mr wooley bugger is gone
http://blogs.wvgazette.com/johnmccoy/2009/11/04/woolly-bugger-creator-russ-blessing-dies-at-74/
Thank you Mr. Blessing. Rest In Peace.
The Wooly Bugger has caught fish for me when all around people were fighting off the skunk. I always carry them in lots of colors and styles.
Russ left one of the simultaneously biggest and most humble legacies in the history of fly fishing…epic! All he did was tied a piece of marabou into the tail of a well-known existing fly pattern, the wooly worm in an attempt to simulate a hellgrammite (dobson fly nymph). what that turned into was:
- the fly everyone luvs to hate.
- the fly that has most likely caught more fish of all types than all other flies combined since he invented it in 1967.
- the fly that has been modified to create variants more than any other since he first tied it in 1967.
- the fly that has become THE “first pattern” taught in most beginner tying classes and kits.
- the fly that crosses ALL boundaries in fly fishing: trout, salmon, steelhead, bass, carp, wet, dry, streamer, saltwater, etc.
and while almost all fly anglers know exactly what a wooly bugger is, what it’s made of, and how to fish one; only about 1 in a 1000 could tell you who created it. this is the purest essence of what is beautiful and good in fly fishing. russ was truly a blessing. as fly anglers, we should all be proud to be descendants of and participants in the heritage and legacies of such people and stories.