How to Tie the Adams Irresistible Fly Pattern

Learn how to tie the Adams Irresistible fly pattern, including step-by-step instructions, a video tutorial, pictures, and much more. Improve your fly-tying skills here.

The Adams Dry fly needs no introduction. It is arguably one of the most popular and bestselling patterns out there. It was created in 1922 by a man named Leonard Halladay. The Irresistible Fly with its fat deer hair body was created by Joe Messinger of Morgantown, West Virginia in the 1930's. The Adams Irresistible is just one of his many variations of his Irresistible Fly. It floats high and it's great in fast water.

Material List

• Hook: TMC 100 in size 10
• Thread: Veevus GSP 100 in Black and Danville's 6/0 in Black
• Tail: Hareline Moose Body Hair
• Body: Hareline Natural Deer Hair
• Wings: Whiting Hen Cape in Grizzly
• Hackle: Whiting Dry Fly Cape in Grizzly
• Whiting Dry Cape in Brown

Video Transcript

The Adams dry fly needs no introduction. It's arguably one of the most popular fly patterns out there. It was created in 1922 by a man named Leonard Halladay, and the Irresistible fly with its fat deer body hair was created by Joe Messinger of Morgantown, West Virginia in the 1930s. The Adams Irresistible is just one of his many variations of his Irresistible fly. It floats high and it's great in fast water.

Here's the fly in the vise. Our hook today is a TMC 100 - that's their standard dry fly hook - and it's in a size 10. Our thread is Veevus GSP 100 in black. We'll get the thread started about a third of the way back down the hook shank and wrap back to the hook bend.

Moose body hair - we'll take five or six strands of that, get that in a stacker to even it up. We want it to be about a hook shank in length. Take a few sort of loose turns to hold it on top of the hook. If you take really tight turns it tends to flare the tail out a lot more than what I like. We'll capture those ends up where we started our initial tie-in, take some nice tight turns all the way back, and when we get to the base of the tail, loose turn - that's about what you want for a flare. Get rid of our excess. Now we're going to take our whip finish tool here and tie that off to keep from pushing our deer hair off the back of the hook when we tie the body in.

The body of this fly is just some natural deer hair. We're going to tie this in two separate clumps, so we'll take a clump about maybe half a pencil width, get rid of all the junk, cut off the tips which we don't need, and we'll take two loose wraps over it, then pull tight and let go of our material so that it spins around the hook. Wrap through it and up towards the eye. Now because of the hook bend, the material doesn't like to spin completely through it, so we'll take our bodkin here and just kind of help it along. I think that'll work.

We'll take another clump about the same size, get rid of all the junk and the fuzzies, get rid of the tips which we don't need, and just like before - a couple of loose turns, pull it tight, let it slip through your fingers, and around it goes. Advance your thread through it to the eye, take a couple-turn whip finish here to tie that off. I'm going to cut our thread and work on shaping the body next.

We're just going to go through this and make sure we don't have any stuck material. To shape the fly, we want an eventual teardrop shape, and the way I attack that is to make four square cuts - one across the top, then the bottom, then the two sides. Now we're going to start shaping the body, trim this off at an angle back towards the moose body here. You have to be really careful here - you don't want to cut that tail hair. As long as you take your time, you should be okay. I have seen people take painter's tape and tape off the moose hair to keep them from clipping the materials. I've actually tried that and I just find this easier for me.

Square up the front of this fly some before we finish shaping it. Keeping that squared up greatly aids when you're going to tie in your wings and your hackle. Now it's just a matter of trimming the hair away until you get the shape that you want. Just remember that what you cut, you can't put back. I think that will fish.

Next we're going to tie in some Danville's 6/0 Flymaster in black and we'll form a jam knot. I use the two types of thread because the gel-spun - I can really bear down on that deer hair and not worry about breaking my thread.

The wing is just going to be some hen hackle feathers. We'll pick a couple out - we're just going to use the tips - and we want to tie those in so the shiny sides of the feathers are facing each other. We want these to be about a hook shank in length. Because of that big body in my way, I tie these in a little bit backwards. Get them where I want them and we can tie them in. Keep our thread in front of the feathers and form a thread dam to stand the wings up.

Next we're going to tie in our hackles - there will be two. One is a grizzly hackle taken from a saddle, and we'll prepare that like we always do. We'll pull the barbules out away from the stem and cut those off. The other is a dark barred ginger - brown is also traditional. We'll tie these in right behind the wing. I'm going to tie them in together with their shiny side out and wrap them forward separately.

Forward to the hook eye - I'll reposition our hook so the thread doesn't fall off the eye. We'll start wrapping our hackle, starting with the grizzly. Pull the turns behind and jump in front of the wing, reach the eye, capture it, cut off our excess. Now the dark barred ginger - cut off our excess. We'll sweep the hackle back out of the way, form a small head, whip finish tool, make a four or five turn whip finish, cut the thread. And some head cement - this is Loon's water-based - wick it out of the eye, and our fly is finished.

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