can somebody please give me some help on fishing wooly buggers ???
I just cant catch a fish on them.
THANKS STANDSTALL :roll:
There are many ways to fish wooly buggers depending on the species of fish your after, whether the water is moving or still and if the wooly bugger is weighted or not. Generally speaking, you can fish it like a streamer with slow steady strips or like a crayfish with short sharp strips with 3-5 second pauses between strips. I’m sure that there are others as well but these two retreives work well for me in most situations.
Jim Smith
Have you been able to catch fish on other patterns? Or are you new to fly fishing? Basically you present the fly to feeding fishes. If you are not doing that basic presentation properly, then you will certainly not catch a fish. If the fish are deep-fish the fly deep. The colder the water the slower the retrieve…and so forth. Casting to feeding fish helps if you can detect them feeding. Put in the time too. That helps.
You will get better answers if you tell folks details…
Are you fishing rivers…moving water?
Stillwaters?
Wading …or from a flotation device?
What are you fishing for? Trout…bass etc…catfish…carp…it goes on…
What have you been doing???
2nd page, paragraphs 6 & 7 (I have fished them on a floating line with a long leader and done pretty good before also. Some folks like a short leader). Wooly Buggers are streamers so I fish them like a streamer or baitfish imitation. Short slow line strips and pauses or long fast line strips and pauses. Kind of depends on the way the fish are biting or how they want the fly. I’ve had the most luck fishing them slow.:
[url=http://www.gameandfishmag.com/fishing/crappies-panfish-fishing/RA_0605_05:a1fc7]Fly-Fishing Patterns For Bluegills[/url:a1fc7]
Hope this helps.
Darn Robert …I’m sorry but I have to disagree…
“Wooly Buggers are streamers”
Yes sometimes but my understanding is that no one really agrees on what they are…probably why they are so good…
IMHO …if I had to pick one it would be …leech…
but streamer… yes… but the list goes on…even crayfish [I’ve wondered why someone hasn’t divided the marabou tail]…
…a large nymph like dragonfly…salamanders …tadpoles…ETC…and of course just something that looks alive…
I thought it was a Helgramite :shock:
And you may be right…hence the “Etc” 
maybe without the tail “Wooly Worm” is the Helgramite, and the Bugger is the leech?
The original wooly bugger was designed around 1967 for susquehanna smallmouth. It was made to imitate a helgrammite in the river. Russ Blessing is the man who designed it, and the original pattern still works good for smallies. Black marabou tail, black saddle feather palmered in the body, and a olive chenielle body.
Hey now
I have the same problem, but I may have figured it out at least for a lake. While I was fishing Wakely Lake up in Grayling MI I caught several fish including a 20 LMB and a 12 " SMB on an olive wooly. Just stripping it in was not being successful so I put on a poly leader to help get it down deep I would cast let it sink deep then I would strip once with rod tip low land jerk the tip up a bit every time to give it a bounced affect. Then ever few times I would do a quick strip of the line and move the rod tip in a sideways direction to give the allusion of a fish being chased if you can picture that. I figured out what the woooly would do by just playing with it in the water where I could see it and after see the bass chase our blue gills when we would reel them in I tried to mimic that.
Good Luck
wireguy
P.S. I had that wooly since I started fly fishing 5 months now and never caught anything on it till now. 
it was worth the wait
standstall
There are probably as many ways to fish woolly buggers as there are ways to tie them. If you could, please enlighten us as to what kind of water you are fishing in (where if possible) and how you are fishing them, in as much detail as possible.
Since Standall has not chimed back in, I would be interested in how you fish streamers in current. I was experimenting a little Saturday and if I would cast upstream I sure could not strip fast enough.
Hi. WB’s are perhaps the easiest fly to fish because bad or lazy technique can work to your advantage.
If fishing on a river - Cast across from you, give the line a big upstream mend, and let the WB float downstream on a slack line - like you are nymphing. I like to cast directly across or even upstream a bit to give the WB lots of time to sink.
As a bow develops in the line and the WB starts to swing/rise, strip some line (or better, have it ready) and tension mend your line to stop the swing by adding slack. Do this 2 or three times - each time a bow forms in the line, and each time the WB rises and starts to swing - mend and add slack.
Finish the drift by letting the bow form and letting the WB drag across and down. You can also add a mend to the other side here - just as the line is almost straightened - in order to ‘sweep’ the WB across the current. (This latter technique is really productive sometimes).
Take up the slack, cast across and do it again.
Most strikes on a wooly bugger come either just after the fly hits the water, or just as the swing begins - when the WB changes direction and begins to move - it must look like a fleeing scuplin etc. In this manner, you can recreate this effect 3-4 times (or more) each drift.
Its very easy to do - just be lazy and slow to mend.
WB’s tend to raise big fish. Use a heavier weight rod and a good leader as hard strikes on a downstream drift put LOTS of pressure on the leader. I use flourocarbon and I put sinkant on the leader too.
You need a good solid rod that you can raise firmly. 6-7 for trout. Othewise you will find that all you can do is point at the fish for the first couple of seconds, which usually means a lost fish or a broken leader.
Hope this helps
Mike
The Wolly Bugger is one of those patterns you can’t fish wrong. Swing, dead drift, twitch, it just works.
Ducksterman, I have tied them with a divided tail and used it as a crayfish. It works excellent.
I neither have caught much of anything on wooly bugger until last week. Went to a high plain lake to fish for trout.
I kept catching 10 inch long pike even when I tried wooly buggers. Now my partner, He spent his time catching trout. This happened even when we used the same fly I would mimick his strip and pause timing.
Go figure.
Comprehensive Article on “Fishing Woolybuggers”
Here Ya go!
http://www.midcurrent.com/articles/flies/soucie_woolly_buggers.aspx
Thank you. Very informative.
Hi,
My wife and I both use Wooly buggers, usually olive with grizzel hackle tied on size 10 2x shank hooks, and we’ve had decent luck with just a slow figure 8 retreive. Neither of us add weight to them but instead just use a sinking line to get them down (we use them when fishing lakes mostly). Personally, I think they are taken as a bully (cockabully is a local fish), but some think they may be taken as a damsel nymph, or a koura (crayfish).
- Jeff
Just wanted to mention this, but wooley buggers can be any size also. I fish very small ones (size 12 and 14’s) and they double as a nymph.