Dragonfly Lures

[Dorado]

At my honey hole lately, I’ve been seeing some nice bass literally fly out of the water for these huge dragonflies. It’s a feeding frenzy. I know Lunkerhunt makes a dragonfly imitation, so I’m thinking about adding that to the cart to experiment. Any recommendations? I’m not exaggerating when I’m saying that these dragonflies are HUGE

[Team9nine]

River2Sea makes a dragonfly popper, seems more like a Jitterbug type lip, if you can find it. Good review of it on TT.

 

[the reel ess]

I've had good success with a hollow body frog when this is happening, especially in the lilies. Bass are opportunistic enough that they'll take what hits the water when they're staring up, looking for the next meal. If you think about it, a frog would just be another link in the food chain between dragonfly and bass.

[jr231]

Do you own any fly gear . Bass on fly gear is crazy fun. It would also be your closest imitation by far. 

[WRB]

The Ned rig replicates the nymph dragon flies hatch from. The nymph is about 2" to 2 1/2" long and about 1/4" to 3/8" dia, brownish green (green pumpkin). The Darner nymph hides under wood and rocks, climbs out of the water attaches to some wood or steam and hatches as a full grown dragon fly. 

If you are seeing a lot of dragon flies there are lots of nymphs the bass are eating below the water surface and around or under docks.

Tom

[Dorado]

33 minutes ago, Yeajray231 said:

Do you own any fly gear . Bass on fly gear is crazy fun. It would also be your closest imitation by far. 

I do own fly gear and have some awesome damselflies that I used every summer in Colorado, upon a time, for bows.  Good call

[greentrout]

 

the hover lure ... no kidding ... no i don't use it ... never bought it ...

 

good fishing ...

[smalljaw67]

5 hours ago, Team9nine said:

River2Sea makes a dragonfly popper, seems more like a Jitterbug type lip, if you can find it. Good review of it on TT.

 

 

I have the River2Sea Dragonfly and it is a killer bait when bass are after dragonflies. The issue is fishing it around cover, it is very light and uses a single size #10 Daiichi treble hook so it is best used with a medium power rod with no heavier than 10lb line. Casting it is tough, the wings will catch air and it will actually glide so accuracy and distance will be problematic. We used it for river smallmouths, when there was a large amount of Damsel flies around the smallmouth would key on them and totally ignore everything else. So my buddy found the River2Sea bait back in 2006 and we got them just to try and we found they worked great. The action is like a jitterbug but no noise, but 99% of the time you didn't need to move it at all and when you did it was only a few inches before it got crushed. 

[FishingGeekTX]

I fish a lake like that right now as well.  Dragonfiles getting exploded on all day, made me want to fish a dragonfly as well.  No luck so far replicating that personally.

 

I also fish a frog to good success there.  If they aren't hitting the big frog, try the jr.  Booyah's jr works great.  Can't bomb it as far, but it's a nice small profile if they are too shy for the full size.

 

I also bought the lunkerhunt dragonfly, but I liked nothing about it once I got it.  I have not fished it yet, I may, and if it works well, I'll be sure to post.

 

 

[Derek1]

I had the lunker hunter one. It was terrible fell apart after a few casts. 

[greentrout]

 

i've had success working this banana seed zoom floating worm ... small waters ...

 

good fishing ...

[Jrob78]

Live Target makes a hollow body frog that is under 2" in length. You could probably cut most of the tail off and have a pretty small bait that might be better than most of the dragonfly baits on the market.

[Dorado]

On 8/16/2019 at 3:15 PM, Derek1 said:

I had the lunker hunter one. It was terrible fell apart after a few casts. 

I ordered one from TW and it should be here tomorrow. I’ll let you know if I have any positive experiences with it. It looks good on paper

[RealtreeByGod]

I think it's weird how you're so limited in terms of topwater insects considering how much of a fish's diet they account for at different times of the year. If you want to really match dragonflies, mayflies, or cicadas you're basically forced to take up fly fishing. 

[Dorado]

38 minutes ago, RealtreeByGod said:

I think it's weird how you're so limited in terms of topwater insects considering how much of a fish's diet they account for at different times of the year. If you want to really match dragonflies, mayflies, or cicadas you're basically forced to take up fly fishing. 

I respect that. I started fly fishing years before bass fishing, so that mindset is engrained in me still, probably to my demise. I’m known to get tunnel vision on matching the hatch. It’s fun for me, but I wouldn’t say weird haha

[Ratherbfishing]

Don't have any BUT my buddy and I discovered that on a day when the bass were busting the surface for damsel flies, they would almost always hit a soft plastic if it was tossed to the spot.

[OCdockskipper]

On 8/16/2019 at 3:15 PM, Derek1 said:

I had the lunker hunter one. It was terrible fell apart after a few casts. 

I had the same experience, except one fell apart after a few casts and the other split open sitting in the tacklebox.  Do not buy that lure, it is poorly engineered.

 

The best way I have found to imitate dragonflies is to take a matching sized & matching color Senko, rig it wacky (weightless) and skip it to the locations you are casting to (even if it is open water).  The skip cast imitates the dragon fly dipping down to the water.  For the retrieve back, you can move it pretty fast, making it break the surface and then sinking a little, like a dragonfly that got waterlogged and is trying to get back to the surface.

 

You will get bit on the skip out, the drop & the retrieve.  On my lake, the bass move pretty fast to hunt down the large dragonflies, so don't worry about slowing it down for them.  The bass are used to having to hustle if they want a dragonfly for a meal.  I found that even other dragonflies think the lure is a dragonfly, they will zip down towards it as it is skipping out to the target.

[Dorado]

16 minutes ago, OCdockskipper said:

I had the same experience, except one fell apart after a few casts and the other split open sitting in the tacklebox.  Do not buy that lure, it is poorly engineered.

 

The best way I have found to imitate dragonflies is to take a matching sized & matching color Senko, rig it wacky (weightless) and skip it to the locations you are casting to (even if it is open water).  The skip cast imitates the dragon fly dipping down to the water.  For the retrieve back, you can move it pretty fast, making it break the surface and then sinking a little, like a dragonfly that got waterlogged and is trying to get back to the surface.

 

You will get bit on the skip out, the drop & the retrieve.  On my lake, the bass move pretty fast to hunt down the large dragonflies, so don't worry about slowing it down for them.  The bass are used to having to hustle if they want a dragonfly for a meal.  I found that even other dragonflies think the lure is a dragonfly, they will zip down towards it as it is skipping out to the target.

Awesome feedback here. Any particular colors that you’re partial to in these situations? Roboworm makes a “Arizona Dragonfly” worm that I plan on trying this method with next time. It’s light blue and translucent

[WRB]

We I was a kid we caught dragon fly nymphs (Darner) and sold them to fisherman at the boat landing thinking they were hellgrammites for $1 a dozen. I also fished with them catching everything from trout, crappie and bass using what we call a split shot rig and size 8 bait holder hook.

To repeat myself 2" to 2 1/2" Ned worms replicate dragon fly nymph perfectly and the reason they work good. The nymphs are dark brown olive drab color, the dragon fly that hatches is bright colors from red to blue.

Tom

[Dorado]

28 minutes ago, WRB said:

We I was a kid we caught dragon fly nymphs (Darner) and sold them to fisherman at the boat landing thinking they were hellgrammites for $1 a dozen. I also fished with them catching everything from trout, crappie and bass using what we call a split shot rig and size 8 bait holder hook.

To repeat myself 2" to 2 1/2" Ned worms replicate dragon fly nymph perfectly and the reason they work good. The nymphs are dark brown olive drab color, the dragon fly that hatches is bright colors from red to blue.

Tom

Thanks Tom. Would you retrieve the ned worms subsurface while twitching the rod tip? 

[WRB]

Just use cast and let fall like a Senko on a light weight mushroom jig. You modify the Ned worm by adding 3 living rubber jig skirt strands near the front end to look like legs.

The nymphs walk slowly but can also move quickly. Check around the shore line under any wood or larger size rocks and catch a few to look at, if there are dragon flies the nymphs are nearby. You should see dried shell casings attached to wood above the water line left behind after the dragoon fly hatched.

Tom

 

 

[OCdockskipper]

4 hours ago, Dorado said:

Awesome feedback here. Any particular colors that you’re partial to in these situations? Roboworm makes a “Arizona Dragonfly” worm that I plan on trying this method with next time. It’s light blue and translucent

The larger Dragonflies on my lake are brown, almost gold in color.  I use a Senko color called "Green Pumpkin/Amber laminate" (#926), it is green pumpkin on top and a light brown on the bottom.

 

To match a blue damselfly, Yamamoto has a few colors with blue in them, including one named "bruised shin".

[WRB]

Roboworms Aaron's Green Pumkin Ned worm gets it done when dragon flies are abundant.

Tom