The Woolly Wing (in several variations) imitates stoneflies and caddis adults. Its wool wing remains highly buoyant even after several fish have slimed it. Carol Ann Morris Photo
August 02, 2015
By Skip Morris
It's natural to assume that wool is absorbent. As a tying material, it's virtually always used for subsurface sculpin imitations. The kinky wool, bound around a hook shank in bunches, flares out so that when trimmed it simulates a sculpin's broad head. And it looks and performs well in this capacity, too.
So assuming that wool is absorbent is quite reasonable but it's wrong. Wool is, in fact, stubbornly buoyant. Just because you can make something sink doesn't mean it wants to. Wool and yarn strike indicators, for instance, float exceedingly well with a dab of silicone floatant.
I learned how buoyant wool can be about 25 years ago, when I tied a bass streamer with a tightly packed wool body and couldn't get the thing to sink after 20 minutes of splatting it onto the water, and squeezing the air out of it underwater. It was supposed to sink. Don't ask me why I blew off this revelation for a couple of decades. I guess I just didn't think it through.
I finally did get around to experimenting with wool's buoyancy, though, and eventually came up with the Woolly Wing, which some of my friends also call the Woolly Wonder. I use it to imitate caddis and stonefly adults, varying the size of the hook and the colors to match the naturals hatching on the water.
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From a trout's view, caddis and stonefly adults look similar. Both species have stout bodies and distinct profiles on the water, wings that come together over the back and show along the edges and past the rear of the abdomen, and six legs radiating out from the sides of the thorax. Eyeing their prey from below, trout can't see that stonefly wings lie flat while caddis wings cup over the body. And stonefly tails (which caddis don't have) are wisps of minor consequence.
Underwater Windows I use a Woolly Wing during caddis (#12-18) and stonefly activity (#6-10) on my home waters such as Washington's Yakima River. After catching a lot of trout, the fly just keeps on floating.
The Woolly Wing's plump body, and the way it presses down into the underwater world of the trout where they can see it coming from far off offers an advantage over big, high-standing dry flies like the Improved Sofa Pillow. Although larger, these flies often have a smaller footprint, and may drift by unnoticed and untouched.
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I have created a series of variations to imitate specific insects, but I never hesitate to simply fish a Woolly Wing as a stout, attractor dry fly or as a buoyant lead fly for a dry/dropper rig. I've had excellent fishing with big (#4-6) Woolly Wings when no adult insects of any kind were around, perhaps because the trout mistook it for a grasshopper or other terrestrial.
The wool I use and I can't say I've noticed any significant difference in the looks or the buoyancy from one brand to the next is marketed as Sculpin Wool or Lamb's Wool from Wapsi, Hareline Dubbin, and others. I prefer fairly thick, coarse wool for my Woolly Wing.
Fly Tying The Woolly Wing (standard)
Woolly Wing Dark Brown Variation Imitates grannom caddis and small, dark stoneflies. Standard dry-fly hook (#12-16); green or olive thread; dark brown wing with black Mylar. Body is dark brown and black dubbing, blended. Use brown blended with black and green or olive for grannoms.
Woolly Wing Gold Variation Imitates Golden Stoneflies. Long-shank hook (#6-10); gold or yellow thread; tan wing with brown Mylar; gold body; ginger hackle.
Woolly Wing Green Variation Imitates small, light-colored caddis and some Yellow Sally stoneflies. Standard dry-fly hook (#8-14); green or olive thread; gray wing with pearl Mylar; green body; green-dyed grizzly hackle.
Woolly Wing Orange Variation Imitates Salmonflies and October caddis. Long-shank hook (#4-8); orange thread; dark brown wing with brown or rusty brown Mylar. Use orange and brown dubbing blend for the body; brown hackle.
Woolly Wing Step 1 of 9 Start the thread at the rear of the hook shank. Dub a round section of the body at the bend — keep it short.
Woolly Wing Step 2 of 9 Hand-blend a piece of wool with fine Mylar strands such as Lite-Brite, Angel Hair, or Ice Dub. I recommend teasing the wool into a thin sheet, aligning the Mylar strands along it, and then rolling it all up.
Woolly Wing Step 3 of 9 Wind a tight layer of thread over the shank in front of the dubbing section, building a foundation for the wool. Bind the wool atop the shank in front of the dubbed body section.
Woolly Wing Step 4 of 9 Keep the butts of the wool short and bind them thoroughly. Dub over the bound butts of the wool.
Woolly Wing Step 5 of 9 Bind more of the wool mixture in front of the previous section. Keep adding clumps of wool (with Mylar) between short body sections of dubbing until you've covered about two-thirds of the shank with three to five wool-and-Mylar clumps.
Woolly Wing Step 6 of 9 Trim and taper the butts of the last bunch smoothly down to the hook eye, and bind them thoroughly with tight thread wraps. Remove the hook from your vise. (You can either half-hitch the thread and cut it before removing the hook, or allow the bobbin to hang.) Trim the wool to an elongated wedge — slim and low in the front and wider and higher at the rear. Trim the rear wing to about 1 to 1½ times the width of the hook gap. The wing should extend past the hook bend.
Woolly Wing Step 7 of 9 Return the hook to the vise. Just in front of the wing, firmly bind a section of brightly colored wool at its center. Raise both ends of this section together, and then wind two light-tension layers of thread up and down the base of the material to create a post for the hackle.
Woolly Wing Step 8 of 9 Bind the stripped stem of a dry-fly hackle to the post. Dub in front of the upright wing (sparingly) and around it. Wind the hackle down the post in close turns, bind the tip of the hackle, and trim off the tip.
Woolly Wing Step 9 of 9 Stroke the front hackle fibers up and back, and dub the area in front of the upright wing. Complete a small, tapered thread head and then whip-finish. Hold the wool post upright and snip it sharply, just above the hackle. The result should be a fuzzy dome on top — easy for you to see on the water, but obscured from the trout.
Skip Morris is the author of ten books on fly fishing and tying. His latest is Trout Flies for Rivers (Stackpole Books, 2009).
