March & Super Buggers

Happy Weekend all! I apologize that I'm late in posting this. It was one of those weeks that I completely forgot what day it was and I missed Thursday all together. So here's your Thursday Blog post on Saturday AM! Cathy & Barry are with a group in Argentina and I'm sure they forgot what day it was too, if the fishing was as good as I heard it was going to be!

Welcome March Contest!!

While Barry was writing about buggers (below), Cathy was thinking about a contest. We found a tub of barbell eyes on their tying desk and thought it would make a great contest question. How many eyes do you guess are in the tub? (Each barbell is counted as one.) We put a penny in the photo for perspective and the tub is pretty full of eyes of all sizes.

Guesses have to be made through the Comments section of the blog and are due by Wednesday, March 9. We will announce the winner in next week's blog. In the meantime, Susie will be counting them! Don't forget to send us your guess.

We'll send the winner a selection of super buggers.

Barry's Wooly Bugger & Super Bugger Story

I have always said if you walk into a fly shop and they don’t sell wooly buggers leave because that can’t be a good shop. This simple but effective fly has caught just about any thing that swims in fresh water. When my late friend, Russell Blessing, tied his first wooly bugger I’m sure he had no idea what a universal fly he had created. In his own words, Russ said it started out as a wooly worm with a marabou tail. The rest is history.

There’s no question that the marabou tail plays

a major part in the success of the fly. It breathes, pulsates, and makes the fly look alive. I was lucky enough to meet Russ shortly after he developed the wooly bugger and immediately knew that this was a fly I would never be without. From the beginning Russ and I fished the bugger with a split shot ahead of the clinch knot to give the fly a jig like action in the water. Black and olive were our favorite colors and although most anglers looked at the wooly bugger as a streamer pattern, it proved to be absolutely deadly fished dead drift on the bottom especially during high and dirty water. Seasons would fly by and we would drift apart, busy with our own lives. Much later Russell would loose his battle with cancer leaving us way too soon, but the basic wooly bugger is still one of the best fish producing patterns out there.

Think back to Hurricane Mitch and the super bugger is born. A high bred wooly bugger that would prove to be a game changer. Cathy and I were hosting a group of anglers for Frontiers in Mexico at Boca Paila Lodge on the Yucatan. At that time Boca Paila was one of the best grand slam destinations in the world. This was a big group,16 plus the two of us. We had just arrived the day before and were spending our first morning on the water when we got word that a major hurricane had changed direction and was headed right at Mexico’s Yucatan coast line.

Frontiers Bill Goehring called and instructed us to get everybody out and back to the Cancun airport a.s.a.p. Because the airport was going to close. It was chaos but we got everyone packed, loaded up, and on our way. When we arrived at the airport we talked to Bill again. He said he had found 16 seats on outbound planes. I thought this was good news and then remembered that there were 18 of us. The bad news was that there were no seats for Cathy and I. Bill found a small hotel in Cancun that was still open and booked a room for us. With every one checked in for their flights home, we took a cab to a Holiday Inn Express .

When we arrived the owners were boarding up the windows and preparing for the worst. They gave us two cases of water and a box of candles and said they were leaving for Merida – we were on our own. In the end we sat the storm out by tying flies for two days, we never actually lost power and although the coast was devastated, we were safe and sound in Cancun.

Cathy had been playing around with an idea that would incorporate a marabou tail with a body of palmered hen back feathers packed tightly creating a bushy looking body. She added a pair of silicone sili-legs out both sides. At the head of the fly she tied in on the top of the hook a set of lead eyes over witch she covered by figure-eighting a dubbing brush. She explained that the marabou tail would serve the same purpose as on the wool bugger, but the packed body feathers would push water and should create some vibration noise that would get attention from a fish. The silicone legs by nature want to float so if one fished the fly in a jig like fashion the legs would move up and down. The weighted eyes were tied on the top of the hook would invert the fly as it was fished thereby keeping it from fouling on the bottom.

Wow, I thought what a great idea. But at that time Cathy didn't have trout in mind instead her original fly was tied on a salt water hook in tan in hopes of a crab pattern that might fool a permit. She did catch a permit on it but the more I looked at the fly and the way it behaved in the water the more convinced I was that it had trout written all over it. When we got home from Mexico I tied a few in black and in tan on fresh water hooks and couldn’t wait to try them. I asked Cathy if she had a name for her new creation and she thought about it for a minute and said well I like super bugger because it's like a hi-bred wooly bugger.

Today Cathy’s super bugger plays a major roll in my success as a guide and it has become my go to fly whenever I’m faced with high dirty water or simply need to search out deeper pools in hopes of finding a nicer trout for a client. Black is my favorite color and size eight is perfect for most of my needs. The super bugger works best fished with a normal streamer retrieve but it ups the game if you use a strip/flip retrieve giving the fly a jig like action. For ESN anglers with your longer rods, this is a piece of cake, use a jigging action through out the drift and the super bugger will do the rest.

Shop Super Buggers in our online store.

Barry

Some fun facts about March:

Coca Cola was invented in March.

March was named for the Roman God of War. Roman soldiers would begin training once the frost thawed and the ground became easier to work on.

Lent is a chance for self-discipline. Whether Easter itself occurs during March or not, Lent most certainly does. Lent lasts six weeks before Easter and is usually symbolic of self-discipline, with believers choosing to sacrifice something they enjoy or refrain from in memory of the sacrifice Christ made for humanity and his fast in the desert.

Statistically, March is the least productive month. In the USA, March is associated with “March Madness”. This is a period of marked decrease in productivity when compared to the rest of the year.

If March comes in like a lion, it will go out like a lamb. Ok, this isn't technically a fact, but we've all heard the proverb before, so we're rolling with it.

The birth flower of March is the daffodil. Daffodils are synonymous with spring and new beginnings. The gifting of a daffodil is said to be one of the purest expressions of love and over the centuries, literary thinkers have agreed.

The telephone was invented in March.

Girl Scouts was founded in March.

The game of Monopoly was invented in March

And, of course, it's Saint Patrick's Day!!

We could go on and on, but we'll stop here. Want more? Check out: https://www.funfactsabout.com/fun-facts-about-march/

That's all for this week. Don't forget to send us your entry guess. Have a great week.