Everybody has their own “go – to” fly patterns for various conditions, and the Buggy Bomb is definitely my go – to point fly when I’m fishing Czech or French style leaders. It’s a fly I’ve used for a long time that basically takes my favourite features of lots of different bug type nymphs and fits them all on to one hook. The bead and lead get the fly down quickly, the holographic rib gives a very subtle flash and the scruffy dubbing just looks buggy – what’s not to like?!
Let’s get started:
You’ll need the following:
Your favourite style of heavy wire curved shank hook
A matching tungsten bead
Lead wire
Thread to match the body colour
Heavy grade wire
Some kind of nymph/scud back material
Holographic tinsel
A hares mask or your own chosen dubbing
French partridge feather
Optional marker pen
Before I start I like to cut the back material in to shape. My preference here is for old fashioned raffia but this body stretch does a nice job.
Pinch the barb off the hook. Fit the bead then wrap wire around the shank to just past the hook point. Don’t go too far, there is a lot to tie in and things can get pretty crowded back there.
First tie in the heavy copper wire, then the shell back, then the holographic tinsel. Try to create a taper from the back of the lead wire, this will make the dubbing process far more simple.
Dub the body with hares fur to within half a dozen wraps of the bead, leaving some space. Try to use fur that gets progressively more spiky towards the bead.
Rib the holographic tinsel over the dubbing. There’s no need to go too crazy here, it’s really just an accent and once the fly is wet it really shines through. Pull your chosen shell back over the top and tie in loosely. I’ve used Body Stretch here but my favourite is actually old fashioned raffia – I couldn’t find mine in my tying kit today though!
Rib over the back material with your heavy copper wire . Because we’ve tied the shell loosely and we have a heavier wire we can apply quite a lot of pressure here which makes for a more pronounced segmentation. Select a partridge feather the barbs of which fall back to level or just short of level with the rear of the fly. Tie in, wrap once and tie off.
Tie the partridge in firmly. At this point I throw in a couple of whip finishes, and a touch of varnish. This means that if the next few steps fall apart after a few years you can re – tie the fly. The fly actually works as it is right now so keep fishing it!
Dub over the mess behind the bead with some nice spikey hares mask – you can go for it a bit more than I did on this fly. Whip finish a few times and varnish. The fly is pretty much finished here, but….
I get a bit excited with a Sharpie pen. A couple of eyes, some darkening over the back and over the top of the bead and I’m pretty much sorted. You can obviously tie the Buggy Bomb in any colour or with any bead you like.
Neither of the two flies above use the hackle, they’re smaller than the one in the step by step. For those patterns I used some really spikey guard hairs in a dubbing loop and then I really go to town on teasing it out, the buggier the better around the thorax.
So the it is, The Buggy Bomb, my favourite point fly and hopefully yours too!
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