5-9 SS Damsel Flies

 Fishing with damsel flies.

 Today, fishing correspondent Josh Mills talks about strategies involving damsel flies and exoskeletons. So not only are you going to get fishing information but a class on insect biology as well.  “There is another bug that you should probably look at as you are getting more and more into Lake fishing and fly fishing. I spoke earlier about chronomid  fishing which is a couple of feet down to 15 feet down and those are midges but the other thing that you want to take a peek at is to try and investigate if the lake you are fishing has damsel flies. Typically they come off a little bit more as it warms up before summer, May and the first part of June and then as you go through the summer and then fall at the other end. Damsel flies are very small dragonflies and some lakes and reservoirs have them but they typically migrate in lakes from a little deeper water to reeds and shallows. I remember one time on a lake in Northeast Washington, I watched big trout going into the reeds and bumping the emerging damsel fly nymphs. They were crawling up the reeds and the trout purposely bumped them off the reeds to eat them. So if the chronomid  fishing shuts off and you are looking at the water and you are seeing little dragonfly husks floating in the water that you can tell are the exoskeletons of the bug, switch to a damsel fly and maybe switch to an intermediate sink line and you can cast that parallel to the shoreline or whatever and a slow, consistent retrieve you are going to find one heck of a strike and a lot of consistent action especially when those damsel flies are migrating towards shore to shed their skins and become damsel flies.