The ‘Bugger’ draws a lot of  ‘merlot’ fire in cartoons, “Oh no, not another fu@king merlot!”

By now, it should be evident to freshwater anglers and many saltwater feather chuckers that the Woolly Bugger, in any one of its many recipes, catches fish. And does so as a primary fly, not as a secondary offer to stubborn trouts in Appalachia, reluctant salmon or steelhead in the Northwest or Great Lakes, smallish presents in the Bahamas for Albula vulpes, or snook in an ambush mode hunkered down in the ‘walking trees’ of the Everglades.

I find that it is not unusual that flies, like the Bugger, look like nothing that swims in either salt or freshwater, but rather a disfigured interpretation of whatever it is writers decide the ‘deformity’ gets to be labeled.

There does not seem to be savings in substituting materials or veering off course techniques to gain an advantage over Tim’s presentation.

Nymphing proved instantaneous hookups here in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in Georgia for me and more so for Angie, my retired and sometimes obstreperous lawyer fishing buddy, a nymphing fanatic. Tim Flagler’s Tightlinesvideos