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At different times of the year you will start to see swallows dipping on the water feeding on midge. This is the time to start thinking about fishing either damsel buggers or olive woolly buggers. Unfortunately for the midge it's not only swallows that have them on their menu it's also carnivorous damsel nymphs and then of course further up the food chain trout.

Damsel nymphs come in a range of colours ranging from dull browns through to light and dark olives.

This fly is tied much the same as a standard woolly bugger except that it's a little thinner in its profile and a little longer in the tail.

I like to fish my brown damsel buggers on the point generally on intermediate to type 5 lines and to muck round with retrieve rates until I find the one working on the day. In my experience either medium rolly poly or a medium paced stripping action work best.

Materials

Process

A	Wind the thread in touching turns to the bend of the hook. Understanding hooks If your going to add extra weight do that now. I always add 5 wraps of 0.15 mm lead wire to my size #8 damsel buggers and 5 wraps of 0.10 lead wire to my #10 damsel buggers just to ensure that they have negative buoyancy and to create a little drag during the retrieve to ensure that I am in contact with the fly. Adding weight to a fly Tie in a tail about twice as long as the hook. Resist the temptation to make the tail too bulky or too short. Lighter than a woolly bugger tail It's optional but I find that on dull water a couple of strands of sparkle flash álong the side of the tail help. If you adding sparkle flash for a size #8 olive bugger add just 1 or 2 strands each side and for smaller olive bugger just one strand is plenty. Tie in a length of copper wire.

B	Tie in a number of peacock hearls, form them into a rope and wind the rope forward in touching turns to the bead forming a uniform body. Roping peacock herl Tie the herl rope off and trim the excess. Select a body hackle with barbules about as long as the gape of the hook and tie it in at the 95% position.

C	Palmer the hackle down the body to the bend of the hook creating 3 nor 4 segments along the body of the fly. Whilst holding the hackle in place at the bend of the hook with your left hand pick up the wire with your right hand and wind the wire forward forming just 3 or 4 segments along the body of the fly. Body segments on flies Tie the copper wire off behind the bead and worry off the excess wire. Trim away the excess body hackle with a blade. Select a front hackle that has barbels that are around 1.5 times as long as the gape of the hook. Tie that hackle in by the tip. Woolly bugger hackles

D	Trim the tip of where the hackle is tied in also with a blade. Take just 1 or 2 full turns of the hackle just behind the eye of the hook and secure it in place with a few wraps of thread. Trim away the excess hackle with a blade.

E	Stroke the hackle tips back along the fly and then finish securing the hackle in that position with additional wraps of thread. Build up a neat thread head. Whip finish and varnish the head of the fly.

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