The Woolly Bugger in Winter

RCFetter

RCFetter

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For beginners, their are many threads in this forum explaining how the Woolly is the "go to" fly for trout.

Bugger526.jpg


My question is, does that hold true in fall and winter?

If so, what colors work best?

Thanks
 
Yes, even more so in Winter in my experience. A small BH Bugger is often all I'll use for Trout (outside of Limestoners) in Winter. Technique is a little different...more dead drifting and dapping, and less active stripping. You often need to get deep too...add some shot in addition to the beadhead. Can't go wrong with black IMO.
 
For typical winter conditions (low, clear water) I've done better with smaller than typical buggers, mostly size 10 and 12. Those are also pretty good brookie stream sizes.

For color it partially depends on water conditions just like any other time of year. I tend to use dark in high dirty water and light colors in low clear water but sometimes it doesn't seem to matter.

My best bugger this year has been black with a body of UV polar chenille (small) and a chartreuse bead head. A smallish size 10 produced a nice honest 22" brown in september.
 
Funny this came up...I just spent the afternoon tying a bunch of weighted bead head buggers in black and olive. Mostly because I feel like that's what I catch fish on in winter. Sizes 10 to 12. Dead drift and watch them on the lift....They work better in riffles. Deep. Try drifting them along the bank or where there are crevasses in the rocks....
 
How predictive of you...
 
lv2nymph wrote:
How predictive of you...

Psychic fly tying....we knew you were going to fish....

Would've rather been out fishing....
 

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White, black and olive, which also happen to work in spring, summer, and fall :) For winter, I will often size down to a 10 or 12. A beadhead is good for weight, and also wrap the hook with lead wire or tape. A bugger with the weight tied in seems to swim more naturally than a bugger with a shot or two on the line. Do they work? They are pretty much what I fish in the winter-time (which does mean there are other flies that could work better, if I perhaps tried them). I've caught anywhere from 3" to 19" fish on them in the dead of winter. The fish in my avatar is that 19" fish, caught January 5 of this year, on a weighted white wooly bugger. I'm pretty sure I missed the same fish late this afternoon, also on a weighted white wooly bugger, from that same batch of early winter ties.
 
My olive buggers outfish the others by a good bit, especially my sz14 olive WB, it has accounted for the most fish, and the most difficult fish. I would say white next then black. As a previous poster mentioned, they are a year round pattern that works, and many including my self use it as a top fall, winter pattern.
 
Thanks for all of the information. As CathyG mentioned, it seems smaller sizes are used in winter.
 
I love the WB, white, black, and olive. Bead head or not, I usually catch fish on them. I think white works best for clear low water & in winter. I would say also in high water conditions after a good rain. Black in the darker water and Summer. I almost always use 10 or 12 (smaller) but I fish stocked trout. The WB is also a killer point fly for all seasons, especially in winter!
 
in winter I think I could only fish two patterns, woolly buggers and zebras. unless I have a BWO hatch I can go to the stream confident with those two patterns and know they will produce. woolly are an anywhere fly but as mention before slow pools, banks and riffles. I fish a riffle with a zebra first. usually tandem HE or PT with a zebra dropper. small is best is the winter. I start with a size 22 zebra and for a bugger 10 or 12.
 
I think Bob Clouser told me awhile ago he an Lefty had caught 72 species of fish on them so far and that was in the 90's.
 
Typically in late fall, after the spawn, and through the winter, I'll start with a big woolly bugger. The only time I don't is when there's a hatch occuring, but even then if you tie on a big streamer and fish it like it's taking flies on the surface it will catch trout.
 
Was out this morning with Dan on the Lackawanna River near Carbondale and landed this fellow.

Took him on an olive wooly-bugger that I had tied with an orange bead head. Size 8 streamer hook and weighted. Fished as anchor on a tandem rig.
 

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I learned a woolly bugger variant from Carl Richards, author of the book "Selective Trout". Carl said it was the most effective wet fly he ever fished, he personally fished this fly extensively.

The fly is called a Chicago Leech. It's a very simple pattern. It's a beadhead tied entirely using mohair yarn. The sparser the tie, the better it works. Smaller sizes, about a size #10 all black seem especially effective. The sparse small fly works very well in the colder weather.

The only thing is, for some reason mohair works better than any other fibers.
 
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