I read this morning, in Total Fly Fisher a letter titled ‘Bloody Bungs‘ by a gent called Jimmy Barnes of Devon, and between it and the response from Steve Cullen the Editor it struck a chord with me.

In short I totally hate Blobs, Boobies and Bungs, and don’t get me on about Indicators.  In fact I don’t like Lures much either.

But do I use them? Well I am ’embarrassed'(?) to say that on occasions I have. In fact this winter I have certainly used lures and have fished buzzers under an “indicator” fly.

I find it quite hard to reconcile my feelings about these methods with my apparent willingness to resort to them when conditions suit.

I find it quite hard to reconcile my feelings about these methods with my apparent willingness to resort to them when conditions suit.

Some Personal History

I think I was most hacked off by them last Autumn when on a fishing day at my ‘local’ , Swanswater. It was a sunny day and the fish were not ‘taking’ for me at all. I had a couple of follows ( to a small lure) but nothing of substance. However over to my left on the island there was a guy who was hauling them out. In fact in the space of about 2 hours or so he took 5 fish. Now there were two factors at play in my view.

  1. he was in the right spot on the day, I suspect many fish were simply sitting or cruising in the deep channel in front of the island.
  2. he was fishing the bung or an indicator in a static manner probably with buzzers or maybe even a lure underneath. (naughty- lures under indicators are against the rules here)

After he had his 5 fish ( and bear in mind 5 is a max bag limit) he moved location after a short blank spell ( probably due to him removing all the fish!) and with the same method pulled out another from a spot that had been apparently barren for others.

So in a nutshell – on it’s day it’s a very, very effective method.

So in a nutshell – on it’s day it’s a very, very effective method.

A second ‘event’ hacked me off further a few weeks later at North Third, where a group of anglers were fishing Boobies statically. It was cold, foggy and utterly flat calm day. I fished for hours using nymphs, small lures and wet flies and other than a Perch or two never touched a fish. Most other bank anglers were much the same except one group stationed on a small promontory. They drew attention to themselves by the fact they were very loud ( I will call them the “Contins” and leave you to work out why) and ‘vocal’ but also by their lack of activity, except for making cups of tea. They were, however, pulling fish out. Some big ones too.
I challenged them as to how they were doing it, I thought they were using bait, however, the method employed was a sinking line and a short leader with a pink shrimp Boobie on the end. Cast it in, tighten up, let it sink then tweak the line every 10 to 15 minutes. The rod was in a rod rest made from some broken branches. Almost every cast resulted in a fish over the course of the day.
This method seems to be marginally inside the rules at North Third. Boobies are permitted however I suspect putting the rod down if not breaking the fishery rules, contravenes the Scottish law re. Game Fishing and if not certainly is not within the spirit of the sport. It’s more akin to Coarse fishing.

There is no doubt it’s effective, but then should fly fishing be all about catch at all costs? In a commercially stocked fishery many take the view that they have paid for their fish and so in the end almost any method inside or sometimes outside the rules is justified, for them,  if it means getting your bag.
Me? I only fish for the sport and that moment you detect a take and wrestle it to the bank on light tackle. I would happily put every fish I catch back, and wherever possible I do. If I bag up numerically and return every fish I feel I have more than had my money’s worth. It’s not a question of walking out the gate with a bag full of fish for me.

Experience

As winter came on behind Autumn my own fishing experience showed that small lures gradually became more and more effective as time went on. I almost have never failed to catch on a small White Bunny Leach or Humungus at some point in the day. I have always, however, given the dry fly an airing at any available opportunity with some success. It’s truly a magical way to catch fish more-so in winter.
As we moved into the back end of winter the water was much colder and fish hug the bottom. I have caught fish on lures but hard on the bottom is a bit of a snag fest. What I did notice though were the number of fish I was catching that were clearly sat right on the bottom and were literally covered in nymphs, bloodworms, leeches, shrimps and buzzers. As a result I resorted to fishing buzzers and bloodworm patterns. ( Imitative fishing?) It has been devastatingly effective. To really make it work though I found

  1. you need a really slow retrieve (Very very slow like an inch at a time)
  2. you need to fish across different depths
  3. the more vertical you can hang the flies the better

How to achieve this? Suspending the flies under a buoyant fly seems the obvious answer.
I have found New Zealand style to be very effective where the buzzers are tied directly off the hook bend of the dry fly. I have used , small Midge, big Klinkhammer and Shuttlecock Buzzers and all have worked. In fact I would go as far as to say but for the dry fly vanishing I would never have had any idea there was even a fish there at times so subtle were the takes. There was no tug on the line at all. Now I have also tried a sink tip line and it has worked but this does require direct contact with the fly to really work and as a result I don’t think it searches out the various levels quite as well as the N Z method. I have even tried simply fishing two droppers and a point fly with a dry on the top dropper but while it works it’s prone to either false takes or maybe even missed takes ( maybe they weren’t false!). One problem though has been seeing the dry fly. In the right light it’s fine and a big Klinkhammer with a white or coloured post is fairly visible. But sometimes its like looking at light grey on mid-grey. What to do?

Well, I tied a couple of experimental Shuttlecock Buzzers with a foam post inside the CDC hackle and coloured this pink or flouro green. It worked reasonably well and was generally visible- and tied on a jig hook “cocked” up nicely when the buzzers or nymphs were fully down, but also tried a dry with some White Antron in the hackle but this was not very effective.
In some light I can see there is no substitute for a FAB or an Indicator. I have stayed away from Indicators other than once trying a foam sticky indicator more by way of seeing how it worked as a method I might try with my son who I am trying to get into fishing. I don’t see me ever going down the road of Thingamabobbers or bubble floats.

Caught by the Boobies

Boobies are something I have not really used to any great extent. I have never caught anything on one. I guess in reality they are simply another fly pattern using some of the materials currently available. Taken like this there really should be no “harm” in them. Granted there is a school of thought that suggests that fish taking them have a habit of being very deep hooked. On a Catch and Release type water I can understand the concern. However on a Put and Take type fishery like Swanswater, I don’t really understand the ban. But nonetheless if they were allowed I suspect I would only rarely resort to one. What I do though dislike is the fire and forget approach using these- Cast and leave until a fish take it. I don’t really feel this is a proper fly fishing method, if you want to use it on a bait pond thats fine but not on a fly only water. I can picture the scene as static Boobie “anglers” stand at a hotspot chin wagging and doing nothing while all around thrash the water to a foam (indeed I have seen it). But on a busy fishery on a busy day- I could see this coming to blows with those who want to fish traditionally, maybe that’s why its banned? I do see their uses though as a means to an end like washing line set ups where the Boobie is at the end of the leader holding up the nymphs at depths determined by the droppers.  I see no harm in this (excepting the deep hook problem of course) .

So does this make me a hypocrite? Does fishing buzzers on a slow retrieve under a dry fly make me a float fisherman ?
Does using lures make me a line stripping cowboy?

Am I happy about using these methods ?

All I can say is this. I go fishing ultimately to try and catch fish for the sport of it. If a pure method- by that I mean dry fly, imitative nymph or wet fly fishing is not working at all what should I do? Go home? I buy a permit and at least want my 2, 4, 6 or 8 hours out the house. It’s more fun doing this with the occasional fish attached to my line than not. Getting as many fish home for my money, is not on my agenda at all. In fact the fewer the better as I only have to find homes for them and gut them. I do take the occasional one or two for relatives.

So much as I have to say it, but I won’t use floats and bobbers and will only use Boobies, Blobs and FAB’s to achieve a set up, certainly never “static”.

Jimmy Barnes of Devon- I have the deepest respect for your view and totally agree, I also have total admiration for the “stand” on this you have taken, but guess I will need to remain a Hippocrite.