I know when I was using spinning gear up till last year that worms worked well until a certain point, and top water, etc.
I’m curious if fish ever stop hitting wooly buggers? I’ve been fishing nothing but buggers and just keep getting the fish. I hope they don’t cause they’re easy to fish and easy to tie:)
Haven’t gotten anything on a clouser yet. Sofar my favorite is buggers and hares ear.
Thanks,
Shane
Shane,
Yes, there are times when Woolly Buggers will not attract any fish. It is always good to carry a variety of flies, both surface and sub-surface with you at all times. The Woolly Bugger is always my first go to fly when I am fishing new waters because it is so effective. But there are those times.
Larry 
—sagefisher—
Me thinks maybe woolly buggers never stop catching fish depending on how you tie and fish them. My wife bought me the book Woolly Wisdom for my birthday and there are more kinds of buggers or varieties of buggers that you can shake a stick at. There are buggers that sink like a stone, buggers that float on top, buggers that imitate shrimp, buggers that imitate midges, big buggers, little buggers, buggers with chennile bodies, estaz bodies, dubbed bodies and even one using a part of a plastic worm as a body. Buggers, or actually the woolly worm, have mutated into just about every size and shape imaginable.
When the wooly buggers stop working, I just tip them with a piece of nightcrawler and BAM!, they start working again.:p:p:p:p
if you tie em up in the colors of power bait theyll work all year long!
Wow, and I thought I was cheating using an indicator…
Yeah they stop working when you get bored using them and fish other things. Hare’s Ear Nymphs and Lil’ BUggers got me off 'em…now I’m onto gnats, simple foam sinking poppers, soft hackles, Czech nymphs, scuds, sow bugs.
I truly believe location is everything with fishing. Find the fish, present a decent fly in a reasonable manner …WhaLaaa!
I seem to remember a Patrick McManus story in which Retch Sweeney begins referring to “garden hackle” as a “size 16 Light Cahill”. Honor was preserved all 'round.
BTW, have any of y’all taken an Au Sable trout on a bugger? I tried last year and got no joy.
Ed