A Tribute to the Wooly Bugger
Our dear friend, the Wooly Bugger. The Wooly Bugger stands alone as the most popular, versatile, and some would say effective fly of all-time. There are hundreds of other great flies out there but the good ol’ Wooly Bugger separates itself for its simplicity, ease of use, and fish-catching ability.
The Wooly Bugger’s simplicity, versatility, and effectiveness are the inspiration for this website’s name. Fly fishing has a reputation of complexity, nuance, and difficulty- but the Wooly Bugger itself contradicts that. Fishing a Wooly Bugger is simple, straightforward, and downright effective. Oftentimes we overcomplicate the simple venture of fishing and while the complexity, nuance, and difficulty of fly fishing are what make it fascinating, at the end of the day, if you’re trying to catch a fish, keep it simple and use a Wooly Bugger!
The Wooly Bugger’s widespread presence in fly shops and fly boxes across the world had me wondering: Where did this fly come from? Is it the OG fly that was fished by the first fly anglers? Who created it? What is the best way to fish it? We’ll dive into all these questions to give you all the facts you need to know (and some you don’t) about the Wooly Bugger.
What is a Wooly Bugger?
The Wooly Bugger is a steamer pattern that is typically created with a marabou tail, a chenille body, and hackle wrapped around the shank of the hook. It can be fished with or without weight added, either with a conehead, dumbbell eyes, or wire around the shank.
The variety of colors and sizes are quite literally endless. Buggers typically come in sizes as small as 14, as big as size 1/0, and literally everything in between. The most common colors are black, olive, or white but can be bought or tied in every color and combination imaginable. Flash is often added in varying amounts, ranging from none to the “Krystal Bugger,” which has tons of flash in both the tail and the body. Fishing a size 6 or 8 Wooly Bugger in olive with a little bit of flash in the tail is my personal go-to fly pattern, especially when fishing a new area.
Wooly Buggers imitate a variety of forage that fish prey upon. To the human eye, it doesn’t necessarily look like anything specific. Whether it looks like a baitfish, crawdad, hellgrammite, or stonefly nymph is up for debate, but what is for sure is to the fish’s eye, the Wooly Bugger imitates something to be eaten.
History of the Wooly Bugger
The confirmed history of the Wooly Bugger is a bit cloudy but credit to its creation is given to Russell Blessing of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in 1967.
The story goes is that Blessing wanted to create a fly that imitated a dobsonfly larvae (also known as a hellgrammite), to use as a smallmouth bass fly. Some sources claim the Wooly Bugger was inspired from a “Blossum Fly” or “Palmer Fly,” though many accounts suggest that he extended the tail of the already established “Wooly Worm” fly. This Wooly Worm fly was mentioned in Sir Izaak Walton’s 1653 work “The Compleat Angler” and was widespread since the 1950’s as a freshwater fly for trout and bass. Blessing wanted to add more movement to the fly when either retrieved or dead drifted and so, with the addition of the marabou tail to the Wooly Worm, the Wooly Bugger was born.
At the time, Blessing was not a renowned fly angler or fly tier but that quickly changed one afternoon on the Little Lehigh River in Pennsylvania in 1967. Several anglers were having trouble catching fish that afternoon, except Blessing. He had been fishing with the fly that his 7 year old daughter Julie had named a “Wooly Bugger.” Blessing had netted several nice trout while other anglers on the stream were empty handed and frustrated.
One of these anglers happened to be journalist Barry Beck. Beck noticed Blessing’s success and asked what fly Blessing was using and was slightly surprised to see the Bugger, a fly he had never seen or heard about before. Being a kind and generous man, Blessing gave him some of his Wooly Buggers (the originals had a black tail and olive chenille) and to Beck’s delight, he began catching fish.
Maybe Beck wanted to keep the fly a secret, or maybe he needed more time to judge the fly’s effectiveness, but nonetheless he published an article profiling the fly in 1984. From there, the Wooly Bugger skyrocketed and found its way into every fly shop and into every fly angler’s box.
How to Fish a Wooly Bugger
Simply stated, the Wooly Bugger can be fished in any way. There is literally no way to fish it wrong, perhaps that is what makes the fly so effective for anglers of every skill level. The only necessity to fish a Wooly Bugger is that it is tied securely to your tippet and that the fly is in the water. From there, you’re good to go.
Since the Bugger is a streamer, most tend to fish it actively with stripping retrieves, imitating a fleeing baitfish, leech, crawdad, or anything that swims (check out more on Streamer Fishing). Adding to the fly’s versatility, the Wooly Bugger is also commonly fished as a nymph under a bobber, resembling large stonefly nymphs or even an injured baitfish floating downstream. Buggers can also be fished on the swing, drifting down the current until the line becomes tense downstream, then retrieved. Even the spelling of the fly confirms its versatility. Just as you can fish it as a streamer, nymph, or wet fly, you can spell it with one “L” or two. I choose to spell it with one, simply beause it looks better to my eyes, but you will also commonly see it spelled with the double “L.” You can spell it and fish it in same way- any way you want.
It’s deadly with any method, though I personally love fishing it as a streamer. It’s my personal confidence fly and it’s gotten to the point that if I’m not catching fish on a Bugger, I feel strongly that I probably won’t be catching much on anything else.
Fish can be caught in many different ways, so why not use a fly that imitates a dozens types of prey and can be fished with a variety of methods? John Gierach wrote in his book Good Flies, “If you’re stumped and wonder aloud what to do, at least half the fly fishers in North America will say, ‘I don’t know, try a Bugger.’” I would not be going out on a limb to say that more than half of anglers would say that and that all those anglers have been saved a fishless day by the Wooly Bugger.
Conclusion
Originating from a Pennsylvania angler’s mind and now ubiquitous in the world of fly fishing, the Wooly Bugger is arguably the best fly of all-time. No fly box is complete without a handful of buggers and many anglers would say that if they could only fish one fly for the rest of their lives, it would be a Wooly Bugger of their favorite color.
There is simply no wrong time or wrong way to fish this fly. Panfish, trout, bass, tarpon, snook- you name it: every species of fish is willing to strike a Wooly Bugger. This fly has accounted for so many fish by so many anglers of all skill levels that it deserves recognition and appreciation.
