Flies & Fly Tying Archives | The Connecticut Angler

Some sneer at them as too basic. Others, such as myself, leverage them for every swimmy fiber of fish-catching glory they possess. The venerable woolly bugger is virtually unrivaled in its simplicity and versatility. A true classic that ALWAYS has a spot in my streamer box.

A finished woolly worm fly. — A finished woolly worm; the resemblance to the woolly bugger is immediately apparent. This particular example was tied by Mark Cline in 2008.

Sources tend to differ on how and when the woolly bugger originated, though it would seem that the precise pattern –with a marabou tail and hackle-wrapped chenille body– emerged at some point in the US during the 1970s. Don’t let that that lull you into believing that it’s a relatively new creation, though. Indeed, the essential elements of the woolly bugger have been in development for some 400 years or more.

Certainly, the one of the fundamental design concepts behind the woolly bugger can be traced back to the “palmer-worm”, a long-shank, hackle-wrapped fly that was in popular use during the 1600s in England and described by Izaak Walton in his famous work, The Compleat Angler. The palmer-worm was already a well-established fly at that time, so it’s easy to imagine that it originated much earlier, probably in the 1500s.

During the intervening centuries, many wet flies were developed that we could arguably point to as transitional steps between the palmer-worm and the woolly bugger. But most seem to concur that the development of the “woolly worm” was key. Author Ian Whitelaw, writing in The History of Fly-Fishing in Fifty Flies, traces the woolly worm back to 1920s fly anglers in the Ozarks. The hackle-wrapped chenille body of the woolly bugger was firmly established in this pattern, though the tail of the woolly worm was a stubby piece of yarn rather than a generous sprig of marabou. Within just a couple decades, the addition of trailing marabou would impart an undulation to the woolly worm and give rise to one of the most ubiquitous and celebrated patterns in fly fishing.

Introducing my latest version of the Black River Crayfish streamer that I’ve been progressively honing since earlier this year. If you missed the backstory to this fly, I’ve been designing it over the course of a couple experimental ties with the goal of creating a new, relatively simple crayfish pattern. Inspiration for this fly, not surprisingly, came when cleaning hefty rainbows and browns from Vermont’s Black River last June. The stomachs were absolutely brimming with crayfish and I’ve been itching to use that knowledge to my advantage ever since.

The Black River Crayfish III is the third (and probably final) version of this streamer pattern, which I’ve progressively refined over several weeks. As far as the composition goes, I think I’ve kept true to my goal of keeping everything quite simple. The underlying frame is basically that of a heavy woolly bugger, in this case, with a #8 long-shank streamer hook wrapped with lead wire to add extra weight and bulk. When you’d normally tie in a sprig of marabou, I instead create the “arms” by tying in two marabou sprigs and wrapping them in such a way as to protrude at opposite angles. A “joint” is then added to each arm by tying a knot with black thread and strengthening it with a careful application of head cement. Besides simply adding a bit of realism to the streamer, this also helps to reinforce some measure of separation between the marabou sprigs once the fly is wet. Otherwise, they would tend to just clump together in one bunch. Long, black-dyed turkey biots are then tied in to replicate antennae. The body is then wrapped with variegated brown chenille. Finally, I tie in a piece of swiss straw which suggests the fan-like tail of the crayfish.

Now I’ll concede that this pattern diverges more than a bit from how real crayfish look. But the goal here wasn’t to create a perfect facsimile. My real goal was essentially to leverage the tying simplicity and fishing versatility of the woolly bugger pattern, adding a number of customizations to more readily trigger a predatory response in trout that are accustomed to devouring crayfish. I think I’ve succeeded at that goal with Black River Crayfish III. Now it’s just a matter of time before I bring my new invention up the Black River this June for field testing.