by Robert P. Mohr; published in the February, 1995 issue of Fur-Fish-Game
"Mend your line! Now, pop, strip, pop, strip. Yes, that's it." Just as the fly reached the center of the pool on its downstream drift, the line pulled sharply, and my wife was fast to the largest trout of her life.
"There he is, I got him!" she cried excitedly. "Oh, it's a big one. What should I do?" Just then, the reel's falsetto voice broke into song as the trout launched itself downstream.
"Keep your rod tip up and hold on," I offered. "Let him fight the reel."
After a lengthy battle of give-and-take, a beautifully marked 17-inch rainbow surrendered to the net. Over the next few hours, the two of us caught and released fourteen trout. Our fly of choice that morning was a new variation of an old pattern. I call it a Little Bugger.
A Little Bugger is simply a miniature version of a standard Woolly Bugger. Its effectiveness, however, goes far beyond standard. I have caught more trout on Little Buggers than on any other fly. The information presented here will explain how Little Buggers can catch more trout for you, too.
The idea for a small bugger occurred to me one afternoon while fishing nearby Buffalo Creek. I was swimming a brown Woolly Bugger through my favorite pool. That particular fly was tied on a size 8, 2X long hook, average size for a bugger. Time after time I watched trout follow the fly as it returned to the rod tip. Sometimes a fish would get really close to it, as if to smell it, but not once would a fish attempt to eat it.
Later that evening I decided to use an old trick from my bait fishing days. When a fish refused a large offering, I simply reduced the size of the bait and hook. The solution then was obvious: I needed a smaller bugger. The only small hooks I had were size 12, 1X long dry fly hooks. "They'll have to do," I thought, as I set about tying the new creations. One hour and six buggers later, I was ready for another whack at those finicky trout.
A waning moon bathed me in its light as I made my way to the pool early the next morning. The tiny fly was cast in the classic down and across presentation. As it swam back across the current, a wake appeared, disrupting the surface several feet from the fly. I watched in astonishment as the hungry marauder streaked toward its hapless victim. When the fish struck, I was so transfixed I nearly dropped the rod. After a gallant struggle, the 14-inch brown slid easily into the net. That first fish caught on a Little Bugger was the beginning of many trout fishing successes.
I'm not sure what fellow Pennsylvanian Russ Blessing intended a Woolly Bugger to represent when he first created it many years ago. Larger versions seem to represent a variety of underwater creatures such as crayfish, leeches, sculpins, and other bait fish. If so, it's logical to assume that the smaller buggers represent the young of these creatures. The Little Bugger goes a step further, however. Because of its reduced size, it also represents many types of insect life. This is probably why an all brown bugger is my most productive.
Biologists tell us that trout find 80% to 90% of their food underwater, so why not use a fly that can effectively represent 80% to 90% of the trout's underwater food items? If indeed a Little Bugger effectively represents so many of the items on a fish's menu, it follows that fish other than trout will also be attracted to it. This theory is supported by the fact that I have also caught largemouth and smallmouth bass, crappie, sunfish, and perch, all on the same brown Little Bugger.
The ability to represent different food sources allows you to vary the presentation to complete the illusion of a living creature. For instance, I prefer short strips of the line combined with quick pops of the rod tip while fishing down and across. This retrieve may cause the fly to imitate a swimming nymph, crayfish, or leech. An upstream cast is retrieved in a swifter, smoother manner with longer strips of line. A retrieve such as this causes the fly to swim downstream, just above the bottom in a stop-and-go fashion, representing a small sculpin or crayfish. About 20% of the trout I catch are caught with this type of retrieve.
My son Jason, prefers yet another method of fishing a Little Bugger. He will often dead drift the fly through likely looking pockets, letting the marabou tail give life to the otherwise lifeless offering. He's become quite successful at this technique and often catches fish when I've struck out.
Little Buggers have two other advantages over some other flies. First, they are extremely easy to tie, (detailed instructions follow this article). And second, they are extremely easy to fish. I remember one occasion when Jason was still learning to fly cast, after adding a brown Little Bugger to the tippet, I instructed Jason how to cast the fly across the width of a pool, and to use short, quick pops of the rod tip while stripping in the slack line as the fly swam downstream.
After 30 minutes or so, I heard Jason yell out in triumph, "Dad, Dad, look, I got one!" I looked over to see the beautiful brown trout Jason was holding horizontally in front of him. To this day, I think the grin on his face was longer than the fish. We fished only a few hours that morning, but in that time Jason landed thirteen trout.
Brown has been the most productive color, but I sometimes use an all black version when evening begins to fade into night. If the water is very discolored, I'll select a combination of black tail and body with grizzly hackle. When the trout seem to be completely turned off and uncooperative, I'll switch to my "last resort" fly. This is a Little Bugger tied with a white tail, chartreuse body, and grizzly hackle. It doesn't look like anything Mother Nature has given birth to, but it works.
How effective are Little Buggers really? According to my fishing logbooks, of the 334 trout I've caught since I began using a Little Bugger, 262 of them were caught on one. Several of those measured over fourteen inches, with the largest stretching the tape to twenty inches, and weighing nearly four pounds. The remaining fish were caught on more conventional drys, nymphs, and streamers.
So the next time you sit down to tie a batch of buggers, think small. Tie a few Little Buggers. Try them on your favorite stretch of water and let them catch trout for you.