Is the humble woolly
bugger the best fly ever? For a fly that gets little respect, it certainly
catches a lot of fish. It is easy to tie. I generally make it the first fly
learned, when I teach a fly tying class. It is easy to fish. You don’t have to
watch the fly or an indicator to know when you get a take. There is that
beautiful resounding bump, when a fish hits it. It is not a one trick pony. I
have caught more species of fish, on it, than any other fly that I have ever
fished. This includes four species of trout, red fish, speckled sea trout,
shark, flounder, smallmouth bass, largemouth bass, bream and crappie, to name a
few. It is one, of our best selling flies, here at Blue Ribbon Fly Shop.
I was first introduced,
to the woolly bugger, over thirty five years ago, when fishing with my brother,
Dan, on the Little Red River, while camping at John F. Kennedy Park. He gave me
a few and told me that it was a new fly that he had been introduced to, by a
friend. I asked how to fish it and he said “just put it in the water and it
will work”. I caught a quick dozen rainbows on it and was enamored with the
woolly bugger immediately. Over time, I refined my technique, to fishing it on
a downstream swing with a varied retrieve.
For the next ten years,
I hardly fished any other fly. In 1991, I was the president of the Mid South
Fly Fishers, the Federation of Fly Fishers club in Memphis, Tennessee. We had
Lefty Kreh in as a guest speaker. As a joke, they had Lefty present me a plaque
as the “bugger of the year”. I still have a photo of Lefty presenting me the
award and cherish it.
After a while, I was
lured more to fishing with dry flies, nymphs and emergers. I would fish woolly
buggers on occasion but I generally fished other flies. This has caught up with
me, on a few occasions.
On one occasion, I was
preparing to fish the North Fork of the White River, for the first time. I
talked to Brian Wise and most of the other guides that fish it regularly, to
ask them what flies, to use. The answer came back the same, stonefly nymphs and
prince nymphs. I searched through all of my fly boxes until I found the flies
that I had bought, for a trip, to Montana, a few years before. Then when I was
on stream I was severely out fished, by my wife, Lori, who was using an olive woolly
bugger.
Then just a couple of
months ago, I was fishing with Lori’s sister, Terri, and her husband, Larry, at
Roundhouse Shoals here in Cotter. It is a spot only four blocks from my house
and I fish it often. I was fishing my favorite double fly rig, a cerise San
Juan worm with a ruby midge dropper. This has been my most productive rig for
months and I was quite comfortable fishing it. My only problem was that it just
wasn’t working. No fly works every time. At the same time, Terri and Larry were
having a remarkable day fishing woolly buggers. I was humbled and I switched
over to an olive woolly bugger and immediately began to catch trout. The woolly
bugger saved the day!
No matter what your
level of angling experience, do not forget the woolly bugger. Don’t leave home
without it.
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