All about Boobies
Booby flies are lures made with bouyant foam or polystyrene eyes and it is these bouyant eyes that are the resaon for their huge success in fly fishing. An easy way to think of it is them being the opposite fo a weighted fly. Whereas a weighted fly will sink down below the depth of the fly line, a booby will float above the depth of the line.
Why is this so important? Well consider the classic case of trout feeding down near the bottom of a reservoir. A sinking line can get down deep, but a normal fly will just drop down and drag in the mud. The solution is to use a booby. What you do is tie a booby onto a short (18 to -24 inch) leader and cast out with a fast sinking line. The line will sink and sit on the bottom and the booby fly will float up and fish very near to, but away from, the bottom. The normal retrieve in this case is nice and slow, short pulls with a pause to give the fly some action.
If you want to fish a team of flies then the same thing can be done with a booby on the point and one or more flies on droppers. Again a fast sinking line will take the flies down deep to where the fish are feeding.
And this popular fly can also be used on the point with a team of flies fishing near the surface. In this case a floating line with buzzers or maybe shrimp patterns on the droppers can also be very successful,
So think of the booby as both a great catching lure for fishing down deep and as a way of fishing a team of flies at different depths. They're one of these flies you definitely need to have in your fly box of you ever fish deep waters and particularly in the winter when the fish are down deep.
