Help with Wooly Buggers

[TUrainbow88]

Hello all,

I'm a little new to fly fishing, my question is, I'm having problems fishing a wooly bugger! I can get a Trout to chase it, but they never take! What am I doing wrong? One more question is what's a good wooly bugger color to use for winter fishing??? Please help!

 

[blackandgold4ever05]

Not sure if I'm 100% correct here but I generally fish buggers like I would a nymph or live minnow. I cast at a 45 degree angle upstream and drift them like I do a nymph. At the end of drift, sometimes I strip in in a few feet. You can also give it some movement by bouncing or wiggling rod tip.

As for winter colors, I'm not real sure on that either cause I don't have much experience fishing them in winter but when I started tying flies, my buddy taught me and told me his best colors were an all black bugger and an olive bodied one with black or brown tail and black hackle.

Hope this helps a little bit. I'm sure you will get some better answers on here too.

 

[Volksnurse]

I don't know that theres actually a wrong way to fish a bugger...I've drifted them like a nymph, quartered them like a streamer, randomly stripped them and even stood upstream and just stripped off line a foot or two at a time and let them flow downstream...gotten fish on all of them..

Colors: olive, black, or brown

 

[MKern]

That was always my frustration with buggers are the chases and turn aways.
However, when a fish truely wants it they will slam it and that is rewarding.

Colors for Winter...probably black and olive. Although red and orange probably aren't bad choises either. (mating colors = excited fish)

 

[Swattie87]

As far as colors go, I agree with the above...olive and black for trout, regardless of time of year. I like chartruse and white for warmwater species though.

The chasing and not taking is just part of fishing streamers (Woolly Buggers). Try varying your retrieve when they seem to be chasing and not taking. When you get one to chase, try either a pause...sometimes they'll hit while the fly dead drifts a bit during the pause, or try a faster or longer strip of the line...if it appears the food is getting away, that sometimes triggers a strike too. Also, try just dead drifting them like a nymph from the get go...I probably get more than 50% of my hookups with Woolly Buggers on a dead drift.

 

[Berks]

I had good luck today with a white WB just flipping into deeper holes. I prefer that color, if for nothing else, just watching a trophy fallfish slam it. What could be more perfect...? As mentioned above, white works well for the warm-water game also.

 

[csoult]

WB's are one of my favorite flies because they are so versatile. I use them different depending on the water. In a run I will typically cast quartering up stream, then I allow the fly to dead drift until it is just below me and then start stripping it. They key to this I think is to have the bugger start to bend where you think the fish is going to be. This is where I get 75% of my strikes. When working the holing lies against the banks I will usually toss it only slightly upstream against the bank; almost 90 degrees to the bank and start stripping immediately. I very rarely dead drift buggers but I am sure it works. I agree with the colors above but would say that for SMB I use red/brown more often to imitate a crayfish. Black and olive for trout but white will also work.

 

[jabink84]

when they chase it I seem to do well when i twitch it right when they start getting close behind it. i never get them if i slow it down i typically try to twitch it to make it change directions either left or right.

 

[TUrainbow88]

WOW Thanks for all the helpful info guys! Lots of help!

 

[jayL]

Do you have a background in bait fishing? If so, fish a bugger like you would a minnow. Branch out and experiment from there, but fishing them slow with a little action here and there is still one of my stand-by methods, especially in cold water.

If they are chasing, I found that moving them faster will get more strikes. I had to see it multiple times to believe it, but making it harder for them to catch it seems to help. They aren't going to let it get away if they really want it.

 

[pete41]

rainbows will hit them wet fly style but browns tend to prefer nymph style.In my experience.

 

[pete41]

cancel mine-misread as wworms sorry

 

[jayL]

The marabou doesn't change that much imo. I fish them both similarly. Then again, I don't fish many wooly worms any more.

 

[nealfish]

try orange chennile with black tail and black hackles. you can drift them, or you can cast across current and as you stip in, and when it catches the current, make strips less frequent, when it comes back out of the main current, maintain orig, speed. also, sometimes fishing slow waters you can stip fast but near the substrate and make your fly "die" or stop and flutter to the bottom. it works any way though.