WB15. The Viva Deepwater Woolly Bugger Fly

The deepwater Woolly bugger has a heavy dumbell eye tied to the top of the hook shank and not under the hook shank as normal. This has the effect of inverting the hook so it points upwards and reduces snagging on the bottom. The river or lake bed is where this fly is designed to fish. The weighted head gets it down deep, fast to the right level. When the fish are feeding on the bottom this is the fly to use.

VIVA FLY PATTERNS
The fly fishing term 'VIVA' is now used to describe a killer color combination of very light green and black. It was first used by an English fly-dresser called Victor Furze. He used to work at the Vauxhall car making plant where the Vauxhall Viva car was made. He named a very successful black streamer lure with a very light green butt that he designed after the car he helped make. The original was intended to imitate the caddis larvae that made their homes in the rotting corm stalks on the bed of the new Draycote reservoir that had recently flooded the corn fields. The light green was the larva sticking it's head out of its dark cased body. For me it is the colour combination that works. It suggests a baitfish with a dark back and a light green lower body..

WOOLLY BUGGER STREAMER LURES
The Woolly Bugger has to be one of the most versatile and productive flies around.  When tied with an olive body it is a useful damsel fly nymph imitation. The marabou tail and in most cases a palmered body suggest succulent lava, tadpoles or leeches. Drag one across the current in front of some trout and this fly becomes a killer. We have added additional flash to improve there performance. From experience it helps catch the eye of a predatory trout or salmon when the flash in the tail reflects a quick glint of sunlight as the marabou tail moves through the water. It is a great modern streamer pattern and appears in many colors and hook sizes. You can use it for bass, trout or panfish as well. It's a great fly, and every flybox should contain several. You fish it like a streamer. This fly's colorful name and the gnarly way it looks can be deceiving. This is a big fish fly, perhaps the very best big fish fly in use currently. The Woolly Bugger has a lively marabou feather tail that "breathes" in the water and looks lively to hungry trout.

Dressing a fly by winding the hackle the length of the body is mentioned in fly fishing books of the fifteenth century. It is called the palmer style of dressing. About the time Napoleon was fighting the British in France and Spain, palmer flies were being praised in books as the first fly to be used until a hatch was observed. The palmered hackle helps suggest to the trout that the fly is alive by its movement. This fly was developed by the inclusion of a marabou tail to suggest swimming movement.

A Pennsylvania fly tier, Jim Blessing tied the first "Buggers". He added a marabou tail to the old woolly worm, a fly that goes back to Walton.  The original had a black marabou tail and hackle with an olive chenille body, (a bit like our Viva Woolly Bugger) for small mouth bass in the streams near his home. This fly caught on quickly and is a mandatory stream and lake fly. The Woolly Bugger is a very versatile fly to fish. You can cast it upstream and fish it like a nymph, or cast across a stream and let it drift with the current. A great way to fish streamer flies is to cast across stream, let the current carry it down and across and make stripping retrieves, pulling 6-24" in your fly line, imparting subtle and deliberate action to the fly. The hackle will twitch back over the body and the tail will flare and wiggle supply. This drives fish wild and brings surprising hook ups and many big fish!

This relatively new fly became more popular in the late 1970's through the tying of Russell Blessing of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and the promotion of Barry Beck. While it has it may have its origins in the very old (British) pattern the Woolly Worm, it is now an American standby. Woolly Buggers catch trout, bass, and salmon in both Atlantic and Pacific rivers, steelhead, Arctic char, northern pike, bluegills and even carp. It would not be an exaggeration to say that there is hardly a fish that swims that could not be caught with a Woolly Bugger. This wide-ranging success is due to the fact that these flies can be used to imitate a variety of fish food forms, including baitfish, crustaceans, insect nymphs salamanders and leeches. To achieve this chameleon status, Woolly Buggers are tied in green, red, olive, gray, grizzly, brown, black, yellow, white, and purple and in all combinations of these colors. This fly can be fished near the surface, or with the addition of weight it is often fished deep. Obviously the Woolly Bugger may not be a glamorous fly, but it deserves to be in everyone's fly box for all kinds of fly fishing, from warmwater to saltwater.

The Woolly Bugger is a very versatile fly to fish. You can cast it upstream and fish it like a nymph, or cast across a stream and let it drift with the current. A great way to fish streamer flies is to cast across stream, let the current carry it down and across and make stripping retrieves, pulling 6-24" in your fly line, imparting subtle and deliberate action to the fly. The hackle will twitch back over the body and the tail will flare and wiggle supply. This drives fish wild and brings surprising hook ups and many big fish!  The word 'bugger' is rude in England and described the sex act between to men. Most older traditional English fly tying books do not acknowledge the Woolly Bugger by name, but instead they used to call it wrongly the Woolly Worm or tadpole fly.  Modern books now give it it's proper name. In the mid 1980's a fly very similar to the Woolly Bugger became popular in the UK. It was called the Dog Nobbler and was designed and promoted by Trevor Housby. It looks exactly like a woolly bugger except that it had a weighted head,

Fishing the Woolly Bugger is a matter of patience and confidence. Because of the soft saddle hackle rib and the marabou tail, it does not require much action on the part of the angler to give this fly a pulsating, undulating look. In a stream or river, slow to very slow is the key because the current will make it look alive. In a lake, a little more action may be required, but not too much and not too fast. Remember that our Woolly Bugger flies are more superior as they have additional 'flash' added to their tails to get them noticed by predatory trout and salmon. 

One of my favorite use of a woolly bugger is for the sport of trying to coax trout that lurk in deep plunge pools to rise up to the surface and take my presentation. They normally will not do so for a dry fly. It has to be a more substantial meal to be worth the effort. I try to imitate a small fish that has been temporally stunned as it swam over the waterfall and landed in the plunge pool. Cast your fly as near to the waterfall as you can. Give it a few moments to sink and then begin the retrieve to imitate the fish recovering and quickly swimming away from it's vulnerable static location to safety. Using the same idea look for deep slow pools near where a stream is forced to drop suddenly due to a narrow rock channel. Small fish will be forced down with the strength of the current before they can quickly swim off to the relative safety of the bank. Drop your streamer into this current and let it sink. Then start you retrieve. Trout can be teased into chasing your fly.

CUSTOMER'S COMMENTS
This is my fly for opening day on Rutland Water Reservoir, (England) along with a bright booby. Black and Chartreuse are good early season colours. I use a fast sinking line as the fish are still deep.
Julian Murphy

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