When I am choosing a bait for muskies, I go to bucktails a lot, and Mike Sperry’s Wooly Bully just became my go to bucktail. Find out why in this product review.

I got my first bucktail in 1980 something. It was Joe Bucher’s 700 Buchertail, in black and silver and made with real deer hair. Today there are so many other materials being used that it is getting harder to find a true bucktail.

To me, a bucktail is a single bladed, straight shaft lure with one treble hook. Today the term bucktail refers to a lot of different configurations and materials, but it has to have a deer hair body for me to call it a bucktail. Old school, maybe, but people expect that from me. I still use a phonebook.

But I did find some real bucktails at Mike Sperry’s Chautauqua Reel Outdoors. Mike is a guide, lure maker, and tackle store owner on Chautauqua Lake. I got to field test his Wooly Bully bucktails on a recent trip to the Kawarthas.

I did not get a lot of casting time on this trip due to an injury. But I had three other fishermen give it a toss, too.

SPECS

The Wooly Bully weighs in at about 1.5 oz. It is about 9 inches long from the tip to the end of the tail, 8 inches to the end of the treble hook. Because Mike hand ties and builds these on site, the Wooly Bully comes in an endless array of color combinations and blades.

By contrast, a Buchertail 700 is 6 1/2 inches long, and the 500 is about 5 inches.

APPEARANCE

As you can see in the pictures, the Wooly Bully displays a nicely tapered full body. The articulated hook section follows nicely in the water, giving the lure a realistic profile. Mike ties his bodies slightly behind the end of the blade. This maintains the profile and allows the blade to turn freely.

Mike use two other materials in some of his designs. The use of grizzly feathers along the sides is especially effective. In the water, these lay flat along the middle of the body, resembling a lateral line. The use of crystal flash in the tail adds just a little flash to help attract the undecided fish.

PERFORMANCE

The Wooly Bully is well made and looks great. But the real test of a lure is in the water, not in the tackle shop. How does it perform in the water? How does it look then?

I like to work a bucktail at different speeds. Sometimes I like to slow it down a little, even pausing ever so briefly.

And sometimes I like to just bring in fast and steady.

What I like best about bucktails is the subtle, undulating action of the fur. It almost appears as if the lure is breathing. On a short pause, the body flares and snaps back in when the retrieve is picked up. The combination of vibration from the blade and the visual of the hair profile and movement can be a winning combination.

FISHING WEEDS with the WOOLY BULLY

I prefer to fish weeds when I can. There is a musky tracking study that concluded that there are always muskies in the shallows, and we hunt them there. A couple of years ago, my son nabbed a 47-inch giant in 3 feet of water not 15 yards from shore. With a bucktail.

I also like to fish over submerged weeds. I like water in the 7 -10-foot range with weeds to within a couple of feet of the surface, even occasionally topping out at the surface.

And there is always the outside weed edge. Throwing over the tops of the weeds, letting the bucktail drop a foot or two at the break, and burning it back has been productive for me.

The Wooly Bully allowed me to easily use all three techniques.

Its strength though, is its ability to ride high in the water, even at slower speeds. This allowed me to fish it over any weeds, as long as the surface was not matted. I threw into the thickest weeds I could find, and the WB just chugged along. The lure is highly visible, so I was able to direct it around and between standing weeds that were visible.

I was also able to “bulge” the lure with ease. I love this technique, as it becomes a top water presentation for me.

Finally, I was able to drop the lure two or three feet and have the lure maintain its depth for short times before it started the rise curve back to the boat. The length of time varied with the distance from the boat, as you would expect.

RIPPING WEEDS

If you fish weeds, you get hung up. I want a lure that can be easily freed when it gets stuck. This bait ripped through the weeds easily when it hit them, avoiding a lot of hang ups. It also could be ripped out of a snag with a sharp jerk of the pole or two. I lost little time due to this lure being “stuck”.

BLADE FUNCTION

I watched carefully for my biggest concern about bucktails. The blade must start turning immediately on the retrieve, even if I let it drop briefly. I do not want to lose half of my retrieve while I am trying to get the blade to turn. There is a well-known double bladed “bucktail” that I simply refuse to use because the blades do not start half of the time.

The Wooly Bully only failed to start once in hours of casting. There were a couple of times that a blade of grass or weed would jam the blade on the retrieve, but that is going to occur with any bucktail.

CASTABILITY

The wooly bully is heavy enough to cast well, even in a mild wind. Some baits, that I no longer fish, want to flop over on the cast, fouling the blade and causing the complete loss of the cast. The WB only did that once to me, and it may have been because of the sloppy, looping sidearm throw I made.

I was able to cast it with a medium power rod as well as a heavy. The lighter rod was my preference, but both worked well.

EFFICENCY of the WOOLY BULLY

Being easy to free from snags, having the blade always start rotating on the retrieve, and the blade not fouling during the cast makes for more efficient fishing. More casts and not losing productive time on the retrieve increases your chance for success.

DOWNSIZING

Joe Bucher became a proponent of downsizing lures and rods after he wrecked his shoulder and needed surgery. I began downsizing because I turned 72 and my body had a little talk with me.” Downsize and fish more hours and feel better or keep fishing bigger baits and I will punish you. You can still do either one. Now choose.” I am downsizing.

FISH CATCHING

I wish I had caught a fish with this bait, but I did not. However, I did talk to a friend who is an outdoor writer well-known for his muskie expertise. He endorses the Wooly Bully and has fished it often. He reports that he has caught two 50-inch muskies on the Wooly Bully. I will accept that as proof of the lure’s fish catching ability.

A SUGGESTION

One of our testers, a veteran muskie fisherman of some 30 years, thought the bait performed exceptionally well. He typically uses smaller bucktails, like the Buchertail 500 or the Mepps muskie killer. To my surprise, he actually enjoyed fishing the Wooly Bully, seeing several advantages over the smaller baits. However, he would like the bait even more if the treble was embedded farther up in the main body but still articulated. That would make the lure about an inch shorter. He felt that it would be even more weedless that way.

ONE NEGATIVE VOICE (kind of)

One of our testers does not like the dressed articulated tail. He does not like the action and prefers a bucktail hook that is not dressed. He said he had no complaint about the lure, other than it is not an action that he likes. A matter of personal preference. If that is an issue for you, this is not the lure for you.

MY CONCLUSIONS

Mike Sperry’s Wooly Bully is my go-to bucktail now, for a number of reasons. It is the first bucktail that I tie on because it:

1. is small enough that it is downsized from throwing 10’s, but big enough to attract and handle big fish.
2. casts well
3. performs flawlessly
4. easily fishes high in the water
5. can be effectively cast and retrieved with a “downsized” rod
6. works well with a variety of presentations
7. is available in a variety of colors and patterns
8. is well built
9. is reasonably priced, under $20
10. I like buying from craftsmen

If I could only pick on bucktail to use, I would grab a Wooly Bully. It may be the ultimate bucktail.

If you would like to try a Wooly Bully, stop in at Mike’s store, Chautauqua Reel Outdoors, now located in the Ashville Bay Marina, on Lake Chautauqua, or find them online at www. chautauquareeloutdoors.com.

And please, Have fun. Go fishing.

(In case you were wondering, I do NOT get any compensation for this review from Mike Sperry or anyone else.)