Just below the Tims Ford Dam the Elk River makes a sharp bend to the west. In the elbow of this turn there is a large hole about 8Ő deep. Several years ago when I was just learning to fish, I stood at this hole fishing a #12 Woolly Bugger. I had seen several large trout in the bottom of the trough that cut through the hole, but I has not had a single strike. It was the end of the day, I was tired, and I decided to quit, and walk back to the dam. Abruptly, I lifted--jerked up--my rod tip and whipped the fly up out of the hole. The 20Ó+ rainbow that chased the fly up the slope on the upstream side of the hole almost landed on my feet. I was so startled I didnŐt get the hook set and nearly fell down. The trout flopped several times in the shallow water before diving back into the safety of the hole.
I had been fishing the Woolly Bugger for several months but its performance had been hit or miss for me. I didnŐt understand what made it work. Sometimes it caught fish, sometimes not. I had been fishing the Woolly Bugger like a large nymph--casting it across and down, letting it drift, lifting it out and re-casting. I hadnŐt figured out that most of my strikes on it came at the end of my drift when I was lifting out. This event at the turn hole gave me the insight I needed. The Woolly Bugger is a fly that needs to be worked! Not just drifted or twitched, but worked. It needs to be drifted a long way out and retrieved FAST.
The Woolly Bugger is a good study of the critical difference between a fly in the box and in the water. The ancestral Woolly Bugger was tied by Walton, Cotton, and other early English anglers as a caterpillar--Palmer worm--imitation. That is what most new Woolly Buggers tied today look like--a fuzzy worm--but with a Marabou tail. The instructions in most fly tying books recall the lineage of this fly in their description of a Ňpalmered hackleÓ wound around the body. Of course, without the tail, this fly would be just a Woolly Worm. With the tail--which was probably the addition of classic fly tier Russell Blessing--the palmer worm is dynamite! When wet it is transformed from a caterpillar appearance to a sleek minnow.
Probably no single fly has accounted for so many kinds of fish in so many places around the world as the Woolly Bugger. Although I fish it exclusively as a trout fly, this fly is also effective for bass, particularly small mouth. I have taken panfish and even a sculpin on it. In bright colors it finds a place in the fly boxes of salmon anglers. I once met an angler who fished a lot in the Great Lakes and his one fly box was filled with Woolly Buggers tied in every color of the rainbow--even purple and gold. Although I occasionally use an orange-and-black or a simple tan, my favorite is the olive-and black--with a couple of streaks of mylar flashing in the tail.
Once I discovered how to fish it, this fly became a standard in my box, on my hat, and on my line. My fishing log shows that slightly more than half of all the fish I have caught were taken on this fly. It is so successful for me that now I try to avoid fishing it and use it only when it has been a very slow day--or when I know there is a large brown trout in the vicinity. The largest trout I ever hooked--a 30Ó+ brown--hit this fly, and almost all of the other large trout I have taken have grabbed it.
For the Woolly Bugger to be effective it has to start deep so it is important that the fly be weighted. In deep holes with really strong current, I sometimes add one or more pieces of shot to the tippet to sink the fly below the line of current before I start to strip it in. A recent variant of the standard Woolly Bugger is a fly called the Gierach Woolly Bugger. It is tied the same way, but on a zonker body with molded lead eyes to give it weight and better casting characteristics. If you are not used to casting flies with split shot attached, the Gierach is a good choice for its excellent casting behavior.
I buy Woolly Buggers by the dozens and give them to new anglers after they have tried the basic Adams, Caddis, and HareŐs Ear. I generally donŐt start new anglers on the Woolly Bugger only because the fishing technique is so different from the normal presentations of dry and nymph flies. I fish Woolly Buggers by stripping line toward me as fast as I can make it move. I donŐt mean just a quick retrieve. I mean FAST. I try to get the fly moving through the water at the same speed that escaping minnows use when startled or pursued by a large fish. It is the speed that makes this fly work.
One caution: avoid the temptation to fish the biggest Woolly Buggers you can buy. I stock it in sizes from 4 to 14, but it is the 12Ős and 14Ős that have caught most of my fish. It does not have to be big to be effective. My really big Woolly Buggers are reserved for very special situations that occur less than once a year. A #12 is good for most purposes and capable of taking both ordinary and large trout. Although this fly has a noble lineage, it is sometimes called the fly fishermanŐs ŇRooster TailÓ--with good reason. It will make trout strike that will ignore everything else.
Gerald L. Smith
Sewanee, TN 1995