Here's a portion Gary Borger's book, Fishing The Film in which he describes a day of fishing damsels with John Goddard from Great Britain.

http://fishfliesandwater.com/2010/04...rpt-and-a-pic/

"I'd already tied a dozen flies for John [John Goddard], and he had them secured in his boxes. Quickly we knotted them on, and began to hit fish immediately. I didn't have to tell John why I had used acrylic yarn for the post, rather than a strip of foam. John already understood the perils of the egg-laying damsel. One blast of wind, and they were on the water, where wave chop soon drowned many of them, submerging the insects just under the film.

Our first presentations were always with the fly sitting on top. Mostly we used the dead-simple Heave and Leave Tactic, cast several feet ahead of a rising fish and just let the fly sit. If a head didn't poke out and eat the fly within a few seconds, then we'd wait longer. That's why it's called Heave and Leave.

But sometimes a rising fish wouldn't take the fly dry. We'd then soak the fly for a few moments, and fish it just under the film, either letting it hang there or twitching it along very slowly with the Strip/Tease. The fish loved it.

In the end, I felt that it had been a spectacular day, but I knew that John specialized in damselfly fishing, and probably had experienced the same or better in waters in Europe. His chuckling all the afternoon should have been a clue, but in the fog of fishing, I had not paid much attention to his personal tics.

"This was the best day of stillwater dry fly fishing I have ever had," John told us later. It was a compliment that none of us took lightly, but it was not an isolated event in our many years of fishing damsel adults. They are truly creatures of the film?over it, on it, in it, and under it. Don't think that this experience is unique to damselflies, however. Any insect that gets in the film can eventually get under the film by riffle action in streams or wave action in lakes. So, be on the alert for sunken ants, beetles, hoppers, inchworms, mayfly spinners, stonefly adults, and so on. Watch the rise forms carefully to help detect fish feeding under the film, more to come on this in Chapter Four."

John Goddard writes this in his book, John Goddard's Trout-Fishing Techniques: Practical Fly-Fishing Solutions

"While there are many patterns to represent the damsel nymph and dry adult, two of the best in my opinion are those perfected and popularized by Gary Borger."