Ok, someone enlighten me as to what I am supposed to do with boobies - and I aint talking sex ed.

My fishing buddies take on them (he's much older and wiser than me) is tie them on a DI7 on a short leader (couple of feet) and leave it static till you get a bite. This feels wrong - especially if your fishing from a boat.

What are the accepted techniques or methods - I read some of the tournament reports and they are talking about using blobs with 'normal flies' and getting erratic retrives etc...

Basically I'm much confuddled and could use every weapon in the arsenal to put more fish on the bank!! Every time I have tried using one is generally in desperation and I have never had a touch on one.

Thanks,

J.

Hi', JW. When boobies were first introduced, the standard method was to fish with a sinker hard on the bottom, and to fish a pull-and-pause retrieve. Fishing static can result in fish taking the booby right back in the mouth, risking or causing damage. Too many anglers already allowing fish to hook themselves on static flies, you are right to query.
The second phase was fishing the booby on a longer leader, with a dropper fly added. This was supposed to copy the pursuit of the dropper by the booby when pulled. Some anglers also fished with line hard on the bottom and a long leader with the booby on the point, at the surface, and a couple of droppers covering more of the water column. To fish that way, you needed to know your water pretty well.
Then I guess boobies were used to suspend flies when fished off floaters, a bit like float fishing; before they were attached to the end of a leader, with droppers between the booby and the fly line. That became known as fishing 'The washing line'. That can be done using an intermediate, also, but I would prefer the floater, especially when fish are taking buzzers just under the surface.
Hope that helps a bit. Cheers, TerryC

As TC says, the original Booby method was a short leader on a fast sink line, allowed to sink then twitched along the bottom. In summer the bouyant fly pops up above bottom weed (if thats a problem) and can sometimes work when nothing else does, especially on hot days, no wind, when fish are sulking on the bottom, hiding in the weed. It has saved me a few blanks in such conditions. But it can also be used as a point fly to suspend dropper flies (eg buzzers) on a floating line "washing line" style, or on a slow sinker to slow the rate of descent and keep the flies in the top few feet. It can also be stripped across the surface muddler-style, or fished static/twitched on the surface to imitate a floating fry pattern, so all in all a very versatile pattern and worth having a few in your box in different colours.

The bad name it has aquired is to do with the orginal method (bottom fished) but when left static, which can result in deep hooked fish - not a problem on a kill only water, but obviously not good for catch and release. I think its more effective twitched anyway, rather than static. Takes are usually savage so keep hold of the rod!

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