The Original Recipe
Unlike the majority of flies in this book, most of which can trace the broad outlines of their ancestry back for several decades, if not centuries, the Booby fly has a remarkably short pedigree, owing its existence to the advent of a new material. It also stands out as possibly the only fly whose use raises ethical questions. Frederic Halford may have had issues with nymph patterns in general, but when this particular fly first hit the water he was probably turning in his grave.
In the 1970s, the British flytier and author Gordon Fraser, creator of the Fraser nymph, recognized the potential for a fly whose action and depth could be controlled not by its weight but by its buoyancy. In the previous decade, when expanded polystyrene was becoming commonplace, this lightweight material had already found a place in the flytier’s arsenal. Fly-fishers on the English lakes and reservoirs had observed that some emergers appear to rise through the water and hang in the surface film aided by a bubble of gas, and a small expanded polystyrene ball mimicked this perfectly, as well as representing the unfurling wings of an emerging fly or the gills of a chironomid pupa.
Fraser took this idea further and came up with the Booby fly, so called because…well, let’s just say the fly has also been referred to as a Dolly Parton. Materials and tying methods have evolved since, but the bulbous bug eyes were originally tied using two small white expanded polystyrene balls trapped inside a piece of nylon pantyhose and tied in behind the eyes using figure-of-eight wraps. The typical booby fly has a long marabou tail, which imparts a lot of motion to the fly, and a chenille body, but the range of possibilities is limitless.
The white polystyrene balls that Fraser originally used have since been superseded by much tougher forms of closed cell foam that are available in a range of shapes and colors.
Initially the Booby was worked on the surface using a dry line, like a floating Woolly Bugger, and they work well like this for bass, skated across the water. Trout, too, will go for this noisy surface action, but Fraser and others soon moved to a sinking line and opened up a world of new possibilities. On a slow-sinking intermediate line the fly can be fished at any depth and at any speed, and stripping the line produces an enticing action as the buoyant fly dives downwards following the curve of the line and then floats gently up. (On waters where multiple flies are allowed, the Booby can be fished on the top dropper with imitative patterns suspended below it, or on the point with other flies hanging from the horizontal leader—the aptly named washing-line method.)
With a full sinking line, the effect is even more spectacular. The line can be allowed to sink until it lies along the bed of the lake or reservoir, while the Booby, on a leader as short as 2ft (60cm), floats off the bottom, hovering above any weed that may be there. Short strips with long pauses will cause the fly to dive, rise and hang, giving a realistic impression of a dragonfly nymph or struggling baitfish, and when used in deep water in early spring, when the water is cold and the fish are down deep, this method can catch when little else will work. Using a loop knot to the hook allows the fly to dance on the rise and fall, making the most of the waving marabou tail, but a Booby will often be taken during the pause.
The Booby fly can be tied to represent a damselfly larva, and retrieved to simulate its movement as it hovers and dives among the weed fronds on the lake bed.
THE SINS OF THE STATIC FLY
Many kinds of fly are taken while hanging motionless in the water—chironomid pupa patterns are a good example—but the fly-fisher generally knows all about it. Chironomids tend to be hit hard, and whether the leader is hanging directly down from the rod tip or is being fished on a floating line, with or without a strike indicator, there is no mistaking the fact that the fly has been taken.
With the Booby fly it’s a very different story. When the angler is using the bottom-up method and the long sinking line is lying on the lake bed, unless the angler is in tight contact with the fly and is working it, a fish can chew on the fly without giving any indication until it turns away. The result can be a fatally deep-hooked fish. The Booby fly has been banned on some English waters partly because it is so effective, but also because of the risk the fly poses to fish in the hands of an unscrupulous angler. There have certainly been instances of anglers casting the fly out, putting the rod down and simply waiting, which is a long way from most people’s idea of fly-fishing, but even when fished carefully a Booby can be taken deeply, making it unpopular in catch-and-release fisheries. Boobies are generally tied on short hooks to reduce this problem.
MODERN VARIATIONS
Expanded polystyrene has largely been replaced by other types of closed-cell foam, especially polyethylene foams such as Ethafoam® and Plastazote®, as they are less prone to being flattened when chomped. Booby eyes are sold as pre-formed dumbbells or as cylinders of foam that can be cut to length, rounded off with scissors and tied onto a thread base a couple of eye-width’s back from the hook eye. For the best of old and new, cut pieces of modern foam into small spheres and then tie them on trapped in a patch of nylon mesh to create even more durable “eyes.”
Unlike the original polystyrene, modern foam is now available in a wide range of colors that can be used in creative ways, and while marabou tails remain, Booby bodies can be made of materials such as dubbing, peacock herl, rabbit fur strips and marabou. Booby flies first appeared in olive green and black, but gaudy is now the order of the day, with red, orange, bright yellow, chartreuse and plenty of sparkle becoming essential parts of the wardrobe, as well as palmered hackles, gold ribbing and stick-on eyes. These bright and bold flies are commonly used for large- and smallmouth bass (especially on the surface), perch, chub, carp, sea trout and steelhead, and even sea bass.
For these attractor patterns the term “nymph” has largely been dropped, and quite rightly so, but at the same time there has been a trend toward tying booby versions of traditional nymph patterns such as the hare’s ear, the diawl bach and even the pheasant tail, adding a foam head that allows these flies, too, to be fished “bottom up” or hovering in midwater with extremely good results.
