Damsel Adult 03/21/2020 Photo Album

With the corona virus necessitating self quarantines in Colorado, and a snowstorm placing a freeze on outdoor activities, I decided to return to my vice. During the winter I cycled through all my mainstay flies, and I was now positioned to undertake some experimental patterns. But before I forged into the new and untested, I remembered a day on a Frost Creek pond, when I was frustrated with my inability to hook trout in spite of the presence of abundant quantities of large rising fish. Rising is really an understatement, as most of the trout were aggressively slashing at surface food. My post of 07/12/2019 describes the discouraging day on a Frost Creek pond.

The obvious food that the Frost Creek trout craved was adult damsel flies. Hundreds of delicate blue aquatic insects fluttered about and perched on the reeds along the shoreline. At the time I vowed to remedy this lack of matching imitations, and with the completion of my standard tying for the upcoming season, I prepared to tie damsel adults. I started with an on line search of damsel adult patterns, and I began with one of my favorite tiers, Charlie Craven. I was pleased to discover that Charlie had a parachute damsel adult on his web site, and I promptly decided to make this pattern my first prototype.

Angled

Unfortunately the recipe called for a braided damsel body material, blue 2mm foam, and blue dubbing. I possess drawers full of tying materials, but the color blue is totally absent. I made the drive to Charlie’s shop in Arvada, and Charlie himself help me find and purchase the necessary materials. He was out of blue damsel body braid, so I bought white and a blue marker and colored my own. This actually worked out quite nicely, when I finally sat down to make my first batch of adult damsels.

A Batch of Five

The Craven parachute adult damsel is actually quite easy to tie, and I quickly produced five for my fly box for the 2020 season. In Charlie’s introduction to the tying steps, he mentioned the teneral stage of the adults. This refers to the stage of the adult when it first emerges from the nymph while clinging to vegetation along the shoreline. The adults are pale yellow to olive at this time and very vulnerable to getting swept into the water by gusts of wind, and this circumstance is not overlooked by the nearby ravenous trout. In preparation for encountering this event, I tied two additional adults with a light olive braid, foam and dubbing.

Olive Color

Hopefully the corona virus will pass before the summer fishing season, and I will be prepared to cast my damsel adults on Colorado lakes and ponds.