Olive Woolly Bugger HOOK: #2-8 extra long heavy wire streamer hook (Tiemco 9395 shown). THREAD: Olive 140-denier Ultra Thread. TAIL: Olive marabou. UNDERBODY: .30" lead wire or non-lead substitute. RIB: Gold small Ultra Wire. BODY: Olive large chenille. HACKLE: Olive saddle hackle (Whiting Farms Bugger Packs). Notes: Tie your Woolly Bugger in black and brown to imitate leeches, olive (damselflies), white (cranefly larva), and tan to reddish brown (crayfish). Also try Woolly Buggers with rubber legs, bead or cone heads, with flash material in the tail, or with a dubbed or peacock herl body instead of chenille.

Streamers imitate food sources that swim. Nymphs are most often fished dead-drift at the same speed and direction of the current but streamers are usually fished on a tight line so they move like living creatures. From a fly-tying perspective, streamers should sink, have a relatively elongated profile, and be made of mobile materials that move and breathe with a life of their own.

Perhaps no streamer matches this description more perfectly than the Woolly Bugger, invented by Pennsylvanian Russell Blessing in the 1970s. Blessing's pattern is a variation of an old Scottish fly pattern called the Woolly Worm, but tied with a long marabou tail instead of a stubby red yarn tail. The most important technique to learn from tying your first Woolly Bugger is how to "palmer" hackle, which means wrapping a rooster feather along the length of the fly body. Getting the right hackle is important too--use saddle hackle packaged and sold as Woolly Bugger hackle such as Whiting Farms' Bugger packs.

CLICK HERE for a detailed video on how to tie a Woolly Bugger.

Tying Steps

Step 1. Attach the thread to the hook. Select a single marabou feather and stroke a small section of feather barbs out from the stem at a 90-dregree angle to align the tips. Strip these fibers from the stem. Measure the marabou against the hook shank and snip the fibers at the base so the tail is about the same length as the hook shank. Place and pinch the marabou fibers on top of the hook shank just above the barb of the hook, and make several tight wraps of thread to bind the material down.

Step 2. To weight your Woolly Bugger, wrap lead wire (.30" for #2-4 hooks) around the hook shank. Spiral wrap the thread back and forth over the wire several times, and put a thread wall in front of and behind the wire so it will not slide on the shank.

Step 3. Attach a 3- to 4-inch length of gold wire on top of the marabou tie-in point.

Step 4. Tie in the tip of a packaged Woolly Bugger hackle at the same location. The hackle should be sized so the fibers are about the same length as the hook gape at the rear and longer toward the front. The feather barbs should be wide and soft for maximum movement in the water. Do not use a saddle hackle feather intended for dry flies as these have narrow stiff feathers barbs. Whiting Farms' Bugger Packs are good for Woolly Buggers as are several other products intended for this purpose.

Step 5. Attach a 4- to 6-inch length of large olive chenille on top of the hackle tie-in point. To make your tie-in point as neat and slim as possible, strip the fuzzy fibers away from the last ¼ inch of the chenille core before you tie it in. This creates a tie-in point with the least amount of bulk.

Step 6. Move the thread forward to one hook-eye length behind the hook eye. Wrap the chenille forward in tight touching turns to the same point. Wrap over the chenille with three tight turns of thread and clip the excess.

Step 7. Wrap the hackle forward in evenly spaced turns and then make three close touching turns behind the hook eye to create a collar.

Step 8. Spiral the gold wire rib forward counter-clockwise to bind down the hackle stem and the chenille. Work the rib through the hackle collar and tie it off. Be careful not to bind down any hackle barbs when ribbing the fly. If you do catch any, use a bodkin to pull them free before you finish the fly. Use a double hitch or whip finish to complete the fly.