Adams

Dry fly imitating mayflies and caddis, for trout. Intermediate. Leonard Halladay, 1922.

Mixed brown and grizzly tail, a grey dubbed body, upright grizzly hackle-tip wings and a collar of brown and grizzly hackle.

Materials

Steps

  1. Attach thread Attach the thread at 90% of the way along the shank with a few turns and trim the tag end. Leave one eye-length bare behind the eye.
  2. Wrap thread Wrap the thread to 75% of the way along the shank in touching turns.
  3. Tie in: grizzly hen hackle tips Tie in the grizzly hen hackle tips upright, 1.8× the gape tall, with turns in front to stand it up. Divide them into a V with figure-of-eight turns. Tie the tips in pointing over the eye, then stand them up with turns in front.
  4. Wrap thread Wrap the thread to the start of the bend in touching turns.
  5. Tie in: brown cock hackle fibres Tie in the brown cock hackle fibres, leaving 1.7× the gape sticking out behind. The tail is about as long as the shank.
  6. Tie in: grizzly cock hackle fibres Tie in the grizzly cock hackle fibres, leaving 1.7× the gape sticking out behind.
  7. Dub: adams grey dubbing (muskrat) Twist a thin noodle of adams grey dubbing (muskrat) onto the thread and wrap it forward to 70% of the way along the shank. Thin and slightly tapered, stopping just behind the wings.
  8. Tie in: brown cock hackle Tie in the brown cock hackle with a few firm thread turns.
  9. Tie in: grizzly cock hackle Tie in the grizzly cock hackle with a few firm thread turns.
  10. Wrap thread Wrap the thread to 92% of the way along the shank in touching turns.
  11. Wind: brown cock hackle Wind the brown cock hackle forward to 90% of the way along the shank in 4 turns. Two turns behind the wings, two in front.
  12. Tie off: brown cock hackle Tie off the brown cock hackle with a few thread turns and trim the excess.
  13. Wind: grizzly cock hackle Wind the grizzly cock hackle forward to 90% of the way along the shank in 4 turns. Wind it through the brown without trapping its barbs.
  14. Tie off: grizzly cock hackle Tie off the grizzly cock hackle with a few thread turns and trim the excess.
  15. Whip finish Form a small head, whip finish with 5 turns and cut the thread.

History

Leonard Halladay, an innkeeper and tyer at Mayfield, Michigan, created the Adams in 1922 and named it after his friend Charles F. Adams, an Ohio attorney. Accounts of how it came about differ: Wikipedia has Adams first fishing it on the Boardman River near Traverse City, Rusty Dunn has him bringing Halladay an insect to copy, and a MidCurrent video has the two of them fishing the Mayfield pond. The original had a golden pheasant tippet tail and hackle-tip wings, which Dunn describes as set three-quarters spent.

The upright-winged, hackle-fibre-tailed Catskill dressing tied today appeared in the 1930s.

Fishing it

A searching dry for when nothing in particular is hatching: it copies no one insect, and its grey passes for mayflies, caddis and midges alike. Fish it on a dead drift. Sizes 12 to 18 are the usual range.

Sources