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View Full Version : Damsel Fly...what temp. do they emerge



gene goss
06-15-2011, 07:13 AM
I was fishing Davis Lake 6-11 and the water temp. was 59 degrees, we didn't see any Damsel nymph or a adults. Does anyone know what temp. the Damsel emerge at.
I found this info. on Damsel fly
http://bcadventure.com/adventure/angling/bugs/damselfly/damselfly.phtml

jayclarkflyfishing
06-15-2011, 07:33 AM
Gene-
I found this on Phil Rowley's website(http://www.flycraftangling.com/index.asp?p=120)
"Water temperatures in excess of 60F trigger the strongest emergences."

Water temps reached 65 degrees yesterday but still no damsel's.


Jay

Troutstalker55B
06-15-2011, 05:11 PM
Sustained warm to hot air temps will effect water temps and will get ALL the bugs going at the lake. We have not even had a full week of warm weather since the lake iced out. Jay – Did you measure water temps down on permanent weed beds or just the surface? It’s also strange that many fish are in the skinny water, the shallows are blank with food but may offer more comfortable water temps after a long cold winter and spring. I’ll have this puzzle solved soon enough. (famous last words....)

Jon.

1flyfisher
06-15-2011, 06:42 PM
On Davis lake you will get consistent damsel activity at around 62 degree water. Nothing is written in stone. But generally When the water hits 62 and continues to slowly creep up to 65+ the bugs will generally come off day after day. If the water is below 62 degrees (58-60) you may have sporadic bugs coming off one day and not the next. When the water hits 72+ around the 4th it is all usually winding down as far as nymphs swimming. There will of course be adults all over in the bazilions.And you can get some adult dry fly fishing here and there.
Last 3 years have not been good for damsels. It started late and went late. I have never seen it like this before. Crazy late winters/cold springs 3 years in a row.
Last year was the worst hatch for numbers of damsels I have seen since I began fishing the lake in the 80's.
Shittiest fishing too.
I have seen damsels come off as early as late april on davis. And by come off I mean a sprinkling crawling up the banks. The normal average time damsels start to come off is the first two weeks of may. That would be a strong hatch one day and maybe you won't see many the next day. It fluctuates.And then a day later maybe some more again.
The damsel hatch on davis lake on a normal year peaks right about now into the third fourth week of june. By the 4th of july the damsels(NYMPHS) on davis in a normal average year would be winding down. The adults will be flying around through august into early September then they will die off.

The last 3 years there have been weak hatches and they have come off very late due to cold springs and early summer.
You need LOW WIND primarily and warm air temps 70+ to get them to start up and get going consistently. Of course I have seen tons of bugs swimming in the 3 and 4th weeks of june on a good year when the wind is screaming in the afternoon. But that is in strong hatch years after they are in their peak weeks and the morning usually still needs to start off with low winds from morning till around 11 am. Damsels start roughly around 9:30/10 so a morning of low wind at least before 11 is kinda necessary. Once it gets going strong and if that wind comes up around 11 it may of course continue to go strong well into the afternoon up to even as late as 4 pm in the afternoon. On an average day they often taper off around 1pm. But like I just said they can continue later. I have had epic days late in the afternoon in the weed channels with the wind screaming. The high water is also good for that. The weed channels (this is what I am very excited for)will once again reform very nicely with a bit of time. You will see nice weed channels from cowllibaetis island down to second point fugawee and out into the middle of the lake. That will definitely will happen by next summer the latest,,,maybe if we are lucky even late august this year. We shall see.
Same thing unfortunately has happened again this year as last year and the year before and that is another late winter/cold spring..

So the lake is like a month + behind schedule for a normal temperature year.
Add all the water pouring into the lake and how much the lake has risen and that affects the bugs.
Also the bugs that did hatch last year laid their eggs in water that is also way further out so they have to crawl that much further.
There are no weed beds and that prevents them from climbing out.
I would recommend fishing a weighted damsel on a type 2 uniform sink trying to get your bug down 8-12 feet or so. I would put a callibaetis or blood midge trailer 18" behind the damsel.
I would also fish attractor patterns searching and covering as much water as possible till you find fish.
All this high water is a good thing for water quality and all the willows now in the water. But the weed beds will also be late.

One good thing is that we may get a good motor boat caddis hatch. These bugs come off and the hatch and fishing is best when there is high water in the lake. I have seen so many of these bugs come off dozens of seagulls were going nuts for them. Most years it never happens. It takes specific conditions to happen. They only come off in one specific area as far as I know. Happens like once every 6-8+ years or more. First time I saw a good motor boat caddis hatch on davis AND FISH working them(that is the key you need big quality fish) was a few years after the first poisoning when the water level came up and the lake was at max pool like now. BUT EVENTHOUGH there may not be a fishable hatch they are in there in varying numbers. Every summer I see them skittering around in the morning hours as I paddle around the lake. Only one or two sometimes maybe a half dozen. They come off at night of course but often they are still to be found scrambling around out there in the morning. And also as I paddle along every summer I always see a few of their shucks. I will take a picture of live adult and their shucks. But like I said it may not be fishable numbers with fish working them. Specific conditions have to come together. Also you can fish their pupa. I have found their pupa and I know sash likes to fish their pupa. It is a big thick green worm 1.5" long, maybe a little less than pencil thick with a lite pale pinkish/orange head. Very easily imitated and sash does well with that pupa. I personally really never fish it myself but that is just me. I know sash bangs with it.

Also when the lake is high you get many more fish able to comfortably stay in the back of the coves deep into cow bay, around cowllibaetis island, and deep into fugawee and around jenkins/camp 5. You can get strong callibaetis hatches deep in those coves and with the water high fish may be on them heavily(I mean the dry, they always love the nymph). High water is also excellent for fishing around camp 5 and jenkins for callibaetis deep in the cove and also fishing at night from jenkins down to eagles nest/dam with blood midges coming off in those areas in high water years. Last year I saw waves and waves of callibaetis dries go by but no fish where around and no fish were on the dry for that reason. Eventually more of those dink fish came around and started to work the nymph as the season went on but not much callibaetis dry game that I could find consistently. Just a little here and there.

Once we get some 75-80+ air temps at the lake that will kick things into gear. I bet the bugs will start picking up any day now. First more and more midges, and callibaetis, then caddis, damsels, and then blood midges. That is another thing we didn't see much of last year. The huge numbers of caddis like every year in the past. I have no idea what is up with that????Should have been tons of them. Usually by the time the damsels come off you have huge hatches of caddis in the morning right before the damsels start.

That is what I know and have experienced, that is how I know the lake to work and what to expect, that is my assessment of things and the status of the lake....of course nothing is written in stone and things can play out in various ways but that is my take. We shall see.

....p.s.....there are a shit load of callibaetis in the lake and good numbers of blood midges...so do not despair if the damsels are once again weak, they may very well be weak again this year the way things look to be playing out. BUT THEY WILL COME BACK...I promise you......they will be rocking and rolling again. You can't stop them in davis. They survived the rotenone twice, they will be back in epic numbers like the past,,,just may take some time. Same for the blood midges. They take a hit from rotenone. They took a big hit in French,mans when it got rotenoned for pike before davis but they came back there and I have seen very impressive numbers last summer in davis. Very impressive numbers. Not insane (I have seen them literally cover the water from fugawee to lightning tree in the past)but solid numbers and that is a promising sign to get us back to insane blood midge hatches like we had in the past .Snails....sadly I am not so sure about.

gene goss
06-15-2011, 09:02 PM
I like to thank everyone for taking the time to help me with understanding the Dansel fly.

Kevin Goding
06-17-2011, 02:28 PM
Yeah, temperature is important, but you need some time for the larva to get mature enough to molt into adults. Like many plants, insect growth can be predicted by environmental thermal energy input as well, called degree days. So just because you hit a triggering temp, doesn't mean a hatch will occur, there may be no nymphs mature enough to do so. You can come close to predicting when the first nymphs will be ready, if you can deduce when the eggs hatched, and how much thermal energy they need to get to a certain stage of life. Most likely the eggs hatched when the water hit a certain temperature, and that info should be easy to find in some literature, then you would just have to track the water temps, calculate the degree days needed for egg to adult, and use that to give you a ballpark when you should start seeing some emerging damsels. A lot of agricultural sites have degree day information, as they use it to predict plant maturity, but also when to expect certain pest insects to start showing up, so they get their spray rigs ready.

If you're really into it, though, I would try to find at what temp the eggs should be hatching, then see how many degree days it takes to when you see the first adults. After a few years you should have a pretty good predictive model. If for some reason, you can't find anything that estimates at what temp the eggs should be hatching you could work backwards, keep track of when you see the first adults year to year, then use the degree day data to figure stuff out.