Adult Damsels

[Cowlitz Bottomfeeder]

Occasionally and rarely, I have had good fishing for Rainbows with adult damsel patterns. A few years back, it was consistently in a patch of heavy vegetation. There weren’t many takes, but I attributed that to poor visibility as the fish were swimming below the weeds. A few times, the fish have been taking the adults out in open water during heavy wave action. During lulls in the wind, you can see clouds of damsel adults flying an inch above the surface and trout appear to be snatching them out of the air. It doesn’t seem to be a common occurrence but whe it happens, it’s magic. A foam damsel will get it done and floats high in the waves.

 

[Paul_]

At some point drone technology will be small enough to incorporate it into the fly. Then we can really imitate the adult damsel.

 

[Cowlitz Bottomfeeder]

Here’s what a dead adult looks like on the water:



And I’ve tried imitating the crippled tenerils with this pattern with some success:



But I think most of the time they’re keyed into the blue adults mating and flying above the surface. Without access to high tech drone technology, I have to hope for wind and waves.

 

[Ron McNeal]

Wings are/should be "back", not "out"........... also much easier to cast........ No??

 

[Cowlitz Bottomfeeder]

Wings are/should be "back", not "out"........... also much easier to cast........ No??

The fish get to vote. They will eat the blue one with the wings to the side. It floats like a cork and casts easily on the 5 wt. The live ones flying have the wings spread. The real bugs probably have the wing back if they’re dead on the surface.

 

[Ron McNeal]

The fish get to vote. They will eat the blue one with the wings to the side. It floats like a cork and casts easily on the 5 wt. The live ones flying have the wings spread. The real bugs probably have the wing back if they’re dead on the surface.

Indeed they do. I didn't mean to "come off" so preachy. I've just had trouble casting the patterns with the wings at 90º to the shaft.....

 

[Richard Olmstead]

There’s a lake I fish once or twice a year that is lined on three sides by horsetails. One time several years ago and another time last month I encountered fish taking damsels off the reeds. I could hear them, but only occasionally see them. I have a couple damsel patterns that I have only used on those two occasions. Cast back into the reeds where you think the fish is, twitch the fly, and be ready. It makes for really fun fishing!

 

[TicTokCroc]

I just thumbed through the most recent edition of fly tyer magazine over at the grocery store and they had an article on damsels. They had an adult with just looped monofilament for the wings, kinda like a silhouette off to the side and looks exactly like that spent damsel on its side. I'll probably go buy the mag and a few others for my flight.

 

[Stonedfish]

No wings will also work for both damsel and dragon adult patterns.
SF

 

[Cowlitz Bottomfeeder]

There’s a lake I fish once or twice a year that is lined on three sides by horsetails. One time several years ago and another time last month I encountered fish taking damsels off the reeds. I could hear them, but only occasionally see them. I have a couple damsel patterns that I have only used on those two occasions. Cast back into the reeds where you think the fish is, twitch the fly, and be ready. It makes for really fun fishing!

Yes, I’ve seen that also. It seems like the trout are knocking damsels off the reeds. Whenever I try to fish in there I seem to hang up on the reeds.

 

[Buzzy]

Yes, I’ve seen that also. It seems like the trout are knocking damsels off the reeds. Whenever I try to fish in there I seem to hang up on the reeds.

DK and I camped at the famous lake not too far from Loomis, WA. One morning the trout were doing just like you say; knocking damsels off the reeds. Very quickly both of us were out of our meager supply of adult damsels. Bright guys that we were (are?), we'd brought along tying materials. Unfortunately for us, we didn't have any foam cylinders like you've shown but we did have a blue bucktail. On the fly, we designed a tedious to tie bucktail adult damsel where we wound blue thread along a clump of bucktail, then coated it with a bit of head cement. These flies took time to tie and seconds to lose to the fish in the reeds. But it was fun!

 

[Zak]

DK and I camped at the famous lake not too far from Loomis, WA. One morning the trout were doing just like you say; knocking damsels off the reeds. Very quickly both of us were out of our meager supply of adult damsels. Bright guys that we were (are?), we'd brought along tying materials. Unfortunately for us, we didn't have any foam cylinders like you've shown but we did have a blue bucktail. On the fly, we designed a tedious bucktail adult damsel where we wound blue thread along the clump of bucktail, then coated it with a bit of head cement. These flies took time to tie and seconds to lose to the fish in the reeds. But it was fun!

Something like this?

 

[EBT]

DK and I camped at the famous lake not too far from Loomis, WA. One morning the trout were doing just like you say; knocking damsels off the reeds. Very quickly both of us were out of our meager supply of adult damsels. Bright guys that we were (are?), we'd brought along tying materials. Unfortunately for us, we didn't have any foam cylinders like you've shown but we did have a blue bucktail. On the fly, we designed a tedious bucktail adult damsel where we wound blue thread along the clump of bucktail, then coated it with a bit of head cement. These flies took time to tie and seconds to lose to the fish in the reeds. But it was fun!

Any time I hear "adult damsels", I think of that famous lake and a couple others. But the famous lake is the best!

 

[Buzzy]

Something like this?
View attachment 26201

Yup! ;-)

 

[skyriver]

I seem to have better luck for the bigger picky fish with a very simple adult that I tie that looks very close to this one:


I don't fray the cord in front since it's a pain in the ass when tying a knot. I also use smaller eyes. And I'm better with the pen than this pic.

I get more overall action with the bright blue ones, that also happen to have actual wings, but the more drab one seems to work better for the pigs.

Super simple to tie and def one of my favorite ways to catch trout. So fun.

 

[Wayne Kohan]

I seem to have better luck for the bigger picky fish with a very simple adult that I tie that looks very close to this one:
View attachment 26707

I don't fray the cord in front since it's a pain in the ass when tying a knot. I also use smaller eyes. And I'm better with the pen than this pic.

I get more overall action with the bright blue ones, that also happen to have actual wings, but the more drab one seems to work better for the pigs.

Super simple to tie and def one of my favorite ways to catch trout. So fun.

So I was using a similar fly last week without eyes, caught a bigger fish who wrapped me around weeds and I had to pull hard to get him out after trying to get him unwrapped. I didn't check the hook afterwards (rookie mistake.) I then proceeded to have 8 hits on about 12 casts with no hookups, Rich said "did you check your hook?" Duh, it was bent. I straightened the hook but it bent again after another fish so I changed flies to one with eyes but otherwise the same. The eyes on my fly were a little bigger though. Anyway, I got nothing so I cut the eyes off and fish on the next cast. Hmm.... Maybe coincidence but couldn't put the eyes back on for comparison. I'm thinking the eyes made it float differently in the surface film. I did notice I had more hits after the fly was beaten up some.

 

[TicTokCroc]

So I was using a similar fly last week without eyes, caught a bigger fish who wrapped me around weeks and I had to pull hard to get him out after trying to get him unwrapped. I didn't check the hook afterwards (rookie mistake.) I then proceeded to have 8 hits on about 12 casts with no hookups, Rich said "did you check your hook?" Duh, it was bent. I straightened the hook but it bent again after another fish so I changed flies to one with eyes but otherwise the same. The eyes on my fly were a little bigger though. Anyway, I got nothing so I cut the eyes off and fish on the next cast. Hmm.... Maybe coincidence but couldn't put the eyes back on for comparison. I'm thinking the eyes made it float differently in the surface film. I did notice I had more hits after the fly was beaten up some.

I think we tend to exaggerate certain features to make the fly look more interesting to us but not the fish. I was just looking at the fly above and thought the same thing, good looking fly but I would loose the eyes cause they don't look natural.

 

[skyriver]

Yep to both of your guy's comments. In fact, I realize now, I stopped putting eyes on mine since I ran out of eyes. Here is a very blue with wings that I purchased (can't remember from where) compared to the one I now tie. Can't get much more simple. Just to be forthcoming & honest...the blue one was the better producer last time out since the adults happened to be really big and the most blue I've ever seen. They were giant. And, there were some blue dragons flying around too. Most of the time I'm more comfortable fishing mine. And, it doesn't whistle. Those damns wings make way more noise that I could ever imagine.

 

[Merle]

I caught a fish on a damsel dry fly pattern at Rocky Ford in June of 1992. I was 22 years old. It was awesome.

 

[skyriver]

I caught a fish on a damsel dry fly pattern at Rocky Ford in June of 1992. I was 22 years old. It was awesome.

This is hilarious...in it's own right, but also because one of the best 30 minutes of trout fishing I've ever had was at Rocky Ford in June of 91 fishing dry damsels. Me & my buddy had multiple doubles in that 30 minutes. We still laugh about that one. We had just spent a week in Montana and the best fishing of the trip was our brief stop at Rocky Ford on the way home.
This was followed by about 3 minutes of terror running back to the truck hoping to avoid death from a lightning strike. I was 23 so tempted the storm quite a bit longer than I would now.

Hope you get to catch another fish on a damsel dry. Haha!