Woolly Bugger
The Woolly Bugger is the answer to 'if you could fish only one fly' - a marabou-tailed anything that plays leech, minnow, crayfish and stonefly for every species that swims.
No fly is recommended more, argued about less, or fished wider than the Woolly Bugger: a palmered chenille body and a pulsing marabou tail that becomes whatever the fish wants it to be - leech, sculpin, crayfish, drowned mouse, big nymph. Trout, bass, panfish, pike, carp, steelhead, sea-run everything: the Bugger's species list is 'yes'.
What it imitates
Everything soft-bodied and swimming: leeches first, then baitfish, crayfish, hellgrammites, big stonefly nymphs - the marabou's breathing motion does the impersonating.
When & where it wins
Everywhere, always - rivers, lakes, ponds, salt marsh edges; high water, cold water, strange water; the first fly on new water and the last resort on hard days.
How to fish it
Every retrieve works: strip-strip-pause (baitfish), slow crawl (leech), dead-drift and swing (nymph), jig it, troll it. When lost, cast it across, let it swing, hang on.
Sizes & variants
2-12 in black, olive, brown, white; beadhead/conehead standard; sparkle ('Krystal') and jig versions everywhere. Black #8 is the single desert-island fly.
Tying notes
Marabou tail + palmered hackle over chenille - the universal first streamer at every tying class on earth.
Common mistakes
Retrieving on autopilot (vary until fish vote), fishing it too small for big-fish water, and overlooking dead-drifting it like a nymph in cold water.