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There is nothing new about "Booby Pumping". English fly fishers have been doing it for years and for a time it was considered so successful in some impoundments that it was banned. I have been fishing boobies for quite a few years and booby pumping has even won a couple of competitions for me.

I comfortably revert to including a booby or two in my cast, when my "loch fly fishing" teams of flies are just not working at either end of the season, when there is no surface food to bring fish to the surface or in range of the surface and I know or suspect that the fish have moved deep or when I am in a fishery dominated by rainbows. Boobies do work on brown trout but are much more deadly on rainbow trout.

So what is booby pumping ... well over time I have found that there is more to it than just fishing them as you would fish most other types of flies and I'll try to explain some of the nuances below.

A reasonable starting point is the gear and the way to set it up.

For all my trout lake fly fishing my preference is a 10 foot #6 weight fly rod with a solid butt so that I can put pressure on a stoic fish but with a reasonable soft tip to assist me in staying in contact with my flies and fish once hooks.

The line should have sink rate that is fast enough to get your flies to the desired depth in the time you have available. My two favoured lines are a Scientific Anglers Density Compensated type 7 fly line and an Airflow Forty Plus Booby Basher which is basically a type 8 fast sink line.

My leader set up is the same as for my loch style fishing. If I am fishing two boobies they take the bob and point positions are 10 feet apart and the middle dropper has only a small English wet (probably a dunkeld in my case) or a damsel, Kalkite special or chironomid fly on the middle dropper depending on what other food sources may be around.

The technique.

The whole booby process works best if you can get your fly down to the bottom and can then work your fly or flies as close to the bottom for as far as you can creating an action in your fly or team of flies that induces a strike. I generally count the flies down and once I have determined at what depth I have struck bottom I use that count for future casts. If your in a "brothel", opps ... sorry a heavily stocked impoundment you can often anchor up so as to prolong the time you can keep your team of flies in the zone. Mostly however I fish my flies loch style. If its relatively still or you can slow the boat down enough with a drogue you can fish this system very effectively in any dam or lake. If it's too windy to get your flies down to the bottom I suggest that you try another system.

The retrieve when booby fishing is second only to getting your flies down to the bottom, in achieving success when fish one or more boobies.

My preference is to cast across the wind as this has two benefits. The first is that if you feed more line out as you drift your sinking line has more time to sink. The second benefit of casting to the left or right from your position in the boat rather than in front of the boat is that when you commence your retrieve you will move your flies to the left or right of where the fish are sitting (mostly into the wind) rather than retrieving directly into their face. The down side is of course that you may miss a take on the drop. You can minimise those few missed takes on the drop if you keep in touch with your fly or flies by only feeding line out, whilst the sinking line sinks to the bottom, at the same rate as the drift of the boat.

Once the fly has reached its desired depth that is where the term "booby pumping" comes in. It involves taking just one or two sharp retrieves on the line and then letting the line rest. "Booby pumping" is basically repetitions of this above process. If you can visualise it this process causes the booby or boobies to move in an up and down action, pulling with them of course any non buoyant flies you have in your team. Initially the fly line is laying at its desired depth after being counted down. The booby or boobies being buoyant will be sitting somewhat higher in the water column than the line. Then with one or two sharp strips the booby or bobbies will swim down. After that whilst you pause they will start to rise again and so on.

One particular type of booby fishing involves what is called "washing line" and whilst it is often fished at maximum depth as described above it is also a popular mid water technique. It involves having just one buoyant booby on the point and two non floating bait flies above that. The leader between the booby and the bait flies is the washing line and as the booby is moved up and down the bait flies are also first pulled down by the retrieve and then move back up on the pause.

Regardless if your fishing deep or mid water It's worth varying the speed and length of pumps to find out what's working best at that time. Also keep in mind that, with a constant rate of retrieve rate, that the closer the flies get to the rod tip that the angle of the fly line will change from level to more upright toward the tip of the fly rod and this will change the direction the flies are swimming i.e. ultimately toward the surface as opposed to horizontal and getting progressively faster. The significance of this change of speed is that if all your hits are at the start of the retrieve it's possible that if you progressivly reduce your speed of retrieve as the flies get closer to the boat that you will be able to induce more hits. Alternatively is all your strikes are toward the end of the horizontal part of the retrieve you may be able to induce more strikes by fishing a little faster at the start of the retrieve.

When fishing boobies I like to finish my retrieve with and extended hang. If a fish has been following any fly in your team this often brings them unstuck.

As to the actual booby flies.

I like to fish boobies in a team of three flies and whilst I normally fish my booby on the point. However when I am fishing in shallower water with a lot of weed or snags I fish the booby on the top dropper just to ensure that the team of flies swim higher than the sinking line.

I mentioned earlier boobies do work on brown trout but are much more deadly on rainbow trout. I guess that browns are just not turned on by boobies in the same way rainbows are so I have applied these booby pumping techniques to fishing for brown trout with plenty of success.

The difference has been the flies and by substituting a floating yabby or a booby eyed yabby type woolly bugger or a booby type smelt type woolly bugger my success rate in brown trout fisheries has increased dramatically in times when the browns are sulking in deep water.

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