Is the Damsel a lure or an imitative fly

[SouthFly]

It was tied on a size 14 grub hook, unfortunately my damsel patterns were in a fly box that I forgot in South Africa when I moved up to Scotland.  I guess the total length looking at the hook size is maybe a little more than an inch in length.

Usually I'm lazy, I take a piece of mink zonker for the abdomen.  I shave off the hair (I keep this to dub the thorax) except for a little tuft for the gills.  Then using a needle, I lay a few turns of olive thread over the abdomen to try an acheive a segmented look.  It results in a much more durable fly than the Flemmish woven marabou body of the one I've posted (though the woven abdomen does look more impressive ;-)  )

[haresear]

It was tied on a size 14 grub hook, unfortunately my damsel patterns were in a fly box that I forgot in South Africa when I moved up to Scotland.  I guess the total length looking at the hook size is maybe a little more than an inch in length.

Usually I'm lazy, I take a piece of mink zonker for the abdomen.  I shave off the hair (I keep this to dub the thorax) except for a little tuft for the gills.  Then using a needle, I lay a few turns of olive thread over the abdomen to try an acheive a segmented look.  It results in a much more durable fly than the Flemmish woven marabou body of the one I've posted (though the woven abdomen does look more impressive ;-)  )

If your fly is just over an inch long, that makes it an even more impressive tying.

Any chance of a photo of your mini zonker version. It sounds interesting, especially to a lazy git like me

Alex

[SouthFly]

It's about 1 1/4 inch total length, so it's not too small, beats trying to tie a size 22 kinkhammer ;-)

Like I mentioned, I forgot my damsel box back in SA so I don't have any to photograph, I'll try and get round to tying one up, just need to check if I can find suitable zonker (the leather can't be too thick)

The most painful thing about moving to Scotland was that I didn't want to risk flying in with all my skins and capes with the bird flu restrictions, i donated 2 tesco's bags full of capes and skins to a group that I use to be involved with, we use to go to schools etc to do fly fishing development to get the youngsters involved in fly fishing and fly tying, at least it went to a good cause.  Thus, I donated all the zonker I had, most of it really big stuff for tying things similar to pike flies.