Bead Head Sparkle Boogers

Olive Bead Head Sparkle Bugger

The bead head sparkle bugger is another one of those patterns that I tweaked a bit. Adding a bead head and some sparkle isn't that unusual, in fact I tied a bunch of bead head Buggers in red, yellow and olive and carried them with me for years. They worked. Then I cam across a dubbing material called Prism Dubbing, while visiting Dally's Fly Shop in Cotter AR. It looked like just the thing to make a booger sparkle. It's easy to dub and does give a great sparkle To add to the sparkle I tie in about six strands of pearl Crystal Flash . I also use inexpensive dry fly hackle, or cut the hackle tips to size. I only tie them in olive. I used one this evening to let the fish "test" a bamboo rod I'm finishing for a customer.

I had tried woolly-Buggers without much success. I met Hector Macedo, of the Fly Fishing list, at one of the NoArk claves on the White. He took me to Rim Shoals, put me along the seam and told me to "Cast across current, let the fly swing, then let it hang at the bottom, before a short retrieve. Then repeat." I caught four or five nice rainbow that evening. Of course Hector caught over twice that many.

The first time I met Jerry Goldsmith involved a red read head Bugger. I was over in Orlando on business, and had a day to kill. Jerry and I made arrangements to get together. Neither of us knew the other and I sure didn't know how to get to his house. After about five time around the block, with me on my cell. Jerry's wonderful wife told him he keeps leaving out a street!

After we got connected, He told me that the river outing he'd been planning probably wouldn't work because there was a "Canoe Hatch" that afternoon. Maybe 300 canoes in the water. But Jerry did have a retention pond behind his house and we could fish for panfish there. I was using a 6ft 4wt bamboo rod with a size 10 red bead head bugger on the other end. We caught a few pan fish then I got my fly caught on the bottom. Or at least I thought I had. I tried getting it unstuck and was just about ready to break the leader when the line started moving through the water! I'll spare the details but it was a 4 to 4.5lb Large mouth. The largest I've ever caught on a 4 wt.