Fishing Flies

The Universal Fly

When it comes to fishing flies, is there one
fly that serves all anglers all the time? Probably
not. But the woolly bugger and its clones sure
comes close.

The history of the Wooly Bugger begins with the Woolly Worm. Or so many anglers think. Actually, plain-bodied flies with palmered hackles---that is, hackle wound along the length of the hook shank---were in use long before the Woolly Worm came on the scene. In England and the Catskills, small dry fly fishing flies tied this way were called, naturally enough, “palmers.”

So, let’s begin again.

It all started with the Palmer Fly. Some enterprising angler, perhaps not a fly tier at all, simply wrapped some colored floss on a hook, then spiraled a stiff neck hackle from the tail to the hook eye. Lo and behold, the new creation floated high and dry, and looked like a bug. Soon after that (whenever “that” was), some other chap discovered that by tying in the hackle by the tip, the palmering formed a tapered fly that cast better and seemed to be more attractive to the fish.

We still haven’t reached the Woolly worm, however, because palmers were dry fishing flies. They were cast as drys, fished as drys, and seen as drys by the anglers who used them.

Nobody knows exactly when some wide-eyed radical experimenting with fishing flies figured he could tie a palmer with a soft hackle, reverse the direction of the barbs, and have one hell of a wet fly. As so often happens with these things, the Woolly Worm probably was simultaneously “discovered” by a number of anglers. Paul Schullery, in American Fly Fishing, credits Californian Don Martinez as developing the standard form in the 1930s.

Woolly Worms were soon being tied in every possible size and color. Minor variations abounded, with many tiers trying to claim a new pattern just by changing things around slightly. Somebody added a wisp of red to the tail. Another wrapped two hackles, one for the body color, the second for the head.

Despite all this, a standard pattern did emerge.
It consisted of a short red tail, a chenille body,
and a soft hackle palmered to the head in an open
spiral. A black body and grizzly hackle were the
most common color.

The Woolly Bugger didn’t appear on the scene until
the late 1960s. The creation of Pennsylvanian Russell
Blessing, it was originally tied to simulate a
hellgrammite, and quickly became the darling of the
outdoor press.

Almost as soon as the Woolly Bugger was introduced fishermen---including me--- started playing with the design. I was trying to develop fishing flies specifically for smallmouth bass, and wanted the movement of the bugger, but with a little more sex appeal. What’s more, the fly needed enough weight to get down to where the fish lived, but not so much that the weight would interfere with the natural movement of the fly or its castability. And I wanted eyes, because they serve as a target for gamefish.

Leaving the tail alone, I added tinsel, spiraled over the chenille body. For eyes I tied on a pair of chain beads (we didn’t have the selection of eye materials available today). I called this fly the “Big-Eyed Bugger.” Then, as soon as new synthetic materials were introduced, I added first Flashabou, and then Krystal Flash, incorporating it as part of the tail, and as a shellback over the top of the body. I renamed this the “Big-Eyed Flash-A-Bugger.”

This became my universal fly. In appropriate sizes and colors I’ve used it for brown, brook, rainbow, and cutthroat trout; for grayling; for steelhead; for largemouth and smallmouth bass; for Pacific salmon; for pickerel; and for panfish from bluegill to crappie to yellow perch. I see no reason it couldn’t work as a saltwater fly as well. For times like that, or in the heavy current of tailwater streams, when extra weight is needed, I start with wraps of lead wire under the body material.

I don’t claim to have invented the Big-Eyed Flash-A-Bugger. The modifications I made were natural and logical extensions of the original, just as the many variations---such as bead-head and cone-head buggers---which have appeared since merely continue a tradition started by the old Palmer Fly.

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