Roughly twenty years ago I had an eye-opening revelation while fishing Colorado’s famous Dream Stream. After a frustrating and fishless day, I resorted to rummaging through the dark recesses of a streamer box and came across a couple of blonde wooly buggers which had been tied, then left unused and neglected for at least a couple of years. With nothing to lose, I clipped back the leader and tied on one of the blonde buggers, then started working the fly through likely holding lies. What happened next was memorable as fish after fish that had previously ignored all my offerings, began smashing the blonde wooly bugger with aggressive abandon.
At the time I named the fly Vanilla Ice – due to the pattern’s vanilla coloration and the incorporation of UV Yellow Ice Dub – get it, Vanilla Ice! The Hairline UV Yellow Ice Dub takes on a purplish haze when wet, which I believe adds another dimension of enticement for the fish.
In 2008, Umpqua Feather Merchants added the fly to their extensive catalog of pattern offerings and subsequently renamed the fly Bread & Butter Bugger. This was done to avoid any potential legal repercussions from a rap music entertainer of the same name. The Bread & Butter Bugger is still around and catching fish today, while the former late 80’s rapper is a distant memory to most music fans.
