fishing buggers

[Dave Cook]

The wooly and spinner is about all I fished with for 30 years at Montauk. (I started young). Then I found jigs and jig & cork. It took me a long time to find all the flies we fish with today. Those old-time standards worked so good at Montauk, it was hard to experiment with anything else.

Fishing the wooly and spinner was chuck and duck fishing before I ever heard of it. There were always a couple of BB shot (or bigger) added to the leader just to remind you there is more than one reason to were a hat.

[LostMyWife]

So can I assume that no one uses that combination anymore?

[Danoinark]

Decades ago I fished a wooly worm with a spinner on the front. I also had plenty of wet flies with spinners too. Haven't used those combinations in years though. You can still buy fly spinners. I have seen them around.

Dano

[timsfly]

The woolyworm colorado spinner combo is alive and well at Roaring River and I know they are still used at Bennett. They work great on panfish and I've even caught white bass on them, use a #8 white woolyworm with a #2 silver colorado spinner and the white bass will tear them up(sometimes)I use the gold on the trout most of the time and silver seems to work best for me on warmwater species.

[Greg]

Woolly buggers are great. One of the most versatile flys out there. I generally strip them but I've had some luck dead drifting them as well.

One tip: There is a variation on the bugger that I really like. The mohair leech. I've had great success with this fly. I've done much better with it than the buggers. Green, black, and tan are my best colors. I've had many days where swinging and stripping them was just deadly. You might pick up a couple and give them a try.

If you tie then the leech is even easier to tie than a bugger. I actually started tying my own flies 4 or 5 years ago because I could not find mohair leeches anywhere. But lately I've seen them at many fly shops.

Here's the link to some info about the leech and how to tie it. It was created by Mike Cruse of MO:

http://www.missouritrout.com/mikesmohairleech.htm

Good luck,

Greg

[Leonard]

I personally like to fish woollies unweighted...

I can fish them slow and get a better dead drift.. and at the end of the drift the woolly rises... then to short strip it back letting it pause...

Leonard....

AKA.. the stripper (Thanks to Terry)

[Terry Beeson]

That's "Slow Stripper" Leonard...

But I think maybe we should alter it just a bit and make it "Slow Strippin' Mink"....

[brittsnbirds]

drew-

After pulling up the website that Greg suggested I noticed that is the unit that I have started tying. I didn't know I was tying a Mohair Leech. I will attest that it is a killer at BSP, especially when it is dead drifted.

Here is the recipe that I came up with;

#10 or #12 2x hook

.015 weight

Olive 6/0 thread

Olive marabou.

I tie my weight from the hook bend all the way to w/in an eye width of the eye. I tie in a few swords of the marabou. I make them short just a little longer the gap of the hook. I then tie in remainder of the marabou sword and palmer it too the front. This makes a real ratty looking body. I tie it off at the front and pick out some of the longs pieces from the body. I've also used Flashabou in the tail to give it a little extra kick. I think I am going to tie some with gold rib to try and hold it together a little better.

[Steve Smith]

My vote is with Leonard and Terry [did I say that?]. Unweighted is best especially if you can sight fish them. Strip it back and if you see a fish turn on the woolie, but not take, shake your rod tip. That will cause the fly to "dance" and most fish can't stand that action. There are other times just drifting the fly under an indicator does the trick. In any case, let the fish tell you what they want.

[duckydoty]

I was digging through some fly fishing stuff they other day and found a whole box full of the bugger spinners. I quit using them in the mid 80's at Montauk.

I must have liked them at one time

Might have to try them again

Duckydoty