damsels

[Lobina_Mosca]

In the grand scheme of things, there's nothing mystic about a specific damsel fly pattern. Fished properly, the pattern is less of a concern, IMO. I fished a pretty "picky" bunch of damsel-eating fish last week and did fine with a variety of patterns. I'm not a huge believer in the "hinged" style fly to imitate the action of the bug because they don't all move like that all of the time. In fact, I often get more hits when the fly is at rest. The best option (again just IMO) is to weight the head with a bead or lead to give it a bobbing motion as you strip. And I often fish them on an indicator as opposed to a heavy sinking line. That can help you adjust the depth at which you fish them instead of having to change your whole line out. I usually just watch the fish to see where they're taking the naturals and how they're taking them. Like a few weeks ago, I found some fish rocketing out of the water, so I adjusted the fly depth to 6 inches and then stripped faster. Way outfished sinking and intermediate lines. This made all the difference because the fish were targeting the escaping naturals. Anyway, just my two cents and maybe a different way to approach it than the standard "kick and strip" with sinking lines advice you'll get from a lot of stillwater folks.

Also, don't overlook the adults. The fish will key on those as well:



Anyway, here's a couple patterns I like. Just change up the colors to match what you're fishing:



And video tutorial...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7pxHdBgLEk



And video toot...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXogTkfUujU
[signature]