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Fly Tying
Mike West

What Popular patterns don’t work for you?

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Again, probably situational instead of the pattern. I like to go to a Muddler Minnow if I want a slow sinking/neutrally buoyant baitfish pattern. As for the Clousers, as many have stated, more sparse may not catch fishermen but they do catch fish. Most streamer patterns are that way. Bucktail, squirrel tail, even marabou. Sparse dressings allow for more movement. Movement often triggers bites in fresh or salt, warm or cold water.

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I have tied Muddlers that worked good as top water lures for lmb, smaller ones subbed as hoppers for trout. May be the most difficult to tie well fly that I've done. I did tie some that worked well but usually chose a marabou bugger for streamer purpose the last few years, I fish it like a crawdad.

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Those having trouble with the Clouser should watch the video of Bob tying it on the net. The eyes are ~1/2 way down the hook and the rather sparse hair is splayed vertically to give a bigger profile. The thread used doesn't cover the shank.

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Over here in UK it's buzzers for me. I can catch on dawls or crunchers but plain thread buzzers just don't do it for me.

Crackaig, same here. Silvers are great and I no longer even carry a 'standard'. Interested in seeing your interloper

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I'm surprised about the lack of success on the woolly or is it wooly bugger, maybe that's the problem. This has been my searching pattern for trout for 30 something years now. My bugger has evolved from using chenille to substituting seal to a combination of seal and other spikey (tyers dungeon) dubbings. The next step in the evolution is more of a Gartside sparrow where a dyed pheasant feather is wrapped soft hackle style instead of palmering a saddle hackle. I go back and forth and they both work. I must say that I've never done anything with an all white woolly bugger though yet I keep hearing about how effective they are.

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I'm surprised about the lack of success on the woolly or is it wooly bugger, maybe that's the problem. This has been my searching pattern for trout for 30 something years now. My bugger has evolved from using chenille to substituting seal to a combination of seal and other spikey (tyers dungeon) dubbings. The next step in the evolution is more of a Gartside sparrow where a dyed pheasant feather is wrapped soft hackle style instead of palmering a saddle hackle. I go back and forth and they both work. I must say that I've never done anything with an all white woolly bugger though yet I keep hearing about how effective they are.

I don't think anyone is saying that the Woolly Bugger is a bad fly. It obviously works for a lot of people. However, there are also a lot of us for whom it doesn't, which probably says more about our fishing habits than the fly itself.

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I have seen a lot of things called wooly buggers that aren't really. Either they are wooly worms or just "other things". But a legit wooly bugger most closely represents a leech. If there are no leeches present in a fishes life and one is presented to it, the fish may not eat it. If a leech pattern is presented when there is a prolific insect hatch, that is another reason it may not get eaten. If it's fished where leeches live and it's fished like a leech, then you will have a better chance of success. You can modify the materials to make it look more like a baitfish or large nymph, but I always tell people there are already flies for that so why make things harder than they have to be. Makes about as much sense as sharpening the end of a hammer so you can use it as a screwdriver.

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But a legit wooly bugger most closely represents a leech. If there are no leeches present in a fishes life and one is presented to it, the fish may not eat it.

It's original intent was to represent a hellgrammite.

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Thanks. A quick read on Wikipedia and I stand corrected. It was indeed created to represent dobsonfly nymphs. We often learn from other fishermen who learned from other fishermen. Egg sucking leech patterns of the Northwest and Alaska led me to believe what I was told. I have fished smaller versions in olive as a damselfly nymph, but if I know ahead of time that I will be fishing waters that contain damsels, I will make sure I have a better damsel pattern. There are few leech patterns that look much different than a wooly bugger. So as long as you're matching some form of forage, (hellgrammite, leech, or other) you will be more successful than if you are just using a wooly bugger because it's popular. If there's a better representation of a sculpin or crawdad in my fly boxes, I'll use that instead.

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I have tried crawdad patterns that looked much better to me, but these stupid fish like marabou; something I learned using a crappie jig. The woolies cast better than the jigs on fly tackle. I've never bought a craw dad fly that worked as good as they looked and my attempts at tying different crawdad patterns worked less often than marabou, so I take the easy road and give them woolies.

I don't think I have ever seen a leech, what size are they commonly? I do occasionally find a hellgrammite but not very often and usually after flood, so I have wondered if they washed down from miles away.

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Thanks, that looks a bit like my wooly, so I'll try some. Bookmarked it. That site has a ton of good stuff on it, but I haven't read it all.

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I love the Murdich Minnow. It calls for some peculiar synthetics that took me a while to find but that's a great streamer.

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It's has always fascinated me why a fly or technique will seem to work for one person but not another on the same water. For me Woolly buggers have never produced with trout but I meet people on the river who swear by them.

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