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A Floating Barbell Head Leech Picture Story

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7K views 74 replies 36 participants last post by  Irafly 
#1 · (Edited)
So I know I love the indicator, but I also really love catching fish. I reluctantly jumped on the floating head wagon and after a few half hearted attempts, I managed to save an extremely slow day at an eastern Washington lake by deploying the FBHL. Things turned epic in a hurry, but to be honest the method I ended up fishing them were not technically how they were designed, so I still wasn't 100% sold.

Flash forward a couple of months and I throw one out during another day, but this time fishing was steady on jig nymphs under an indicator. Fish ate them again, but this time in a more "traditional" way. I'm more intrigued now so I start looking into tying more of them. The problem is, those darn heads are expensive. So off to the craft store. Well, a dollar store shares the parking lot with the craft store I parked at so I peeked in their first. I found 50, approximately 1" closed cell foam cubes in 4 different colors. Below shows the process of one of the orange cubes. I can cut each cube into about 6 "cylinders", that's 300 heads!

I also found that I could push a bodkin through the center of the head and slide the eye of the hook through the cylinder. This helped keep things in place much better.

This is a picture of the cube, one of the six rectangular prisms I cut it into, one of the trimmed down "cylinders", and then the trimmed down booby tied on the hook.

Orange Paint Wood Amber Rectangle


I used a florescent orange thread and tied in some pink marabou tail.
Wood Gas Electrical wiring Cable Engineering


Electrical wiring Writing implement Wood Cable Wire
After that I tied in some pink crystal chenille.
Room Event Wood Science Plastic bag


Next some chartreuse crystal chenille.
Brush Wood Toy Wire Table


Finally I tied it off.
Brush Electrical wiring Cable Wire Writing implement

Audio equipment Electrical wiring Gadget Gas Cable


And now a full box of Unicorn Puke as @troutpocket called it.

Plastic Sweetness Visual arts Confectionery Transparency
 

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#6 ·
On a side note, the idea of finding cheap booby foam came up on another group I'm part of. One guy uses a broken off antenna that he sharpens, to cut out his foam, another uses a punch drill. One of those guys hits dollar stores as well, but for the flip flops at the end of the season.
I swung by Joanna's to see what they had it was a bit shite but got a ton of foam sheets for $5. Hobby lobby is my next port of call but the one on Aurora is a weird place.

Dave
 
#5 ·
So I know I love the indicator, but I also really love catching fish. I reluctantly jumped on the booby wagon and after a few half hearted attempts, I managed to save an extremely slow day at an eastern Washington lake by deploying the booby. Things turned epic in a hurry, but to be honest the method I ended up fishing them were not technically how they were designed, so I still wasn't 100% sold.

Flash forward a couple of months and I throw one out during another day, but this time fishing was steady on jig nymphs under an indicator. Fish ate them again, but this time in a more "traditional" way. I'm more intrigued now so I start looking into tying more of them. The problem is, those darn booby heads are expensive. So off to the craft store. Well, a dollar store shares the parking lot with the craft store I parked at so I peeked in their first. I found 50, approximately 1" closed cell foam cubes in 4 different colors. Below shows the process of one of the orange cubes. I can cut each cube into about 6 "cylinders", that's 300 booby heads!

I also found that I could push a bodkin through the center of the head and slide the eye of the hook through the cylinder. This helped keep things in place much better.

This is a picture of the cube, one of the six rectangular prisms I cut it into, one of the trimmed down "cylinders", and then the trimmed down booby tied on the hook.

View attachment 183412

I used a florescent orange thread and tied in some pink marabou tail.
View attachment 183413

View attachment 183414 After that I tied in some pink crystal chenille. View attachment 183415

Next some chartreuse crystal chenille.
View attachment 183416

Finally I tied it off.
View attachment 183417
View attachment 183421

And now a full box of Unicorn Puke as @troutpocket called it.

View attachment 183422
Those are some festive colored boobies... :eek::)
 
#13 ·
I solemnly swear that i will never under any circumstances fish a booby fly.. if i ever do may every spool of tippet i buy henceforth be 15 years old and not able to hold a knot and may all my flies have eyes blocked with head cement. Same goes for mop flies. :)

What do they imitate Ira? Actually i could see a small mop fly being a good cases caddis pattern. But a booby fly? I don't get it.
 
#38 ·
What do they imitate Ira? Actually i could see a small mop fly being a good cases caddis pattern. But a booby fly? I don't get it.
They look like food. First time they see something acting like food, they are likely to eat it. Most of our patterns are meant to represent food in general, versus a specific insect or other prey source.

If you want specifics though, there is argument that the blob flies tied with fritz material, represents daphnia clouds and in all honesty is likely eaten as such in many situations. Therefore some of these boobies fished static could easily be taken as daphnia clouds as well.
 
#14 ·
It seems to me that I bought a package of foam sheets several years ago to make Crease Flies for a Mexico trip. It has a self stick on one side, 9" X 12" sheets, ten in a pack of assorted colors. I still have some. A person could stick them together, sticky side on sticky side and get some solid or mixed colors. It would take some time and effort but for a person who is retired and a tinkerer that it might be fun to try it.
 
#49 ·
Some trout like dragonflies swimming over the weeds for a satisfying gulp. The more debased trout are on the lookout for stray trout 'crack' aka Power Bait. Please help remove these twisted individuals from the gene pool. The booby fly will whisper "bet you can't eat just one" to the addict trout. Not yet a Class 1 federal narcotic, still legal in most states , just "say No " to Power Bait.
 
#18 ·
I'm sure there are multiple ways to present boobies to trout but the way I learned was to fish them on a full sink line with a very short leader. Cast out, count down till your line is on bottom - the booby floats the leader above bottom. Begin strip, pause, strip, pause ...... retrieve. As you strip, the fly dips or dives and when you pause, it floats back up. I suppose retrieve rate, length of strip can vary a lot. I typically fish this fly on a leader about two feet long.
 
#27 ·
I haven't done a lot of stillwater fishing and what i have done has mostly been in shallow water but my experience indicates to me that trout like flies that rise up through the water column and avoid flies that sink during their presentation so the bouyant dragonfly nymph makes sense to me.

In 20 years when i cant wade streams anymore I'll probably need to know this stuff.
 
#36 · (Edited)
Tak Shimuzu of Alberta has for many years tied the nicest deer hair nymphs I’ve seen, and fishes them like you would a booby. I tied some many years ago, the foam ones, I’ve got a couple brass tubes I’ve sharpened to “hole saws”. Brass cartridges work too. We used use them at night with a type 2 or 3 line along shoreline to great effect. I’m old school and still spin hair, I like the look better than foam, if you want a floating bug.
 
#39 ·
Short leader.
When on rocky river bottom similar to drifting Corky or Okie with pencil lead. When faced with still water similar to using a “worm blower” on a night crawler to keep the split shot from dragging the hooked offering into sea weed. Seems fly fisherman have found that Boobies do have a nicer up & down bouncing motion.
 
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