It is common to fish large rainbows using a dry line with a wet fly in the Kamloops region of British Columbia, Canada, as is the case in many areas. Hanging chironomids, damsel nymphs along undergrowth, or gomphus in loam are perfect examples.
However, a rarely used but can be extremely productive technique is to fish for floating fly patterns with a wet or sunken line. This strange combination has worked for years for skilled fishermen and flycatchers when they fish for an imitation boatman. Jack Shaw, author of “Fly Fishing in Trout Lakes,” addresses this strategy of fishing boatman patterns.
The theory behind this technique makes a lot of sense with the migration of some food sources where boatmen, swimmers, and snails come to mind. The advantage is that you can mimic the course of the feed from top to bottom, along the bottom and back to the surface and expect a “hit” at any point in the recovery.
The rainbows in this region often deviate from the obvious food and occasionally turn to snails as a primary feeding target. Snails are an available food source throughout the season, but fish seem to prefer them in early spring and late fall, when most other feeding activities have declined.
Personally, I had never seen a real snail imitation or knew how I would fish one until I spoke to the longtime fishing personality and author, Mo Bradley (book – From Ice Off to Ice On). He has nurtured and studied the life cycles of most local freshwater insects in an aquarium at his home for years and described the habits of our local freshwater snails to me. They appear to generate their own gases to bring them to the surface when they need an oxygen supplement, float until they are satisfied, and release the gas with control to return to the bottom.
Mo suggested that he look at a pattern that originated in the UK, the Booby Fly, and fished it with a sinking line. Basically it is a popper fly that creates a unique action of wanting to return to the surface while being pulled to the bottom. To achieve the desired action, he also suggested that a 7 foot max leader be used.
Having never seen an exploding fly before, I decided to tie my own version of an imitation snail based on the information Mo gave me. It ended up looking like a chironomid with … well … boobies. For the boobies, I cut a slice from a “dink float”, a type of foam float used in rivers, cut it into 1/4 “slices, cut the slices in half, and tied it to the front end of the hook. crosswise to look like a “T.” First I used a gray foam and dark body on the fly with a brass bead head. Ugly enough to look like a snail imitation. I also tied a similar pattern that looked like a little maribou leech and added boobies to that.
My first day with the fly was unproductive. I went to Pass Lake for the lunkers and as usual it was blocked. The fly wasn’t working the way I wanted it to. I think the metal heel more than neutralized the buoyancy of the boobies and the fly did not “rock” between pulls on the line the way I expected. There was a highlight of the day. While fishing in the shallows, I could see large rainbow trout following the fly with curiosity. They didn’t take it, but at least I knew I had their attention.
After being slapped with my first goofy fly pattern, I modified the fly using a glass bead head instead of a metal one and added a mix of white and gray boobies. I felt armed and dangerous and was eager to try again. This time I headed to Morgan Lake, near Savona. This time we were rewarded.
On my second pitch, I nailed a beautiful 20 “beauty with the dark booby. Then another and another. I modified the way I presented the fly and found that most of my success was when I was able to let the fast sinking line find its towards the bottom (12′-15 ‘) while the booby remained at or near the surface. I then recovered it using various methods (slow and short pulls, long and slow pulls, short and fast pulls, etc.) and found that the fish were most likely to hit the fly when it approaches the bottom during descent or when the fly ascends near the end of the retrieval pattern.
I’ll let it be known that I shared my flies with a friend and he had little success to begin with. I watched him fish the pattern for a while and was able to determine that he was not allowing the fly line to sink to the bottom first. This is key to the fly’s performance. Once he mastered that technique, his success increased substantially.
We managed to catch the booby skipper until November 20, when it got too cold. Winter bit the wind and it snowed 3 days later. My best day was an afternoon of 7 fish and 30 pounds of total weight during 2 hours of fishing. I even got fish on the troll while keeping my line in the water while paddling to a different spot on the lake.
We call the fly “Kamloops Booby”. In terms of success (and I have only fished this pattern about 5 times), I have found that the combination of white head and dark boobies or dark head and white boobies was the most successful. I had a bit more success with the chironimide body compared to the micro-leech body. Our fly fishing was limited to the month of November, so we look forward to a new season and developed a registry for its applications throughout the season. You can be sure that both Morgan Lake and Pass Lake will be on the list.
Learn more about explosive fly tying ideas and an illustration on how to tie them.
Narrow lines – Go without spikes – Practice Catch and Release.