Wooly Bugger Questions

[TeenFishermanID]

I was wondering what advice anyone could offer about wooly bugger tying, fishing and their effectiveness. I've heard good things about them but never seem to have any luck.

I can't seem to find any videos of wooly bugger fishing either, so if anyone knows any good videos let me know []
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[humpy]

hey i love wooly buggers. Talk to FlyGoddes on the Utah site, fly fishing forum, she has lots of good ideas and can refer you to articles that you can look up.
humpy
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[forrest2906]

I have some stuff in the box I am getting ready to send you...I still have the address, I have just been buried at work wthis week. Wooly buggers work great, most of the thing I have found with them is how you present them. I will add that with the info i send to you in the package. Sorry it s taking so long.

Chuck
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[cpierce]

Wooly Buggers can represent a number of trout treats that is part of the reason they are so effective.

They can be taken for leeches, minnows, damsel fly nymphs, dragon fly nymphs, and even as crayfish. So how you fish them can really vary. I kind of go by the color of the bugger and the situation, season, or lake I am on.

Black and brown buggers are probably going to be taken as a leech. So I will fish them slower and try and give them as much of an undulating leech like motion as I can. They really work well when the water is cold and the fish are slow but looking for an easy meal.

Green, olive, and even some brownish green ones are probably looking like a dragon or damsel nymph, but also maybe a leech again. They work great stripped in small spurts just above the tops of the weeds. There are lots of damsel nymphs out right now.

Brown, olive, orange, and reddish brown can pass for crayfish when fished over rocks etc close to the bottom. If you put some weight close to the front and divide the maribou tail with a small dot of glue on each side, you can make some really effective crayfish imitations out of a wooly bugger. But the regular ones work too.

Crystal buggers, white, and others with lots of flash seem to work well when darted around like a minnow, or even retrieved at a steady troll.

Last there are the wildly colored wooly buggers that get great reaction strikes. Sometimes they work when nothing else will. Fish them fast, medium, and slow. They are an attractor and only experimentation will tell you what works that day.

So what it boils down to is look for some videos of leeches, dragon fly nymphs, damsel nymphs and minnows swimming. You Tube has a bunch. Then when you are at a lake think about how they swim and act, strip your wooly bugger in a manner and at a depth that would imitate that. ...... experiment! Or just burn an attractor WB through the water and see what happens! It's all good and there is no wrong way. Have fun! [cool]
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[cpierce]

I forgot to add some about tying them. Traditional is good, but there are lots of variations you can do. Beadhead sometimes and sometimes not, play with colors and color combinations, different types of yarn or dubbing even. If you don't have the exact materials, use whatever you can find. Most feathers have some "maribou" like fluff on the bottom. Colored craft store feathers have lots of good fluff you can use on buggers. I do lots of buggers without the hackle over the body. Or I put some of the maribou on the body. I must have caught well over a hundred fish yesterday on one bugger. It had a red body, a chartreuse tail, and no hackle. I fished it as a minnow. It didn't look like any minnow I have ever seen, but it got lots of fish. Again....Experiment. The fish don't care if it is exact.
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[drowning_flys]

I have a thread on here WOOLY BUGGER TESTING that shows a bunch of colors and there should be all of that in the stuff I sent you. I find most of the time a fast strip folowed by a pause will trigger a strike.
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[flygoddess]

Man, with every one jumping in with supplies, notsure I have much more to offer, but I will send what I have set aside.

Fg
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[TeenFishermanID]

[center]Thanks for all the advice everyone!

Where were you fishing that day? (On that wooly bugger thread)
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[center]...and do you need wire to weight the fly or is that optional? I don't think I have any.
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[Loufly]

I have three simple tips,

Fish them everywhere,
Fish them every way,
and Fish them for every kind of fish.

You simply can't go wrong with a wooly bugger.

As far as tying them, you can weight with lead or lead substitute wire and/or metal beads found at any fly shop.
Or you can use no weight at all. There are no rules, but if you want them to sink, sinking lines or split shot on the leader above the bugger must be used.

Good Luck and be creative.
Loufly
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[drowning_flys]

we were fishing at Oakley reservoir. I do some with weight and some without. Its nice to have a unweighted fly that will suspend just below the surface when the fish are feeding on top and you don't have the proper dry fly.

[quote flygoddess]Man, with every one jumping in with supplies, notsure I have much more to offer, but I will send what I have set aside.

Fg[/quote

no such thing as to much material im always out of something lol [laugh]
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[forrest2906]

I dropped a box of stuff in the mail for you to the address you provided. I hope this helps you get started in your fly tying adventures. Hope you like the selection and it was all some extra stuff I had, and I remember someone helping me get started a few years back when I was asking questions.

Chuck
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