Overview

If you could carry one fly, a lot of experienced anglers would carry this one. The Wooly Bugger in Brown is the most widely fished streamer in the sport and it keeps earning that position across wildly different water. The build is simple and has not needed changing: a marabou tail that pulses with the smallest movement, a chenille body, and a palmered hackle down the shank that pushes water and gives the whole fly the impression of something alive rather than something being pulled.

Brown is the workhorse dressing. It reads convincingly as a leech, a sculpin, a crayfish or a big stonefly nymph depending on how it is fished, and because it sits in the same tonal range as most riverbeds it rarely looks out of place. Strip it back through a pool, swing it across current on a tight line, or dead drift it deep and let it rise at the end of the swing, which is where a surprising number of takes come. It moves trout, but bass, panfish and carp take it too. Tied here in size 6, big enough to be worth a predatory fish's attention.Read More +