On The Fly
March 2016
"Fly tying is a school from which we never graduate"
We have all tied wooly buggers - they may be the most successful wet fly of all time! But I always had difficulty getting a pleasing outcome, as my hackles were inconsistent and often pointed forward. They might have fished as well but I didn’t like them. Then I stumbled on to the following way to eliminate that problem and get a more durable fly in the process; that is by tying the hackle on by the bead rather than the tail and securing it with fine copper wire.
PATTERN OF THE MONTH - Wooly Bugger
Hook: TMC 5263, sizes 4-10 (or almost any streamer hook)
Thread: Black 6/0
Weight: 12 to 15 wraps of .020 lead wire
Tail: Black Marabou (4 strands of Black or Red Krystal Flash is optional but good)
Rib: Copper Wire - small
Body: Black Chenille (or Black with red flash)
Hackle: Black Saddle hackle
.
Tying Instructions:
1) Pinch the hook barb down and slide the bead onto the hook, small hole first.
2)Wrap the wire around the hook shank and slide it forward into the cavity of the bead. The up-front weight gives the fly a tendency to undulate as it is
stripped. Build a thread dam behind the wire and wrap back to the bend.
3)Cut a clump of barbs off the side of a marabou feather. You want barbs with feathery tips, not straight tips. Hold them straight out while cutting to
keep them uniform in length. I usually dip them in water as marabou is otherwise hard to handle. Add the Krystal Flash and tie the clump on right behind the
wire to extend about shank length behind the hook bend. Wrap the thread over the marabou back to the bend and let it hang. Snip the excess marabou off near the
wire.
4)Tie in about 4" of copper wire at the bend. Now strip the fuzz off a 4" piece of chenille and tie it in at the bend. Take the thread
up almost to the bead.
5)Wrap the chenille up to the thread and tie it down, leaving a little space to tie in the hackle and wire.
6)Select a hackle with barbs 2 to 2½ times the hook gape. Holding the shiny, convex side up, strip off about ¼” of barbs off the right side. This is the
side that wire wrap against the hook shank when the feather is tied with the shiny side forward. Tie it down securely with 3 or 4 wraps of thread. Using your
hackle pliers, make about 4 spiral wraps back to the bend and one extra wrap. Keeping tension on the hackle, tie it down with 2 wraps of the copper wire and
then spiral the wire up to the bead. Wiggle the wire through the feather barbs as you go to avoid disturbing too many of the barbs.
7)Tie down the wire and whip finish. Use head cement if you wish.
You will end up with a nice looking fly having hackle that slants back toward the bend and which is counter-wrapped with wire for better durability! The chenille, the hackle and the wire are all wrapped in the same direction, each one over the previous. You never have to reverse wrapping the direction.
If you don’t have copper wire at hand, tie in a piece of strong thread at the bend of the same color as the chenille.
This recipe is for a black wooly bugger but you can tie them using other combinations and colors, brown and olive being the two most common
Jon Iverson