Hi Guys

I was fishing today for Brownies caught one on a black hopper lost another then lost another cracker on a wingless wickhams !

Also caught 2 perch and a pike on a damsel nymph !

Later the water was covered with blue damsels flys 100's possibly 1000's !

Anyway brownies could been seem taking emergers and also shooting themselves feet into the sky ?

When i gutted the Brownie it was full of bright blue damsels and also green damsel nymphs but there thorax was red ?? Im assuming this is then nymphs pumping blood ready to expand ??

What patterns should one use when the trout are obsessed with emerging damsels ?? Not sure if the blue ones where adults taken on the wing ?? or as emerging ?? Is it worth fishing blue foam damsel patterns ??

I saw blue damsels on the surface lying on theres side ?? wasnt sure if they were dying or emerging ??

Help and info most welcome

__________________
Englander

"Barbless since 2008"

Vision GT Four catapult 9' 6#
Vision GT Four SW 9' 9#
Vision 3 Zone 9' 5#
Vision Cult 9' 3#
Shakespeare Trion 9' 5/6#
Cortland Endurance 9' 6#
Shakespeare Expedition float tube
Vosseler DC3 reel
Okuma Helios 8/9 reel
Greys G series 3/4 reel
Snowbee Geo 3/4 reel

Damsels don't 'emerge' in the same sense as other water borne insects. They crawl up a piece of vegetation to make the final metamorphose into an adult above the surface of the water, it is quite a lengthy process and can take hours to fully complete the metamorphosis into an adult, an exercise that would prove impossible in the surface film. Therefore there is no 'emerger' pattern, only nymphs and to a lesser extent adults.

Adult females will crawl down a submerged piece of vegetation to lay eggs before crawling back up again. Though if the fish were targeting females in the shallows the bodies of the damsels in the fish would be brown, not blue. So I suspect they may have been taking dead or dying adults on the surface. I doubt very much a trout could catch an adult damsel in flight.