How to fish boobies? Need advice

Wade Rivers

Wade Rivers

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I've got a selection for booby flies that haven't been very productive.

I fish the Cascade lakes here in Bend and need some advice on when, where and how to use them. Depth, season, line, retrieve please?
 
I use a type 6 sink line, let it sink to your desired depth, then strip it back. can be fast strips or slow, long or short. different lakes and times like different combinations of depth and retrieve. I like the tequila booby colours, but they all work. I also use a pretty short and stout leader, around 6/7 ft if I'm fishing deep, a little longer for shallower depths.

The lakes I fish are clear marl bottomed lakes in the Kootenays (bc). I have my best success with pretty fast strips fishing deep off shoals and points in the 20 or 30 ft depth shelving back up to shallower water.

Fin
 
Interesting the difference in approaches described by our members here versus the super slow, lethargic presentation on the bottom only espoused in Mike’s link.
 
i use a type 6 sinking line, with a 4-5' tippet and do fairly short, firm strips, at approx 1 second intervals, to allow the fly to dip up/down as it moves forward.
I tie some in natural-coloured dragonfly patterns, others in tequila booby patterns. The unlikely-looking tequila booby patterns do surprising well...I'm not sure if fish are atracted to them, or attack them out of insult and disgust.... ;)
A buddy does well on shallow marl bottoms by crimping a small split-shot 2' above the boobie, kicking up a plume of silt, which (he claims) attracts trout in...It seems to work for him.
 
There are other threads on this already - but referring to the posted article, he’s talking about fishing in mid winter, when the water is very cold, and there is no weed on the bottom. I used to fish in those sort of circumstances, and used leaders as short as 18”, fished very very slow with occasional twitches, and did really well. Problem is that you won’t find those conditions very often in central Oregon!

As a general guideline, first make sure the flies actually float! Use the fastest sinking line you can, make sure your leader is long enough that the fly is above any weeds, mess with the retrieve rate until you find something that works.
 
Try not to have any kind of slow retrieve as the fish tend to inhale boobies deeply. I prefer an 8lb 15 foot washing line w/ multiple 3X tag leader set up on a sink 3 or sink 5. Rod tip down in the water and change up your retrieve. Biscuit, ham and cheese, and tequila colors have been good.
I know this leader won’t fly in BC but it works well here.
 
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Likin' this thread. I'll just follow along as I really don't have enough experience for any solid input.
 
Hmmm...

Well, I like to try to get into the food cycle of the fish. You know, figure out what they are eating, and imitate that. So I usually look for a "hatch", of midges, damsels, callibaetis even dragonflies or baitfish etc.

Problem is every time I have gotten into a good boobie hatch, I lose all interest in fishing.

Ron
 
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