What color are Damsel Flies?

Had a pretty impressive damsel fly hatch yesterday, when you slow down and watch these are pretty amazing bugs. Have you have watched a damsel destroy a sulphur, eating the helpless yellow mayfly whole! Usually leaving just the wings of the yellow mayfly behind.

See hundreds lined up on the shore line in the tall grass, looking and waiting for the next helpless mayfly. And what color is damsel? That blueish green armor they wear is so cool. But so hard to match on the vise, new colors of flashabou are helping, but still mother nature creates such cool color combo’s.

Anyway the damsel is one of the secondary bugs on a river, when you slow your day down and watch that bring life to the shore line. It is a fly that you don’t find in every catalog or fly shop, but if you throw one long enough the trout takes on a damsel are veracious. I never can have enough of the big fly take from a trout. And with so many lining the banks, and so many other anglers just throwing the mayfly. Think and fish differently!

Hendrickson’s have started

With my first ever Mangled Fly Media (MFM) post I talked about the big bad stone-fly that will start showing in early May until mid June. I talked about the stone-fly being the first real big bug of the year. Big meaning size wise.

But for traditional trout anglers the start of the trout season starts with the Hendrickson dun. Well ring the alarm, you can officially start the beginning of trout season now, because the Hendrickson are popping. I had heard they had started on traditionally early starting sections of the Au Sable but to see them on the Upper Manistee and other smaller rivers on the west side, i.e. the Platte River. You know water temps through-out the state will all have Hendrickson popping. Look for mid morning spinner falls, say around 10am, with the emergence from mid morning until late afternoon. Then clouds of spinners will form on warmer than average evenings in early spring. This is a wonderful time of year for trout anglers. Let dry fly season beginning!