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Thread: Try out this dressing for a Damsel Nymph

  1. #1
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    Default Try out this dressing for a Damsel Nymph

    I generally use a Kamasan B830 for this fly, sizes 8 to 14.

    Silk: Olive Green

    Tail: A plume of olive rabbit fur from a zonker strip

    Body: Olive ostrich herl

    Rib: Oval gold tinsel

    Hackle: About 3 turns of brown partridge hackle wound in at the head.

    You can add red eyes but the trout don't seem to mind the omission. You can wind some lead wire around the hook shank if you want it to sink quickly.

    I call the fly The SA Damsel due to the fact that I created it whilst sitting on the veranda of a cottage overlooking a rather well known Eastern Tvl trout dam in 1993.

    I have caught many thousands of trout with this thing, including rainbows to 18 1/4 lbs. In 1999, it took "Trout Hideaway" near Pilgrim's rest apart with this fly. I landed 50 trout up to 11 1/4 lbs, including a brown of 7lbs.

    It is particularly effective on Rutland Water. I think the secret is the rabbit fur for the tail instead of marabou, which has more than a tendency to wrap itself around the hook shank whilst casting with any vigour.

  2. #2
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    Thank you Ron.
    Would it be possible to post a pic ot 2 of the completed fly????
    It's not in the catching, it's in the learning something new.
    view albums at. http://www.flytalk.co.za/forum/album.php?u=659

  3. #3
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    Geez Ron, this sounds like a nice fly.
    You got a pic? Always helps for us dyslexics....
    Behold the fisherman. he riseth early in the morning and disturbeth the whole household. mighty are his preperations. he goes forth full of hope and when the day is ended, he returneth smelling of strong drink and the truth is not with him. originator unknown.

    my stuff.... http://www.flytalk.co.za/forum/album.php?u=824[/SIZE]

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by rols View Post
    Geez Ron, this sounds like a nice fly.
    You got a pic? Always helps for us dyslexics....
    Totally off the topic, but how did your girls do this year ???????
    It's not in the catching, it's in the learning something new.
    view albums at. http://www.flytalk.co.za/forum/album.php?u=659

  5. #5
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    I don't have a pic at the moment. I have about 5 of them in different sizes in my fly box. I'll see what I can do.

    Yes it's a very good fly and it works all over Europe too.

    I am particularly interested to see if it catches yellowfish. The Vaal River used to have tremendous hatches of dragon and damsel flies.

    Year ago I often caught yellows and moggel on the little silvery shrimps you used to catch in the weeds with a little net made with wire and a ladies pantyhose.

    By the way, I used to catch lots of Vaal River mudfish on various nymphs and Moggel on a little back and lime green nymph, called the "Christobel Nymph" after a dam I used to fish near Dullstroom.

    My biggest moggel were taken from Sterkfontein Dam in the mid eighties. Hell those fish used to scrap. We also caught lots of SM yellows and the odd LM bass.

    I hear that it is now a major bass water with plenty of smallies.

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ron Clay View Post
    I don't have a pic at the moment. I have about 5 of them in different sizes in my fly box. I'll see what I can do.

    Yes it's a very good fly and it works all over Europe too.

    I am particularly interested to see if it catches yellowfish. The Vaal River used to have tremendous hatches of dragon and damsel flies.

    Year ago I often caught yellows and moggel on the little silvery shrimps you used to catch in the weeds with a little net made with wire and a ladies pantyhose.

    By the way, I used to catch lots of Vaal River mudfish on various nymphs and Moggel on a little back and lime green nymph, called the "Christobel Nymph" after a dam I used to fish near Dullstroom.

    My biggest moggel were taken from Sterkfontein Dam in the mid eighties. Hell those fish used to scrap. We also caught lots of SM yellows and the odd LM bass.

    I hear that it is now a major bass water with plenty of smallies.
    Sterkfontein has no smallmouth bass, but plenty largemouth bass. Which is a concern. Lots of smallmouth yellows though, and the largemouth yellow population is there too, but not in the same numbers.

    Cristobel is one of the trophy dams at Millstream, yes.

    The hatches you witnessed of dragons and damsels on the Vaal is no longer...they are there but not like that anymore. The water quality has deteriorated something ugly. This is of course from the Barrage down past Orkney.

  7. #7
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    Well I guess my informant can't tell the difference between a SM and a LM bass.

    I remember well the early days on Sterkfontein. Me and Malcolm Meintjes caught some nice rainbows that were as fat as little pigs. But the best fishing I had with Bill Steele in his boat "L'il Pickle".

    We caught lots of rainbows up to about 2 kg. What was remarkable was the condition of these fish, fat as butter!

    Then we caught SM yellows and moggel on the fly - plenty of them. There is a picture of me in Bill's book - African Fly-Fishing Handbook with a good moggel. They are not the prettiest fish but they sure pull like mad on trout tackle.

    We also caught a few small LM bass. My guess was that there must have been a few farm dams containing bass that were flooded, hence the unofficial stockings.

    One thing that was a bit offputting was the fact that the farmers on land bordering the expanse of water did not like the people on the boats. I have friends who were shot at!

    I hope it's not like that now.

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