Quite a while ago I was given a box that the person said was full of assorted furs. It turned out to be craft furs of variable usefulness. One piece was a bright blue that shouts damselfly. I played with it unsuccessfully and then put the box away and forgot it. I came across it again today and tried again. For the first try I took a bundle of the guard hair type fibers and tied them in as an extended body. I wrapped the rest of the fibers length forward to form the abdomen. The extension was too limp so it was coated with a bit of clear household goop. I formed a spinner style wing from a grizzly saddle hackle and dubbed a thorax with the underfur like portion of the craft fur. I thought it came out looking very good. Unfortunately it sank like a rock.
For the next try I tied in some blue dear hair for a tail, taking care not to flair it. The body was dubbed from the craft fur underfur and the wing was once again a grizzly saddle. This time it floated well and didn’t look too much different.
Sorry about the out of focus pictures. They looked better on my camera screen. The next project is going to be playing around with the new camera I got for Christmas until I can use it as well as the old one.
I came back to this after a couple of hours to think about the results. I wanted to try for a fly that could be skittered on the surface like the flitting of a real damselfly. Sticking with the same tail and dubbed body I used grizzly hackle tip wings on a standard length hook instead of the two times long shank in the previous tries. The fly was finished with a pale dun dry fly hackle in front of the wings. It floated but not very well and will probably sink if presented in motion.
http://
Trying again I went back to the longer hook and made the tail longer. The wings are wonderwing style grizzly.
http://
I gave it one more try, this time leaving the craft fur out altogether. The extended body is blue deer hair lashed aroundof the hook. The wing is again wonderwing style but using flank feathers from an unidentified duck that were given to me by a friend. The fibers are longer than on a rooster hackle. It is once again hackled with pale dun. This is close to what I already have in my fly box. I may be giving up on the craft fur again.
.http://
Unless I get a brilliant idea I’m done doodling for now. I have three flies to test and one that will go right to the bluegill box where I’ll see if it can float long enough in still water to catch anything.
Some tiers have used foam to modify the pattern to guarantee a floating fly such as in the pattern below:
I mentioned this to Gary and he asked me whether the tiers had thought he had not considered foam. According to Gary, the trout can concentrate on the drowned damsels and the foam pattern cannot imitate drowned damsels because they always float. So tie the standard pattern first and add a few foam ones if you want. Compare the Borger damsel with other damsel patterns and you will note how realistic the braided butt pattern looks compared to foam, dyed deer hair, or dubbed abdomen patterns. None of these can match the thin abdomen of the natural insect.
And use a strong tippet. The vicious take can often break you off.
Another point is that the stage before the mature blue damsel is the brown teneral phase. You can use a brown color marker to match the mono to tie up a few teneral patterns. The brown teneral patterns will also match brown dragon flies.
Braided mono comes in 30 and 50 lb strengths. Get the 50 if you can. You can use the braided mono for making braided loops and the 50 lb is stronger.
The video below shows how damsels are vulnerable when they are under the water and how they get trapped in the film. A foam damsel pattern can’t get that trapped in the film appearance.
Thanks Silver Creek. I agree about the slender body. That is what drew me to the craft hair fibers. I have some braided mono but will have to get a blue marker. I have also been thinking a bit about trying his extended body method with the craft fur coated with goop. I think it might work well but experimenting is on hold for now as yesterday’s library trip produced some interesting books that have my attention.
Try a slender metal tube like a ball point pen refill (cleaned out) or the last piece of tubing on a wrecked umbrella arm in a dremel on flip flops or 5 mm craft foam. You may need to buy a set of collets to the increased size. Square off and sharpen the end with fine emery board or wet and dry sandpaper, debur, and be patient.
Another technique for making slender bodies is furling them. Check out Harrison Steeves’ Disco Damsel, it uses a furled body. I tie this pattern using Super Hair and it comes out looking great.
Thanks guys. I don’t think something as rigid as a bicycle spoke would allow good hooking. I’ll check out the disco damsel as that would probably work with the craft fur if it works with super hair.
Maybe a form of furling but if you cut a piece of 3mm craft foam about 3 mm wide and twist the ends in opposite direction you get a nice segmented body that Is waterproof.
I got back to the vice last night. I tried going with a bigger hook (#6) and tying in the deer hair extension farther back. The body is dubbed with chopped craft fur. I liked Borger’s wing so I appropriated it. The grizzly hackle is wound on a reinforced monofilament post that was cut off after tying.
I also found that I had everything necessary to tie a disco damsel in the house so I tried one. I think either of these last two flies will work. The abdomen on the disco damsel may be a little too thin but I can adjust that.
