The Pre-Poob Damsel

Fish 'em young

Pre-Poob Damsel

The first time I ever saw a lighter lime colored "baby" damsel, I noticed how much they really stand out from their surroundings. As opposed to the more natural colored olives, browns, tans etc, these little immature damsel nymphs would stick out like a sore thumb.

So the first time I started to notice these little dudes in the water was an early spring outing a number of years ago. I also had a friend that had taken a nice photo of the bugs previously and so I was inspired to throw out the pattern below. It was fairly complex, bigger and chunkier and never did as I had hoped. It caught a few fish here and there, but nothing crazy. It's a fun fly to tie though, so you can check it out here if you're interested...

The pre-cursor to the pre-poob

So, flash forward to spring this year and I came across good number of these lighter colored smaller bugs in a few throat samples. My noob theory (and later confirmed by my bug buddy Phil) was that as these little guys go through their instar phases, they often maintain a lighter complexion. So in the early spring and fall when they're still going through these phases and haven't yet reached full maturity (in size or color), they stand out as bright little targets for trout on the prowl. The key is light color and slender profile, so the Pre-Poob (pre-pubescent) Damsel was designed to fit that bill.

I tried to keep the pattern relatively simple, but still life-like enough in appearance and motion to keep fish interested. There were a few variations tested before settling on this pattern, but overall the concept has proven to be crazy effective. And if you haven't tied with Arizona Synthetic Dubbing, this is a great pattern to start with. The light dubbing loop method for the body helps keep a slender profile and gets some flashiness in there to boot.

So if you're fishing waters with damselflies, this is a pattern you ~~might~~ definitely want to have on hand. See the video tutorial and material list below.