Myth Busters Needed

[hoglaw]

I like fishing white wollies in the Norfork tailwater. I normally only fish there during the dead of winter, so maybe it has something to do with the shad kill (though I rarely see dead shad)? There's a log sitting over deep water just downstream of the McClellan's dock. I've sat on it quite a few times and caught football after football on white wolly buggers.

[timsfly]

I like woolybuggers, I think any game fish will eat them, I've even caught saltwater fish on woolybuggers, one time I ran out of ginger Crazy charlies, I had a few #10 conehead buggers in the same color, and bonefish didn't seem to care, as long as it was on the bottom when they seen the fly, I had a hoot fishing them that day. They are as good an all around fly as there is. Some days they work better, and somedays they don't work so good, but thats fishing.

I like them in a #14 for the parks stocker fish, but when the water is up, I like em as big as #4's and real bushy.

I have found that sometimes just dead drifting a bugger is as good as a slow retrieve, there really isn't a right or a wrong way to fish a bugger, I've even seen people fishing them under indicators here at R.R. and catching fish, go figure, game fish really like them.

[WebFreeman]

I don't have much experience fly fishing, but I'd say 75% of my fish have come on a WB. My one adventure trip was on the N. Platte in Wyoming. We stopped for lunch at noon with a high sky. I heard a fish jump and stripped a black bugger through there and caught a 16" fish. It was like a fishing show, esp. since the 3 guys I was with weren't fisherman. Later that night I crept up behind some fish sipping something small, stripped my bugger through a hooked one. It was bigger than the lunch fish. I reached for my net, which was 200 yards away in the canoe. I lost it while I tried to wear him out. Long story, but it's my only one. I like them big, weight them w/ a couple shot, cast perpendicular or slightly upstream and strip them back. Usually get hit on the swing, but not always. I also like them in faster water.

[drew03cmc]

I have caught numerous fish on buggers and they are normally the first fly to be tied onto my leader, especially for warmwater! Bass one cast, gill next, followed by redear, and last but not least, crappie...they all love them!

Most of my fishing is in lakes and ponds, I fish them parallel to the shoreline and strip it back to me in short to long strips alternating what I choose.

[DavidF.]

I tie woolly buggers as large as 2/0 for bass, sand bass,and stripers. those are usually in white, black, red and chartreuse.

For trout my goto WB is a #12 in light olive or brown. Most are tied weightless but often weighted with copper or lead wire.

In the smaller sizes I tie the maribou tail sparse.

[zander]

Thanks for everyone's responses. I'm glad that they do work for some of you, and glad that I am not alone in my lack of success. I will try to tie some and fish them like mentioned on here. On a side note, I walked what I thought was 1/2 mile to work today in the ice storm since my Explorer was totally encased in ice. I marched myself right into my boss's boss's office and told her (ice covering my jacket and pants) that I want all the brownie points I can get for showing up, she promised two coffees and I am still waiting. My boss later did a map quest on my trip and told me that I walked 2.5 miles not .5 miles. No sense burning a sick day for the ice storm when I might catch a terrible case of "salmonid" fever later in the spring. Sounds like a real disease to me:) I'll have to try to cure myself with some soft-hackled unweighted woolley boogers. Thanks again.

[Paola Cat]

Wooly Buggers are one of my go to patterns. I either dead drift them or strip them. They seem to be more effective for me in some MO waters than others. I don't know why, but for me, buggers and leeches are real effective at Montauk and RR and you can get into that "every cast" thing .... but experience tells me that they're not as effective at BSSP .... but what's odd is that they're effective in the Niangua. I've never been able to understand why this is. It's probably because you get into rythm fishing a bugger in a certain type of water/conditions and you get comfortable with it. PC

[tippet7]

Zander,

The W.B. was my fathers FAVORITE fly in the world. I started using the W.B. and had very limited success with it. Limited as in ZERO fish caught, until one day on Taneycomo fishing the rebar hole when I became a born again W.B. fan. If I had only 1 pattern to fish with for the rest of my days, it would be the W.B.

Since that day on Taneycomo about 6 years ago, I have caught LMB, SMB, catfish, trout, all sorts of perch on it.

Don't give up on the W.B. it holds magic powers. Behold the power of the woolly bugger

[trout fanatic]

I enjoy fishing them (although not as often as I used to-too many flies not enough time). I especially like to swing them but I have had fair success stripping them in inland lakes for bass too. My best fish was a 8 lb flathead caught on a olive wb. Would like to repeat that again (and again and again)

[Yakfly]

"Either the woolly booger is a myth, or I must be fishing them completely wrong. "

Hmmm... not catching with a bugger?... I have always heard (and believed) there's no wrong way to fish a woolly bugger!

First, find good water - meaning for trout and smallmouth streams, transition areas. Fast water next to slow (seams), deep next to shallow (dropoffs), and my favorite bedrock next to gravel, shade next to sunny, etc.... Cast quartering downstream and let it swing through the transition area.. when gets to the bottom, let it hang, strip if if needed. Often strikes will come at bottom of the swing. Usually after you give up and are walking to next wading spot you'll bet the telltale "bump bump". If you're not hanging up on bottom every once in a while, ad some weight to your leader. You want to be dredging the bottom.

Fishing the shadkill on the White at high water? Big white/silver woolly under indicator always works for me.

Also a killer tactic is to dead drift the woolly under a big indicator thru deep, slow water.

Woolly tied with a foam body makes a great grasshopper fly in late summer.

For smallmouth - tie it big and hairy with some rubber legs makes a good crawfish - tie in purple/black/olive - heavily weighted, and then fish on sinktip line. Basically fishes like texas rigged soft plastics.

Good luck.