If you watched my last FishTales Video you would see that the bass were keying in on big dragonfly's so I made one in the field.. worked like a charm but didn't hold up to well. Have any of you got a good tough dragonfly tie?

I saw some of the biggestt dragonflies I had ever seen on the water yesterday, I bet the fish key in on the nymphs rather than the adult flies, more plentiful and easier to sit in the current and wait for.

ding, ding, ding, we have a winner!! derik, is right. yesterday there was a huge hatch of dragonflies going on at a tank we were fishing near mexia, but it was the nymphs the panfish and bass were eating.

If you tie a Montana Nymph in olive with a light olive thorax and olive or black hackle, it will imitate a dragonfly nymph pretty well and they hold up great. Size 6-10 long nymph hook. Classic versatile pattern.

Well maybe so on the nymphs but what I saw was bass going airborne to get the adults! Really cool! I'll be tying up some adult dragonfly flies today.. photos later..

dragonfly or damsel? dragonflies don't land on water... i confused

HL&S, I've always just used a longish foam body and flash for the wings. If I'm feeling really fancy, I'll add some legs. It's simple, durable, and effective.

there are many simply ties for both drys and nymphs using swiss straw. I usually use foam: cut out the pattern and coat it in some fly tying paint stuff to close up the cells.

To add shiny durable wings tie on some very thin flash (ie Angel Hair at BPS) at the wingcase and coat it with loon's hard head or the like. Put the stuff on your fingers and run it through the flash laterally away from the fly. when it dries you'll have nice looking wings.

The hardest problem about tying damsels keeping them level. I've resorted to cutting out my own foam eyes and staying away from the mono ones. Definately stay away from bead chain... too heavy. Otherwise they fly will spend most of its time going snorkling

I just found this after I had made up my own tie.

Dragonflys the big ones! I'm not terribly worried about whether the real ones land of the water or not because when the bass has the opportunity for an easy meal they often pounce on it!

and this one

OK here is my version of the Dragonfly video

I like how simple it is. Great job HL&S

I did some testing and the dragonfly works. May need a few tweaks here and there but the basic design is solid and so simple to tie.