Midwest Fly Fishing Online-Fly Tying

The Adams Family
by Dennis Potter

I am hard at work this cold, gray, snowless winter day trying to find the inspiration to refine some new fly designs I have been toying with and the energy to finish a custom order for some classic dry flies. So far I have spent 30 minutes grousing about the clutter of feathers and materials on my tying desk while watching tom turkeys through the window foraging under the bird feeders much to the consternation of the squirrels waiting in the wings.

An image comes to mind of another cluttered tying station but this thought requires a little time travel. The date is in the very early 1920s. The location is Mayfield, Mich., about 50 miles north of Pere Marquette County. The tier is Len Halladay, who had the great fortune of fishing the Boardman River in the late 1800s, when it was still endowed with both brookies and grayling. Can you imagine?

Halladay blessed the fly fishing world with one of the best dry flies of all times, the Adams. The Adams was named for an Ohio attorney who had a summer camp on Arbutus Lake and his namesake fly was first fished on the Boardman River in 1922.

The Adams was thought to represent the caddisflies and stoneflies so common to many Midwest waters. We know today that this venerable bug with all its variations can be used in nearly any dry fly situation.

A few of the more popular Adams patterns are the spent-wing, female, classic or traditional, parachute and Delaware. Except for the more contemporary parachute version, the Adams is tied with grizzly feather-tip wings. In the early days of its history, most Adams wings were made of rooster feathers, which back then were of poor quality but wide enough to provide decent wing outlines. In my tying, I prefer grizzly hen neck feathers to those of rooster and make sure that they have well-rounded tips

I rarely fish the traditional Adams, favoring instead the parachute version with a synthetic wing. The traditional Adams is beautiful when properly tied, but not durable when fished. This lack of durability is caused by the wing feathers. Their stems are generally stiff and small in diameter, leaving a weak spot where tied in. How does one get past this? First, do not strip all the barbules off of the stem. Second, pull up, not down. Let’s look at these techniques individually.

When you tie in wings that have been stripped of their barbules, you end up trying to tie in two stems that are not perfectly round onto a hook shank that is perfectly round. As a result, the stems — usually the outboard stem — roll out of position and cant off at an angle. These wings look bad and can spin the fly when fished on light tippets. To tie the wings in securely, remove the fluffy, soft material toward the base of the feather. Leave the rest of the barbules on the stem, so that you will be tying onto those barbules when securing the feather.

The standard way to set the wings is to match the feathers back to back (convex sides together), hold them to length over the hook, push the stems down to the shank, and use a pinch loop technique, pulling the thread down to lock the wings into position. Wrong! You want to pull the thread in the pinch loop down until it begins to compress the barbules and then bring the thread back up with a second pinch loop and tighten by PULLING UP! This pulls the first loop down on top of the wings with less thread torque so that the wings don’t twist out of position. After the first double pinch loop maneuver, the 6 to 8 wraps to secure the wings to the hook must go toward the rear of the fly. If you don’t wrap back, thread torque can grab the outboard wing and twist it. If you have done this maneuver correctly, you can look down at the fly from above and see that the wings are in alignment over the hook shank.

After you have secured the wings with several tight wraps of thread toward the rear, trim the leftovers and move the thread back to the base of the wings. Using your fingertips, gently lift the wings up and back. This will expose the extra barbules that were tied in. Take a few wraps of thread snug against the base of the wings, segregating the extra barbules. Carefully trim those barbules with your scissors. Be careful so that you don’t inadvertently cut off a wing. Take one or two more wraps of thread in front of the wings, divide them to the degree of “spentness” you desire and criss-cross wrap between the wings to hold them in the desired position. Ta Da! You have just set perfect traditional Adams wings. With a little practice you will get them perfect every time. Well, almost.

Another benefit of tying the wings in with the extra barbules is durability. With this technique, the stems of the wing feathers are encased in a bundle of barbules, protecting them from the force of the thread.
I hate to burst the bubble if dyed-in-the-wool Adams lovers, but try tying some No-Wing Adams. That’s right, tie some of your fishing Adams with no wings. They catch fish, don’t take long to tie and they really hold up.

My two favorite Adams patterns are the parachute and Delaware Adams. Here are recipes:

DELAWARE ADAMS

Hook: TMC 100 or favorite dry fly hook
Thread: 8/0 olive
Tails: Grizzly hackle
Body: Olive superfine dubbing
Body hackle: Grizzly palmered in and wrapped front to back
Rib: Fine gold wire or thread, tying off hackle over barb and wrapped
foreword through the body and hackle
Wings: Grizzly hen neck feathers
Hackle: Brown and grizzly mixed (use lots of hackle)

PARACHUTE ADAMS

Hook: TMC100 or favorite dry fly hook
Thread: 8/0 gray
Tails: Brown and grizzly hackle, mixed
Body: Gray superfine dubbing
Wing: White or light dun Hi-Vis or EP Fibers
Hackle: Brown and grizzly, mixed

Dennis Potter’s column on fly tying techniques appears regularly in Midwest Fly Fishing™ magazine. He can be reached at ausable1@comcast.net. This article appeared in the February 2007 issue of MFF.

If you have a pattern to share with the readers of Midwest Fly Fishing magazine or Midwest Fly Fishing Online, send it and detailed tying instructions to Midwest Fly Fishing, 4030 Zenith Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55410.

*Midwest Fly Fishing*™ magazine 3440 Belt Line Blvd. Ste. 206 St. Louis Park, MN 55416 (952) 920-9028 email: mwfly@mwfly.com
copyright 2007 Midwest Fly Fishing™ Magazine