The original Chili Pepper had a large Fire Orange
head, no bead.
It was a WB tied with Copper Flash in the tail. The
marabou for the tail was a mis-dyed batch of orange
Marabou from a bargain bin, it was close to Burnt
Orange. The body chenille was Tinsel Chenille made up
from Ginger and Pearl tinsel by Danville for my
friend, a Commercial tyer named Bob Root. I would not
fish Woolly Boobers so Bob tied up this gaudy WB as a
joke. After months of having it in my box, Bob finally
got me to fish it. It took 13 trout in a row and broke
off on the 14 fish. That changed my thoughts on
fishing the WB.
We just called it the Copper bugger.
When all the special Chenille was gone, Bob quit tying
the Copper Bugger. I started tying it with Copper
Tinsel Chenille and a Gold bead with a Fire Orange
collar. I used Furnace hackle for ribbing instead
Ginger Hackle like on the original. I now use a hackle
that Denny Conrad came up with. It looks like Ginger
when wrapped but looks like Cree on the skin.
I had a hard time finding more of the Marabou till
Wapsi started dying Marabou that is as close to the
original as you can get.
The name, well I can't tell the whole story here but
this is it in a nutshell. A club member kept calling
it a "Hot Number" A "Hot Fly" and "Hot as a Chilli
Pepper. The name stuck.
That is the story in a nutshell. It is written up in
Gary Souci's book "Woolly Wonders" along with my
Purple bugger and the White River Demon. (WRD)
Got 49 fish on it a week ago on Crooked Creek, 11 were
Smallmouths.
Tony
--- Niclas Runarsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
> Well,
> what makes a WB a Pepper? what makes a Pepper a
> Chilly Pepper?
>
> I asume that the bead head and the red / orange
> thread, which forms the
> neck below the bead are necessary to make it a
> Pepper.
>
> Whaddayall think?
> **************************************************
>
> The first thing that comes to my mind is the tinsel
> chenille (flash
> chenille, crystal chenille or whatever the
> manufacturer has named it as)
> instead of the regular chenille. Next thing will be
> the 8 strands of crystal
> flash in the tail.
>
> I, personally, don't think the bead should matter. I
> mean a bead on a Hare's
> Ear Nymph didn't make it seize to be a Hare's Ear
> Nymph... it just got to be
> a Beadheaded HEN. So a Woolly Bugger with a bead
> should just make it a
> Beadheaded Woolly Bugger.
>
> So, to be scientific about then (thinking in
> parallel with what I learned
> from herpetology studies):
> My own Black Peppers have all the ingredients that
> the true Chili Pepper
> ('Chili pepprus pepprus') has, only in black, which
> I think makes them
> 'Peppers'. Really just the same species spreading to
> other habitats and
> mother nature creates color adaptations. Sometimes
> these will be refered as
> subspecies ('Chili pepprus blackentrix') and
> sometimes they will be refered
> only as a color variant of the species. When I tied
> my Grizzly Peppers, the
> evolution step was more radical, since now we're
> talking a different kind of
> marabou feathers... and an actual physical change is
> good enough to make
> them a subspecies (Chili pepprus grizzlii).
>
> Now Ian has tied a variant of my Black Pepper using
> 'black chenille with
> just a touch of flash', chenille/flash blend... so
> now it gets more
> interesting. If my Black Pepper is one of those
> "color variants", then Ian's
> fly (with a PHYSICAL material change), would be a
> subspecies to the Chili
> Pepper and a "brother" to the Grizzly Pepper...
> maybe a 'Chili pepprus
> chenastes'. But if my Black Pepper made it to
> subspecies, the rock might
> start to roll. Ian's variant might actually break
> the family into two. I
> don't have a PhD, but I know this has happened to
> some snakes. A new snake
> variant is found and they cheer "YES!!! ANOTHER
> SUBSPECIES!!!"... but then
> they discover that this isn't correct. The snake has
> turned out to be closer
> to an already existing subspeices than it is to the
> actual top species. They
> won't give it a fourth name. They won't place it as
> a separate species,
> since it's closer to another snake's subspecies than
> the true species.
> So...... the already existing subspecies will be put
> as a new species, with
> the new snake as it's subspecies. So my Black Pepper
> gets kicked out of the
> Pepper family and gets named 'Chili leechus leechus'
> and Ian's fly gets
> named 'Chili leechus chenastes'.
>
> And now we enter the comic side of the scientific
> side. I've heard or read
> something about the Chili Pepper first started as
> some kind of joke. Someone
> refused to tie a bugger on the tippet and this, or a
> variant, was given to
> him. Something like that. Obviously this will be
> hard proof that the Chili
> Pepper is a younger species than the WB. The
> difference between them are
> merely the flash material and the bead.
> Evolution grabbed hold of the bugger and turned it
> into a Chili Pepper,
> which developed subspecies of its own. Ian's fly
> made it too crowded so the
> fly I tied as a subspecies got kicked to a new
> branch on the tree. Nature
> forms and adapts and species are born, just like it
> has always been...
> except in this case. The Peppers had left chenille a
> long time ago, but when
> Ian chose chenille/flash blend for the body of his
> fly 'Chili leechus
> chenastes', his fly is actually taking the 'Chili
> leechus' family back to
> where it started... Buggers. Nature going in
> reverse!!! And since my fly is
> now on top of that branch, I will be the one taking
> the fall for starting
> it.
>
> ...and this while the 'Chili pepprus' family
> advances and advances. :o(
>
> /Nick
>
>
>
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
