Quote Originally Posted by jkmuddler
I was just a young man when I first fish the Manitou River on Manitoulin Island, I was just learning how to cast a fly rod. There was a caddis hatch occurring and I promptly put on the smallest browm dry I could find. The black flies and mosquitoes were pretty bad but I wasn't going to give up. There was a large mid-stream rock that had a nice speck rising. I made a few casts and missed the mark, the next cast was perfect. As the line loop unfurled the fly hung motioless in the air for a second or two, then the fly started to come back towards me. I thought, "WOW this fly fishing is something else". A large dragon fly had caught the fly in the air at the end of the cast and was flying back towards me. It dropped the fly about 10 feet behind me and a 6 inch speck inhaled it. I got the 6 incher, never got the big one by the rock though.
muddler - I have caught both adult (flying) dragonflies as well as the nymph. Both are voracious. The nymphs were attacking my tiny soft hackles in a Smokies stream - I could feel the pecks and thought they were tiny chubs or maybe young of the year trouts. After about 20 misses, I connected up and was surprised to see a bright green dragon nymph on my hook. The bug was about a size 8.

The adults like my Trikes and midges. I like to see them because they show me where the tiny buggies are, and the trouts often are there too.

tl
les