Nymph
photo: Alex Cerveniak
Size: ~10mm to ~30mm
Habitat:
- areas with slow to medium current
Behavior:
- often found on or near underwater structure such as logs
- swim by wagging their abdomen back and forth. With smaller nymphs, this wagging motion becomes more of a snake like.
- while swimming, their legs usually stay semi-rigid, sticking out from their thorax
- highly carnivorous
- found in both stillwaters and streams
Imitations:
 Damselfly Nymph- Click Photo for Recipe |
 JR Damselfly Nymph- Click Photo for Recipe |
 EZ Damsel Nymph- Click Photo for Recipe |
Emergence
Damselflies crawl out of the water onto shoreline structure where they emerge from their nymphal shuck, therefore, this phase of their life cycle is unimportant to anglers.
Adult
 photo: Alex Cerveniak |
 photo: Alex Cerveniak |
Size: Varies, but generally, adults are around 20mm to 30mm
Habitat:
- Damselfly adults spend most of their time near both lakes and streams
Behavior:
- Damselfly adults are mostly seen flying around or resting on waterside vegetion
- While they are excellent fliers, they can often find themselves ‘stuck’ in the surface film of lakes/ponds, or sometimes resting on top of it.
- Can be found in many colors, including chartreuse, olive, black, kingfisher blue, brown.
- Not an important food source for trout, but an excellent insect to imitate for warmwater species such as bass and panfish
Imitations:
Video 
References
TroutNut.com’s Damselfly Page
Basic info on damselflies as well as some excellent photographs
Damselflies of North America
Excellent damselfly photography
Wikipedia’s Damselfly Page
Information on damselflies
Alex