Monthly Featured Fly (January 2011)

The Damsel Nymph

The Damselfly larva (nymph) is an important part of the trouts diet, hatching from the eggs, larva spend typically one to three years in ponds, rivers and lakes and are carnivorous, feeding on Daphnia, Midge larva and various other small organisms and are generally more active during the spring time.

The nymphs of the damselflies are like the adults, very slim. They are adept at camouflage and take on the colour of their main habitat, so they are likely to be seen in colours ranging from pale brown to deep green. They live in weed, moss or silt on the bottom.While they are found in rivers, they are largely ignored by river fly-fishers. However they are important in stillwater and patterns to imitate them carry out great execution.

When the nymphs are ready to transform into adults they swim towards the shore just beneath the surface with a distinctive wriggling motion, making tempting targets for trout which often take them savagely. This shore-ward migration usually occurs in the morning. Many good imitative patterns have been devised.

However there is no arguing that these large representations can be absolutely deadly, possibly because when tied with a goldhead or dumbell eyes at the front and marabou tail at the back, fished with a figure of eight retrieve it would give the same erratic swimming motion as the natural or it could be that the fish are used to seeing plenty of bright lures and success can be found by fishing a more sombre fly like a large olive damsel.

This is an ideal point fly when fishing a team of nymphs or buzzers on the droppers or fished as a single fly, some days the fish seem to like the slowest possible figure of eight retrieve and sometimes it can be the opposite with a fast, jerky figure of eight being more effective, it pays to experiment.

At this time of year any active Damsel Larva will be on the lake bed where they stalk their prey, so thats the place to fish your damsel nymph. Around the spring time is when the larva become far more active and make their way up in the water to climb up the bankside vegetation and transform into adults.