with black hackle and that catches fish so there’s nothing wrong with the colour combo. Yours should work just as well, if not better.
- Jeff
Thanks all I just kind of feeling my way along here. I actually started tying before I even had a fly rod and reel. I bought the cheap one just to try out and now am going to upgrade soon.
I live in the sticks with no real shop or anything like that and not a lot of fly fishing here on Toledo Bend, but I want to get after it some and am planning on a good spring time for the crappie and bream with a few LMB thrown in.
Skip
I think that is a very good looking fly and what I am going to offer is not criticism, but, another way to tie it that maybe you should try. It is called “tying in reverse” and it is the way I tie just about all my buggers. I like to tie in reverse because I think it is easier to palmer the hackle and to rib it for reinforcement.
After you tie in the tail run your thread back to behind the hook eye and there is where you will tie in your chenille and your hackle feather. After they are tied in, run your thread back to the tail tie in point. Then you wrap your chenille to the rear and tie it off with a couple wraps of your thread and snip off the excess. Then palmer your hackle feather to the rear and tie it off and snip off the excess. You will then be able to take your thread and while moving it back and forth you can palmer it through the palmered hackle back to the front where you can wrap a small head, whip finish and apply SH or head cement. This method gives you a small head on the fly and I think makes palmering the hackle easier. It is for me anyway. You will need to try and use the same color thread as the body.
Remember to remove some of the chenille on the end to expose the inner thread to tie it in with. This will eliminate the large hump where you start the chenille. You tie the hackle feather in by the base of the hackle and not the tip. This will put the longer hackles up front and smaller ones to the rear. If you think about it, you are tying the chenille and hackle in at the front and wrapping them to the rear by wrapping away from you and then when you bring the thread forward, you will still be wrapping away from you but it will be going on in a counter wrap which traps the hackle and makes the fly more durable.
Give this a try and see what you think. This is what I love about fly tying, there is no right way or wrong way.
great job!!! dont worry about what anyone says about it
I have heard of tying it in reverse, but dosent the copper wire rib I put in hold the hackle in a d keep it some what protected?
If you do it in reverse when do you put in the wire? DO you tie it in reverse as well?
I find it very difficult to keep the copper wire rib from trapping the hackle when I try to counter wrap it in, so, I tie in reverse and I do not use any copper wire to reinforce the fly. The tying thread that you bring forward from the rear is the reinforcing material. The tying thread takes the place of the wire rib. I find it easier to work the tying thread around the hackles and that is what I like most about tying in reverse.
This is just my way of tying the bugger and please do not think your way is incorrect. I just thought you might want to try it. With reverse tying I find the hackle easier to palmer and using the thread instead of wire for reinforcing works better for me plus the thread does not smash down the chenille like wire does.
Please understand that I am just explaining how I tie a bugger and thought you might be interested in another way.
Your bugger looks, as I stated, very well tied and it looks great!
Waren is making a wolly buger too difficult–tie the material in the back even the wire or reinforcing thread that he mentioned and dont worry about the size of the head. And you mentioned copper wire—why are you using that on a wollybuger-you dont need it. Its supposed to reinforce the fly but I have taught hundreds how to tie this fly,never used wire and the old way has caught lots of fish If you want the wire or thread you should wrap from the back to the eye in the reverse direction as you did the chenille and hackle. BILL
Skip,
Attach two fibers of Crystal Flash in the Tail. Also try using some Sparkle Chenile sometime.
You did a great job on your fly!!
Doug 
looks like a winner to me! I bet it would be especially good for night fishing.
Durability requirements depend on the fish. Spawning salmon have elongated teeth and one fish can shred a fly that doesn't have a wire wrap. :(
Green fish I know we have the toothy also but 9 out of 10 dont fish wolly buggers for Pike, Musky and Salmon. Graet trout bluegill bass flies. BILL
You can tie your flies anyway you want too, but, please do yourself a big favor and don’t be afraid of trying anything that is different from what you are doing. Tying should be an adventure. I will try any and all tying techinques I see and, yes, sometimes I go back to the way I was tying a certain pattern, but, there are just as many times I like the way someone else was tying the same pattern and I will use their method of tying that pattern. Only you can determine if another way of tying is harder or easier for you. You would do yourself a big favor if you would go to the “Fly Tying” section of this site and go through each step of the Beginner’s Fly Tying and then on to the Intermediate Tying and then to the Advanced Tying section. Al was a great teacher and he gives some great tying tips and short cuts in his tutorials. Please “climb out of the box” and try many ways before settling on just one way of tying a certain pattern and you will find your way that works for you and makes tying fun and easier for you. I have only been tying for around 14 years and I still surf the net for how others are tying certain patterns and I am constantly looking for new ways to try and try them I will because I truly love fly tying and I am definately “out of the box”!
Just trying to help further your tying adventure and nothing more…
Those buggers will catch fish…some of my my buggers I fish are very weird, but they work. I primarily tie two buggers one is the chilli pepper http://www.flyanglersonline.com/flytyin … 3fotw.html and the other uses ice dub or lite-brite instead of chenille. There are many ways to tie a bugger and as long as the method you use catches fish, then there is nothing wrong
Mark
Mark,
That chilli pepper bugger is my all time favorite, only it was called the cascade special at the Sunriver Fly Shop.
Doug
For sure working is the main objective and I like the chili pepper one you show. I am going to tie a lot of different colors and both weighted and non weighted.
Anyone have an opinion about using lead wrap on the hook for weight? I know it’s done, but which is more effective? I tried this one for just a few cast and love how it falls extremely slow.
That exact pattern is killer for Smallmouth on the Huron River in Southeast Michigan.
Good Job
Dave
How you weight a fly effects how it falls. There is no wrong way to weight a fly. Using a weight near the front will cause the fly to work very much like a jig used on a spinning rod. That is, it will fall hook eye first. This is a very good way to fish a wooly bugger in many cases so you really want to tie some this way. Placing the weight along a portion or the length of the hook shank will make the fly sink more evenly, more like a crappie jig. Tying the fly with the weight in the back will create a fly that will fall tail first. This is not the best way for a fly to fall (least natural) but there are times (limited in my experience) that this works. It does work well though when done with a crayfish imitation.
Also, tie a few of these up with bead and in front of the bead place a very small spinning blade. This works very well as well. I know there will be some people who will compair this to fishing ‘Hardware’ and not being a traditional fly, but spinner fly’s were around long before most synthetic materials and most modern patterns so I disagree with that veiw.
Good luck and have fun…
Daren