Here is the fly that has been my go-to WB for coastal cutts in lowland lakes. For a while it was so effective for large cutts that I called it the "Coastal Cutt Killer."

D

 

It's odd how patterns cycle... especially in stillwaters. Medium olive colored leech patterns with gold bead heads also work well for me... during some years. I've never really figured out why a pattern will be hot for years and then taper off. Then, a few years later, it's hot again.

 

The best bugger for me is the olive bugger with dark or a kind of burnt orange hackle wrapped on the body. Usually with a gold bead. I tend to fish smaller ones as I seem to attract more fish than the big guys. This is my go to fly on Pass Lake.

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A simple Halloween Leech tied with Halloween New Age Chenille with black hackle and black marabou tail has worked well for me in nearly every W WA lake I've tried it in.
I also fish an olive bugger with a red thread head...but I recently scored some red glass beads that I'm going to use on the head end...I usually use brown hackle with the olive body, but I'll tie some up with black hackle for this Spring..
Black body with grizzly hackle and black marabou tail has always ben a good one for me, too.

The one I called the NSC in the Winter Lake swap is originally a gold beadhead brown/black variegated bugger, using Chocolate Mint New Age Chenille for the body. I mixed black and red in with brown marabou on the tail, and used Furnace hackle on the original, with a couple wraps of opalescent olive petite estaz just behind the bead, in front of the hackle, which is intended to better create the appearance of a head transitioning to a body, on this fly. It could represent a sculpin or a stickleback.

Hell, I'll bet a plain black wooly bugger would work just as well as all these fancy looking ones we dream up.

 

I'm partial to Rickards' seal bugger for a bugger pattern for stillwaters. The olive body and tail with burnt orange hackle is about as consistent a producer as I've found . . .when they want a bugger pattern.

I have also experienced the "cycling" on and off of particular ties. I was fishing an olive mini leech tied on a #10 scud hook for a couple years (very similar to your Turbo Leech) that was just wrecking shop on stillwaters around Spokane. I carried a dozen in my box and tied up lots of spares because I was running through several per outing as they got chewed up. A couple years ago I pulled them all out of my box because it didn't produce and I quit fishing it. Now the same pattern on a #12 in rusty red is one of my best flies . . .

 

When it comes to the Seal Bugger style, Virginia and I do quite well in specific lakes with this guy.

Man! What a ratty look'n fly !!! Guess I won't be making a shadow box for this dude:

It's only been within the last few years that I started tying the Seal Buggers. In addition to trout, the bass like them in different colors. Oddly enough, I'm tying Seal Buggers today in olive.

 

That's almost identical to the first bugger I ever tied


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Well if it looked that ratty looking... you did something wrong

None of my fishing buddies tie Seal Buggers... probably because they don't know I'm using them.

I've tried a Seal Bugger in a black and olive dubbing mix for the body to see if it worked better than the WB with the variegated black and olive chenille body and the black hackle -- it doesn't. In fact, I have yet to catch a single fish on the sucker. So, I'll always try the variegated WB before much else when I fish a stillwater I've never fished before. As I almost always use two flies, I'll leave the variegated WB tied on and change the secondary fly.

When fishing a lake for the first time, I'll tie on the variegated black and olive WB and a medium olive Turbo Leech. If neither works, I'll replace the Turbo Leech with different patterns.

John and I first discovered how well the variegated black and olive WB worked while fishing a private lake with steelhead size trout. We had never tried the pattern before. We would cast along the vegetation around the edges of the lake and would hook up at a constant rate. I noticed there were a lot of dragonfly nymphs crawling up the vegetation so I figured the pattern may have represented the nymphs.

From that day forward, the fly has has worked at many, many different lakes... but like I mentioned, has recently fallen from grace.

 

Haha well yours looks a bit better and I've yet to fish mine. Who knows maybe its a magical creature waiting to be unleashed.

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I'm like old man Ford. You can have your wolly bugger in any color you want, as long as it's black

Gold bead heads are always included on mine.

 

Holy multi-post Batman!

 

One thing I don't do with my leeches or WBs is add flash to the tail. I tried that a few times and it made absolutely no difference... if anything, the patterns tied with the flash didn't work as well as the patterns tied without it.

I think it's another one of those additions to a pattern to catch fly buyers more than fish.

The thing about flash is that it only adds flash on sunny days and when fished shallow. As I primarily fish lakes and usually at medium to deep zones, flash in the tail is useless for me. ..
plus, the sun isn't always around in the NW. Gold beads, however, do seem to add something to the WBs. Sometimes I'll use black or silver beads but gold seems to work best. I have no idea why.

I also carry WBs with no beads. Sometimes, for whatever reason, the trout prefer the pattern without a bead of any color. But again, I primarily use WBs in stillwaters so things maybe different in rivers.

 

I added a pic of my standby seal bugger. There is some flash in the tail . . .but I prefer to fish shallow and yes, I keep my damn rod tip in the water!!

 

I keep my damn rod tip in the water!!

 

Great looking ties men. I love the wb. I always use them when i cant seem to figure it out