Before the salmon runs in Oregon declined to almost nothing, the Purple Woolly Bugger was the primary pattern I used for catching Chinooks. In fact, it was the first WB I ever tried. This was in the early 80s.
It was shown to me by a guy who used them in Alaska. Soooooooooooo.... other than adding some flash to the tail (which hadn't been invented yet) has been around for many moons.
It also worked on one particular steelhead that became my project fish for many hours.
Again, this was long, long ago in a steelhead fishery far, far away -- actually, that's a lie -- it was on The Alsea River about a half hour from here but it really was decades ago.
I could see a steelhead in a tail-out holding behind a subsurface rock. I was hell-bent on catching that guy. In those days I used a sink-tip and positioned myself upstream to make my casts. The water level was shallow and clear so I could watch the reaction of the steelhead.
I tried the usual steelhead patterns for the day and was able to make presentations that swung the fly within inches of the nose of the fish. It would either ignore the patterns or move out of the way. Welllllll.... I'd have none of that. As long as I could see a steelhead, I wasn't leaving until I scared it away or caught it.
Cast, cast, change patterns. Cast, cast, cast, change patterns again. Crap. The danged thing wouldn't play the game. Change, change, cast. No reaction from the steelhead.
It was starting to get late and the fish was starting to wear me down. Finally, I found a beat up old Purple Woolly Bugger in my box and decided what the hell, nothing that was supposed to work was working. I tied on the fly and made a terrible cast. The pattern swung downstream three yards from the steelhead. Suddenly, it rushed out and grabbed the WB. I was so shocked I almost forgot to set the hook. When I did, the fish went nuts. It jumped, it ran, it jumped again. But there was no way I was going to let this fish get away after I spent hours trying to catch it.
I won... finally. It was a wild steelhead so I let it go after giving it a pat on the head and commented, "well played but I finally fooled your ass".
So, the Purple Woolly Bugger has been around for quite some time... I still tie them but don't bother with the flash. I've found that the addition of flash only works in direct sunlight and hardly ever have I caught salmon or steelhead in direct sunlight.
I started tying WBs in a multitude of color to use for salmon, steelhead and SRC. Pink WBs work quite well for SRC, purple worked best for chinook and that one steelhead. White WBs work quite well for coho.