Damsel Nymph – Step By Step

This is quite an effective little Damsel nymph pattern that is also easy to tie. I also tie this pattern with red eyes.

HOOK: #14 2X long nymph hook

EYES: Mono eyes or glass bead eyes

TAIL AND BODY: Rabbit strip and dubbing

LEGS: Partridge feather

STEP 1:

Make yourself some mono eyes or you can do what I did here and melt two glass beads onto some mono to form your eyes. Figure of eight your eyes onto the hook and take your thread all the way to the back.

STEP 2:

Tie in the rabbit strip tail at the bend of the hook. I take a normal rabbit strip and split it in half to make it a bit thinner. Cut the hair to just above the skin on the piece to the front of your tie in point.

STEP 3:

Spin a thin noodle of dubbing onto your thread and dub the body of the fly to just in front of the eyes.

STEP 4:

Prepare a partridge feather and tie it in just behind the eyes. Wrap one turn of the feather around the hook and tie of.

STEP 5:

Now take the loose piece of rabbit strip and stretch it over the mono eyes to the eye of the hook and tie it of. Make sure that the partridge feather sits to the side of the body of the fly and points backwards.

View from the top.

STEP 6:

Tie off the your thread forming a neat thread head. Cut of the remaining piece of rabbit strip.

Finished fly.

View from the top….

….and from the front

Damsel Flies

I went out fishing at the dam this morning and I though that instead of boring you with the usual fish pictures I will show you a pretty little Damsel Fly that decided to dry its wings on my float tube. (Ok, I didn't actually land a fish, so this is all I have)

I also shot a little underwater movie of a Damsel nymph swimming but I still  need to figure out  how to edit it and load it on Youtube.

One of the fish my friend caught this morning took the fly deep into it's gills and had to be killed. When opening its stomach it was stuffed with Damsel fly nymphs.  The below patter has always worked for me when the fish are eating Damsel fly nymphs like this. Sadly I didn't have any of these patterns in my box this morning.