Well first of all I'm glad to be back writing again for Siren Flies. Finishing up a masters degree will throw a monkey wrench in anyone's blog writing.
Let me say that I have fished and tied woolly buggers plenty of times and in a number of varieties. However, I am a tier and fisherman that is always trying new things. Thus, moving beyond woolly buggers was an inevitable consequence of tying new flies. Please do not misunderstand, a number of fly patterns in my box represent more derived versions of a "bugger" pattern, but there are not any true woolly buggers.
Rather then saying you should throw all your buggers out what want the readers to take away from this article is to move beyond the bugger. I took two primary steps to a woolly bugger free life.
Step 1: Take on the challenge of developing a pattern that has features of your favorite bugger, but with a different twist. For example, if you prefer a bugger with a grizzly hackle incorporate that into a zonker pattern as either a full palmered hackle or even just a collar.
Step 2: A woolly bugger free life is not for the feint of heart. You need to stop fishing your woolly buggers. One possible consequence of this step is that there will be a brief period of fewer fish days until you develop new confidence patterns that reliably catch fish. These days can perhaps be shortened by asking around at local clubs and fly shops for new "non-bugger" patterns.
My primary fishing quarry are sunfish and bass in the rivers of Central Texas. On any given day fishing for these species, a woolly bugger variant in the right size will likely work. However, I usually fish an assortment of size 10 and 12 flies in several colors (Bully's bluegill spider in chartreuse and white, white foam poppers, and black foam ants with white legs). I promise that if you have several colors of poppers and bully's you can find some success of on any central Texas river if you cast as close enough to the river bank.
Good luck on becoming woolly bugger free.
PS: Its ok to relapse back to woolly buggers if the situation calls for it.
