Flies

The Weedless woolly bugger         

Origin

John Gierach has succeeded in making one of the most popular fishing flies even better. He has also succeeded in providing us with many amusing books about the sport and art of fly fishing we all love. His books, a series of short stories, are about the agonies and ecstasies of his fly fishing life. Not known for his fly fishing skills, he has come up with a fly that I will tie up and use often. One of his fishing buddies is A. K. Best, one of the world’s leading fly tiers. “Sex, Death, and Fly fishing” is one of his first and most popular books. I have read almost all of his books and they are a wonderful insight into our chosen sport. He lives on the St. Vrain River near Lyon, Colorado and loves to fish the small mountain streams for brook trout.

Pattern

  • Hook—curved shank nymph hook, 3X long, sizes 4 thru 10
  • Thread—black 6/0
  • Tail—none
  • Underbody—lead wire size 0.20
  • Body—black or olive dubbing
  • Hackle—black saddle hackles
  • Under wing—brown buck tail
  • Wing—black marabou
  • Top flash—4 to 6 strands of pearl or olive Flashabou

Tying Instructions

  • Pinch down the barb of the hook
  • Wrap on a thread base
  • Tie on a strand of lead wire to the side of the hook shank opposite the hook point ( I always paint the hook eye with my wife’s red fingernail polish to indicate that there is lead weight on the hook )
  • Tie on the saddle hackle at the bend of the hook to be used later
  • Wrap on dubbing on the hook shank and stop at about the 1/4 point of the hook
  • Palmer wrap the hackle feather over the dubbing – use for to six wraps
  • Turn over the hook so that the point is on top – attach back in your vice
  • Tie on the under wing on top of the hook making the feathers slightly longer than the hook shank
  • Tie on the marabou over wing making the strands 1 1/2 to 2 times the hook length
  • Tie on a few strands of Flashabou
  • Wrap a large head of thread and whip finish
  • Cement the thread and go fishing

Note—his fly is tied upside down so that the wings are covering the hook point so as to make it weed less.

Flies Imitated

Leach or Sculpin.

How to fish

Fish it with a sinking line and bump it along the bottom of the river or just above the weed beds.