How to Tie the Golden Woolly Bugger

Several years ago, our good friends at The New Fly Fisher were wrapping up a show at Ritchie Falls Resort in Algoma Country, Northern Ontario when they began having tremendous success fishing for brook trout with a Golden Woolly Bugger.

The fly they were using to catch these gorgeous brook trout looks something like this. Basically, a golden-colored Woolly Bugger but with relatively short hackle and a shiny gold body, tied on an extra-long hook with a gold bead.

The Golden Woolly Bugger starts with a 6X long, size 8 Lightning Strike ST5 streamer hook. This is paired with a 5/32” gold Cyclops bead. Feed the point of the hook into the small hole of the bead, then work the bead around the hook bend and up the shank until it rests at the back edge of the hook eye. Then get the hook firmly secured in the jaws of your tying vise.

.02 lead-free round wire is used to add some weight to the fly and to help stabilize the bead on the hook. With the spool in your right hand, get hold of the bitter end of the wire in the fingertips of your left. Start taking touching wraps up the hook shank with the wire. After 15 or so turns, helicopter the wire to break it off close. Make sure the wraps can be moved up and down the hook shank.

Pick up a small amount of your favorite super glue, here, Fly Tyer’s Z-Ment, and apply it to the hook shank immediately behind the bead. Slide the wire wraps forward in one smooth motion to seat them in the back end of the bead. The super glue should set quickly, allowing you to tuck in the little wire tail.

For thread, I like UTC 140 in a color called wood duck, but whatever you’ve got that’s fairly heavy in a gold or a yellow color will work just fine. Get the thread started on the hook shank at the back edge of the wire and, after taking a few wraps rearward, snip off the excess tag. Wrap forward over top of the wire, all the way up to the bead then back again, to ensure everything is locked properly in place. End with your tying thread at the back edge of the wire wraps.

Ginger-colored Woolly Bugger marabou is used for the tail of the fly. For a fly this size, I like to use two feathers and will place their concave sides together, with the tips of the feathers roughly aligned, like so. You can strip the lower fibers off if you like, but I find it easier just to snip them off, along with the heavy stems. Definitely save the snipped-off butt ends as the fibers can be stripped off and used on smaller buggers.

Get hold of the feather tips in your right hand and measure to form a tail a full hook in length. Transfer that measurement rearward to the start of the hook bend and begin taking nice, tight rearward thread wraps to anchor the marabou stems to the top of the hook shank, all the way back to the beginning of the bend. You can then return your thread up the shank to behind the wire wraps.

To add a bit of flash to the tail, snip two full-length strands of holographic gold Flashabou free from the hank and find the midpoint of the strands. Lay the midpoint against the near side of the hook at the location of your tying thread, and continue anchoring it to the near side of the hook, all the way back to the start of the hook bend. Then, pull the forward-pointing portion back and anchor it to the far side of the hook. End with your tying thread so it hangs a little ways in front of the hook point. Trim the flash off even with the end of the marabou tail.

Large, gold tinsel chenille is used to create the body of the fly. Don’t short yourself here. You might waste a bit but cut free a segment that’s 4 card widths in length. Strip a few fibers from one end to expose the string core of the chenille. Anchor the string core to the hook shank with wraps of tying thread so the chenille begins right at the base of the tail. Then advance your thread forward to just behind the bead. Take touching wraps with the chenille to create a nice, even shiny body on the fly. When you reach your tying thread, use it to anchor the chenille then snip the excess off close. The fly should now look something like this.

A single ginger-colored saddle hackle feather is used to hackle the fly. Snip the lower fuzzy part of the feather off, then create a nice, small triangular-shaped tie-in anchor. With the shiny side of the feather facing you, lay the stem against the near side of the hook and strip a few more fibers from just the top edge of the stem. This will help the feather to wrap correctly.

Bind the tie-in anchor to the near side of the hook, behind the bead, with tight wraps of tying thread then bend the feather forward, out over the hook eye, to kind of get it out of the way. Give your bobbin a good clockwise spin, as if you’re looking down on it, to cord up, thin and strengthen your tying thread. With this done, begin making open spiral wraps down the hook shank, effectively counter-wrapping the chenille body beneath as you go. End with your tying thread at the base of the tail.

Get hold of the hackle feather and make 2 or 3 wraps with it, one right behind the other, behind the bead. These will help to stop the fly from spinning when it’s retrieved. Then, make open spiral wraps with the feather, all the way down the hook shank to the base of the tail. Once there, anchor the feather’s tip with tight wraps of tying thread and snip or break the excess off close.

Cord up your tying thread again and begin making open spiral wraps with it, up the body of the fly, doing your best not to trap hackle fibers in the process. Now you’re using that nicely corded-up thread to effectively counter wrap and protect the somewhat delicate hackle stem, which will greatly increase the durability of the fly. End with your tying thread right at the back edge of the bead.

Pick up your whip finish tool and use it to do a 5 or 6 turn, back to front whip finish, seat the knot well and snip or cut your tying thread free. A drop of head cement applied to the exposed thread wraps at the back of the bead will ensure they won’t come unraveled. Once the adhesive sinks in and dries, your Golden Woolly Bugger is ready to fish.

Both Colin McKeown and Bill Spicer from The New Fly Fisher show did well with this pattern up in Algoma Country. Seeing their success with the fly on Canadian brook trout, I decided to see how it would work on state-stocked trout here in New Jersey and so far, I haven’t been disappointed. I do like to fish the pattern swung down and across with light trout spey gear, adding a bit of motion to the fly during the swing and retrieve.

I feel the pattern does a remarkable job of imitating the abundant baitfish found in my local rivers, particularly juvenile suckers, which seem to be a favorite food for some of the larger trout. The fly has worked well year-round but oddly enough, has worked especially well swung and stripped slowly during colder, winter months. I think it’s all the gold flash that helps to elicit a take from otherwise lethargic trout, particularly the larger models.

After losing a number of these guys during protracted battles, I started tying Golden Buggers as tube flies. They look almost exactly the same as the ones tied on the long-shanked hooks, but I feel that having a shorter shanked hook, that sets further back in the marabou tail, both reduces short bites and helps fish stay buttoned on better. I still use the long-shanked hook versions but find myself reaching more and more for the tube flies.

Either way, the Golden Woolly Bugger is most definitely a worthwhile tie.