Hi All,
I am tying flies for a friend who has moved away. He has an old fly rod, and wants to try it for bass and other warm water fish.
What I am wanting to know is if any of you use buggers for bass, and if so what sizes, color, etc.
Thanks and regards,
Gandolf
Yes I do. Black, olive, chartruse are my favorites. Also the halloween leech in orange
WBs can be tied in white as well to imitate minnows, although they are usually tied to imitate leeches and crayfish as mentioned above. They can be weighted with lead under the chenille or with a beadhead/conehead. Some tinsel in the ribbing or tail doesn’t hurt.
Remember smallmouth bass prefer 2.5" prey and largemouth prefer 3.5" prey, so choose your hook size accordingly.
I have had good success with the “Harrasser” first tied by Billy Kingsley in Harrisonburg, Va. It is a simple gold beadhead with a pearlescent Estaz bodiy and a white marabou tail. It’s wslain bass, trout, gills, all of 'em.
I’ve more bass on buggers than any other fly except for maybe a clouser minnow. Most effective colors for me have been all black, with a few strands of krystal flash; olive body and tail, grizzly hackle; olive or black with black rubber legs instead of hackle.
Lately, I have been fishing a new to me river and I’ve been doing very, very well on a size 6 Black bugger with green flash in the tail, two rubber legs on each side of the fly and pink antron dubbing on the head. It’s sort of a mixture of an egg sucking leech/bugger with some rubber legs.
black!! cone head/bead head… size 6 + 8
Murray’s Stremph is also another very good pattern especially for smallmouth!
Gandolf, I use WB’s for bass. They’re a great fly cause, lemme see if I can word this right, “they don’t exactly imitate anything, but can be tied to imiate just about anything you want it to be” What I’m saying is I like them as a style of tie. You can match alot of different “hatchs” with them.
The Smallies around my waters eat crayfish, nightcrawlers, leeches, minnows, etc… so I fish a crayfish bugger-orange tail, brown crystal chenille body, rubber legs; a worm bugger- brown tail & body; leech bugger- Black tail & body; and my favorite most productive would be the minnow/emerald shiner (I think that’s what the small baitfish we have around here are called) bugger- a brown or black or olive over white maribou tail with some crystal flash and a brown or rust or olive or black crystal chenille body.
Tell your friend to find out what they’re eating and match it.
Tom.
Gandolf,
I actually quit tying WB about five years ago. It’s not that they don’t work, it’s just that I found that leeches tied with mohair yarn or a seal dubbing brush are even more effective (at least for me) and they are much faster/easier to tie and more durable. My favority summertime bass pattern is an all black leech with an Arctic Fox tail and black mohair body. I like to add a red glass bead which seems to make it more effective for me. For bass I tie this on a size 2 or 4 streamer hook and for bream I use a size 10 or 12 1XL hook.
My color preference ireminds me of what Henry Ford said about his automobiles in the 1920s. “You can have them in any color you want, as long as it’s black.” The olive leeches I’ve tried don’t work nearly as well. I guess they look like a small bunch of weeds being dragged through the water.
Jim Smith
Tie them in black, olive, or yellow with dumbell head. You may also want to add a red tail or rubber legs in a size 8, 10, 12.
Olive is by far the best color here. Second would be black. Never caught one on a white one.
The best are the ones I tie with beadchain eyes. That thing gets hit by everything. It looks like minnow and a large nymph.
I tie them in sizes 10,8, and 6.
When bass and crappie are chasing minnows in the shallows, I like white with some silver tinsel in the tail. A little splash of red in the head also works.
Other times, olive and black seem to be the best producers. Some with soft hackle and some without any hackle, just the maribou tail and chenile body.
They are very effective for bass, bluegill, crappie, brown trout, basically anything that swims and eats will, at one time or another, take a woolie. Woolie buggers and foam body poppers are by far my favorite flies for warm water fish. I’ve caught hundreds, and maybe thousands, of fish with them. I’m not much of a fish counter but I can always count on these two categories of flies to produce strikes.
Jeff
I end up having success with olive and black somewhere around size 4 (long’ish as opposed to small) and with a silver bead or dumbell eyes.
The multicolor buggers work only sometimes if it’s a darker variation of the same color of olive.
More ideas:
Hi All,
Lots of great answers. I am tying away on the buggers. Thanks for the help.
Thanks and regards,
Gandolf
I was on the water on Weds and we put over a dozen bass in the boat. I find that I try different colors on different water clarity types. In clear water the black, brown, olive are great but in stained water I like yellow, white and even chartreuse. I like to heavily weight them all since I can fish them faster this way. Absolutely go throw some buggers. My best producer on Wed was a number 6 yellow with rubber legs.
Rick