Description

My passion for fishing stillwaters continuously has me thinking about what my next step is going to be in fly-tying.  Having many successful and popular stillwater patterns already out on the market, this is becoming a more difficult task.  The biggest thing that is a must in all the patterns I tie and fish is what I call "suggestive movement."  Movement is essential in stillwater flies, as the pattern has to look natural and breathes in the water.  My goal each time I tie a new or existing fly for lakes is to have as many moving parts on the fly as possible.  With the Damseleech, this is exactly what I did.  By combining two very successful patterns, the Zack-Attack Damsel and the Zallibaetis Callibaetis, I took the long sparse tail from the Zack-Attack and combined it with the body of the Zallibaetis to create quite possibly the most suggestive and deadly fly I have designed yet.  The main idea with doing this is that when I retrieve the fly; whether it be a pull n' pause retrieve or a hand twist, the tail and body pulsates in the water.  These have worked quite well for me sight fishing to some very large native trout up to 15lbs over the last year!