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Greetings!
Welcome to another Blue Ribbon Flies weekly newsletter. Thanks for tuning in. Settle in and we'll tell you what's happening around West Yellowstone and our other favorite spots, show you the fly and the material of the week, and tempt you to plan your next trip with us.
We've got a lot to show you and tell you about this week, so settle down in a comfy chair and dig in. Take a break from work or play, grab a cup of coffee, and pretend you're leaning on the counter here at Blue Ribbon Flies.
We hope to see you soon, right here in West Yellowstone, but until then we wish you happy and healthy fishing and fly tying. All our best to each of you. We wish you were here, but until you are we'll keep you in the loop. Thanks for stopping by.
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2012 Catalog Entries.
Notes From The Farside.
Of Dragons and Damsels
By Richard Pilatzke
Photo by Richard Pilatzke
Adult damsels and dragons have fascinated me for almost twenty years. I first observed trout chasing adult damsels
at Hohnholz Lake #1 in June of1986.
I observed trout picking off newly hatched damsels that were blown into the lake while drying their wings. I tied my first adult damsel imitation after that experience. It was a
long shank dry fly hook with grizzly hackle at both ends and damsel blue floss wrapped on the shank. I took this fly to the same lake a week later and caught several rainbows with this crude imitation. I didn't fish anywhere that had abundant damsels for a number of years. But I
still experimented with an adult damsel pattern. My next pattern I tied with blue craft foam. It had a long abdomen of blue craft foam, blue foam from dry cleaners hanger covers for a body, burnt mono eyes, and macram� yarn wings. I got to test this fly on a couple of different lakes, including a small lake near Granby and several lakes near Divide, Colorado. It caught trout, but I still wasn't
satisfied with the fly pattern - it just didn't look good enough for my own taste. Sometime before I started working on the foam patterns, I would search craft stores,
flea markets, fabric shops, and thrift shops for materials for fly tying. I found some interesting things, but one of my favorites was the big bag of baby blue macram� yarn that I
found at a thrift shop for $1.50. As you should know, blue yarn is not used much in fly tying. In fact, blue anything
is not used much in fly tying. I don't know why, but I purchased that bag of yarn and put it away in my fly tying materials. I didn't have a use for it at the time, but I think
I just had a hunch I could use it.
I guess I had an epiphany when I first spotted
foam damsel and dragonfly cutters for sale on
the Internet. Tony Tomsu marketed them through
his company River Road Creations in Stevensville,
Montana. I looked at the product and immediately
ordered a set of three cutters. I promptly stamped
out some damsel bodies, marked them with black
lines with a permanent black marker, and tried tying
some adult damsels with the bodies. I first tied
the bodies with an under body of blue tinsel chenille,
but the chenille didn't look anything like the
body of a real damsel. Then I remembered the
baby blue macram� yarn that I had purchased many
years before. I looked
carefully at pictures of
damsels on the Internet,
looked at the real
bugs when I was fly
fishing, and decided
that that macram� yarn
was the perfect material
for damsel bodies.
I added plastic bead
chain eyes (which I had found in fabric stores),
white macram� wings, a size 12 2X long hook (Dai
Riki 730), and I was in business. I also had just
joined Arrowhead Ranch, a private membership fly
fishing ranch in South Park. The ranch had four
nice lakes that just happened to have bountiful
hatches of damsels starting in early July. It was a
match made in heaven.
For the first five years that I was a member
of Arrowhead, I didn't use the adult damsel pattern
much. I caught several trout on that fly, but I preferred
to use my old favorites for the ranch - callibaetis
Quigley Cripples and my Colorado Crystal
Beetle. In the fifth year that I was a member, I actively
targeted trout that were taking adult damsels
on East Lake, the largest of the ranch lakes. I observed
trout in the shallows on one side of the lake
and studied the rises. The rise form of trout taking
damsels is very distinctive. The rise is similar to a
carp rolling in the shallows of a lake. The fish rolls
over in taking the damsel. I had observed this rise
form in the lakes I had fished near Divide, Colorado
and could now identify that trout were taking
damsels. I was able to take my pontoon boat along
the shore and identify individual fish and cast to
them. I was somewhat successful and landed several dozen trout, including rainbows, browns, brook
trout, and cutthroats. I still had to refine my stalking
and casting techniques, but I had started to pick up the
basic strategy to pursue trout with adult damsels.
This past year, I decided to make adult damsels
and dragonflies my main emphasis at Arrowhead
Ranch. Each year, I try to take some aspect of lake
fishing for trout and make it a focal point of my fly
fishing strategy for the ranch. I began fishing adult
damsels on the Upper and Lower Trophy Lakes,
where I had observed a number of trout that were actively
feeding on adult damsels. I had landed a few
trout in these lakes the previous year, and they had been fairly big rainbows. I began by fishing from the shore in late June, just when the weed beds were beginning to emerge in the Lower Trophy Lake. I soon took to my pontoon boat and fished the entire outer perimeter of
the big weed bed in the lake, sight fishing for rising trout
and catching quite a few. I learned a lesson in strategy
when I fished the lake with Dan Wright, a good friend
and world-class fly caster. He observed me and was
taking pictures as I fished. He noticed that the rising
trout would disappear if you "lined" them on a false
cast. If you put a fly line over them when they were
chasing damsels in the shallows, they immediately
quit rising and took to deeper water. Dan and I had
observed similar behavior at North Delaney Butte
Lake in North Park earlier that year. We were casting
to mostly brown trout feeding in the shallows during
the callibaetis hatch, but they also would disappear if
you lined them. This behavior called for a change in
strategy, and from then on I would false cast at right
angles to the direction that the rising trout was from
me. I would then just lay out the line in one cast, trying
to place it right in front of the feeding trout. This
strategy proved to the best for trout that were feeding
on adult damsels. I also learned that I must fish adult
damsels and dragonflies on fairly stout tippets. I generally
use 2X tippet on both damsels and dragonflies.
This is because I lost too many fish fishing a 4X tippet.
The flies attract some fairly large individuals and
the fish always try to take off for the nearest weed
bed, so you must have a strong tippet for this kind of
fly fishing.
An outgrowth of my damsel endeavors was my idea to fish dragonfly adults in late summer. There had always been lots of adult dragonflies in the lakes on the ranch and I had even caught a couple of trout on my adult dragonfly pattern the previous few years. I had seen trout occasionally chase dragonflies as they laid eggs
in the lake, flying in mated pairs and skipping across the
water surface. I decided to target the Upper Trophy Lake, which had many dragonflies that flew around the periphery of the lake. I soon brought out my adult dragonfly pattern and began fishing it. I first concentrated on the inlet end of the lake, near some weed beds that also harbored good numbers of damsels. I soon started fishing the pattern around the edges of the lake and in the middle, letting my dragonfly just sit on the water when there was a light chop on the surface. I found that I caught trout with the dragonfly and these trout were pretty good sized. I had some ferocious hits and even had trout hit the fly several times in a row. I tried dragonflies in red, olive green, royal blue, and brown and caught trout on all the
colors. The trout seemed to recognize the outline of a dragonfly and would readily take it on the water. I also experimented with my damsel and dragonfly patterns
for warm water fish. I tried the flies at Don Brown's 1 acre pond near his home south of Berthoud and caught lots of bass and bluegills. I also tried the pattern in Las Moras Creek, a little spring creek in Texas that is a tributary
of the Rio Grande River. It again caught bluegills and
bass and worked as well as any fly that I tried. I am anxious to try more bass/bluegill fishing next year- it's a lot of fun. I will also try the flies on the Rocky Mountain Arsenal and some other warm water lakes. I finally began photographing some of the fish I caught on damsels and dragons this summer. I got an entry-level digital camera and gradually began photographing fish with the flies I caught them on. I now have a nice archive of how effective my fly patternscan be. I am already looking forward to the July to September season for adult damsels and dragonflies. This year I want to get photographs of stalking and playing the fish and possibly some photos of the rising fish. I will just have to be patient for the six months between now and damsel/dragonfly time.
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Hope you enjoy the latest issue. We'll keep 'em
coming, keeping you up to date on the best
fishing water, tips, and gear we can get our
hands on.
Thanks for spending time with us. We'll see you soon!
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