STREAMERS
&
PULLING
FLIES
WOOLLY BUGGER
My first fish on
fly fell
to the magic of a Woolly Bugger and many have gone the same way since
then.
With its origins in America where it appears to be tied, as a Leach
imitation
there is also an English version with bead chin eyes called a Dog
Nobler.
Whatever the name it's a very good fly. Its also very versatile because
the body can be made from a range of materials such as chenille, wool,
dubbing, peacock herl, Estaz chenille etc. and eyes in various shapes
and forms can be added for appearance and weight. In Australia it's
probable that
fish take it as a Yabby, small fish, Mudeye or even a Leech depending
on
the colours of the dressing and the way its fished. The Woolly Bugger
is also a good pattern for soliciting an aggression strike. The Woolly
Bugger is often best when fished with short sharp twitching movements in order
to
make the marabou and hackle ‘work’ but its worth experimenting with a
range
of retrieves from dead drift through to “rollie pollie” to see
what's working on the day.
My favourite woolly buggers are described in detail on
my CD.
But there are limitless variations of body
material, tail type and lengths, hackle colour and eye that you can
experiment with:
MATERIALS
FOR "MIDGE" BUGGER:
Hook
- Size 8
to 14 TMC 3761, 3769 or similar long shank hook
Weight
-
(Optional)
Lead wire, Bead Chain, Dumbbell eyes, Beadhead, Cone head or split shot
Tail
-
Black
Marabou with 4 strands of Pearl Flash or Krystal Flash
Rib
- Copper
wire
Body
-
Black
dubbing, black chenille or black wool
Hackle
-
Grizzly hackle
A)
- Wind the thread in touching
turns to the bend of the hook.
- Tie in a marabou tail equal in length to the hook
length.
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B)
- Tie in a length of copper wire
at the bend of the hook.
- Pinch the dressing off the end of a length of
chenille.
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C)
- Tie the chenille in at the bend
of the hook by the bared
cord.
- If you going to add weight to the fly by
adding lead
wire now is the time to
do it. Wind the lead wire
around the hook shank placing it as far forward as possible. This will
enhance the swimming action of the fly.
- Wind the thread forward and then back over the lead
to
secure it in position. You can also add a drop of head varnish if you
like.
- If in the process of tying in the tail or adding lead
ridges have been created along the underbody of the fly use a little
dubbing to build up the gaps so that the underbody has no ridges.
- There are of course other ways of adding weight to a
fly.
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D)
- Wind the thread forward 4/5 of
the distance along the
shank of the hook toward the eye of the hook.
- Wind the chenille forward in touching turns to the
thread,
- Tie the chenille off and trim the excess.
- Tie a "Woolly Bugger" hackle between the body and
the eye
of the hook.
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E)
Palmer the hackle back along the hook
shank. This involves:
- Taking a couple of turns of the
hackle directly behind the
eye of the hook.
- Wind
the hackle down the hook shank to the bend of the hook taking three or
four wraps of the hackle that are equally separated from each other.
- Whilst holding the hackle in place at the bend of
the with
your
left hand pick up the copper wire with your right hand and wind the
copper wire forward to the eye of the hook taking three or four wraps
of the wire that are equally separated from each other.
- Take two full wraps of wire amongst the first two or
three
wraps
of hackle and then whilst holding the hook firm with your left hand
break the copper wire off.
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F)
Stroke the front hackle back with the
fingers of your left
hand and build up a neat thread head directly behind the eye of the
hook.
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G)
Whip finish and varnish the head. |
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