"Lets see if we can get a rise out of the nerdy professorial Jonathon. :)"
OK, Spence, I can at least partially rise to this friendly challenge. While I cannot speak with any authority on the width of the black portion of the body on the Woolly Worms predicting winter (some fellow entomologists told me it was a myth but I'm open-minded), I can say, and perhaps other entomologists on here know, that many insects produce glycerol to keep their hemolymph from freezing, essentially by lowering the freezing temperature. Hence, your anti-freeze, Spence! I do believe certain frogs may do this as well, e.g., the wood frog which ranges all the way up to Jason's backyard in Alaska. Yes, frogs in Alaska!
Back on topic, I have tied, and had success with, Woolly Buggers tied just about every color of the rainbow. On all-hot pink buggers I hooked and lost several nice bass in Texas (ran straight into the damned elephant-ears on the San Marcos River, broke the leader!) and even a brown in the 18-inch+ range struck at one in same color down in one of the trout parks in MO (I think it was Roaring River if I remember correctly - yeah, big old spotted brownie took a swipe at it after turning up his nose at everything else...).
For warmwaters I like chartreuse with a grizzly hackle, black with a grizzly hackle, all black, and a silver and blue variant with sky-blue marabou tail, silver Krystal Flash (10-15 strands) over the tail, silver Crystal Tinsel chenille for the body, and sky-blue hackle over. The last variant is particularly good on crappie in my old hometown lake (which I will hopefully be fly-fishing at Easter!). Silver bead-chain eyes are also a nice touch on this fly.
Jonathon
P.S. Purple, either solid or with grizzly hackle, works nicely on bass. ;oD
No matter how big the one you just caught is, there's always a bigger one out there somewhere...