Flies which mimic or suggest a natural animal whether it be a fish, a frog, or an insect, are not lures, that's assuming the trout takes the "fly" for what the angler thinks it does. As trout cannot read, write or speak, we will never know I suppose.

Some years ago I used to fish a South Yorkshire reservoir that allowed all types of angling. The place used to get heavily maggotted and the trout were often very easy to catch early in the season. I tied up a carrot shaped "maggot" made by dubbing cream rabbit fur and ribbing it to look like a white maggot. I also did the same with red dyed fur. Didn't you know that red maggots are extremely effective?

These imitations worked a treat, but for a while only, as in time the trout wised up to the maggots, including real ones and standard nymphs became more effective.

It seems to me that most people who make comments about the damsel with the 'obligatory 3 inches of marabou' have never actually seen what it is the fly is immitating. They don't crawl slowly around, they dart around and do indeed have a wiggly tail, which marabou immitates very well, probably moreso than any other material.
Although some people do call any olive fly with a marabou tail a damsel, of which some are obviously lures. But Just because something has marabou in it, doesn't mean it isn't an accurate (compared with other immitative patterns) representation of a natural food source

I fully agree with that.

The exaggeration of the points of similarity in a fly is what imitative fly fishing is all about.

Aha - Richard Walker's "chinaman" theory !

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"In wine there is wisdom. In beer there is strength. In water there is bacteria." - German proverb
JH based near Southampton

A lure is what Ron has used to get all these "takes"

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Surely all flies are "lures" as we are trying to lure a fish into taking,be it the most imitative of patterns or the weirdest marabou creation that we can think up

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Silversedge
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