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There are over 100 different species of Damselflies in Australia and the lava which are usually slender with three terminal gills, that present as tails, form a significant part of a trout's diet. Their bodies have around 10 segments, they have 6 legs and they often have emerging wings. Most appear to be shades of yellow / olive and brown / yellow with some being quite dark and others quite pale. Eucumbene damsels are generally a mid olive in colour and around 3cm in length.

This fly captures some of these elements and has a hot spot of red eyes.

Materials

Process

A	Wind the thread from behind the eye of the hook to the bend of the hook and back to the eye of the hook. Cut a bunch of rabbit fur of a zonker strip or off the pelt. Tease out most of the under fur so that what you are left with is predominantly guard hairs. Keep the under fur that was teased out to use as dubbing. Your going to tie in what looks like a tail but at the front of the fly rather than at the bend of the hook. It's worth measuring the bunch of fur against the shank of the hook so that you get the correct length. Understanding hooks

B	Tie the bunch of rabbit fur in directly behind the eye of the hook on top of the hook shank. Using figure of 8 wraps of thread tie in a section of closed cell foam or a short length of micro chenille that is about as wide as the the gape of the hook. This is wider than the finished eyes but you do trim it later to about half the width. The eye material is about 2mm X 2mm if its closed cell foam or 2mm diameter if its chenille.

C	Continue winding the thread to the bend of the hook tying in, as you proceed, a length of fine copper wire along the top of the hook shank to the bend of the hook.

D	Select a bunch of rabbit fur about the same as that selected for the front of the fly but dont tease the under fur out this time. Tie the rabbit fur in as a tail that is about as long as the hook. Trim the butt ends of the two bunches of rabbit fur so that they match up and form a relatively uniform under-body. Wind the thread forward to the half way mark.

E	Tie in a length of lead wire along the top of the front half of the hook shank. Adding weight to a fly

F	Wind the lead wire forward to just behind the eyes. For this size #10 hook I have taken 7 turns of 0.015 lead wire.

G	Build up a damsel shaped body between the bend of the hook and the eyes. The body should start thin progressively doubling in thickness by the time the body reaches the 2/3 position and then reduce back to the same thickness as at the bend of the hook. Single strand dubbing

H	Wind the copper wire forward to just behind the eyes creating 7 or 8 body segments on the fly. Body segments on flies Take an extra turn of the wire behind the eyes and then worry off the excess.

I	Pull the front bunch of rabbit fur back over the eyes to represent the wing casing. Take several firm turns of thread behind the eyes locking in the emerging wing.

J	Add a little dubbing back to the thread and dub a collar behind the eyes that covers where the emerging wing was tied in. Take the thread forward under the eyes and whip finish the thread behind the eye of the hook. Trim the thread and varnish the whip finish. To finish the fly brush a piece of Velcro down each side of the fly to pull out some additional dubbing fibres to represent legs. Trim the eyes to the correct width which is about half the width you started with.

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