fish catcher or fisherman catcher

[kingfisher]

ok, with spring baetis coming up on the provo and green, I am looking to tie an army of baetis drys. One of the flys I want to tie is the Adams, and alot of them. what I am wondering is if the little wings on the adams made out of hackle tips is really necessary. Do the fish notice the outline of the wings or are they really just a cool addition to catch fishermen. Taking the wings out of the process would make it that much faster.

[RAW]

King,

LaFontaine claims that one of the first things a trout will see when an adult mayfly comes into the trout's vision window is the wings. I'd have to go back and read in more detail how important he felt this was. Going off of memory, I think he felt it was fairly important. How he knew what the trout could see is amazing to me. He did spend a lot of time laying on river bottoms and observing.

Curtis,

Above statement is not made to belittle your post. Just stating something I had read in the past. I like you have been having more success with more flush floating patterns especially on smoother waters.

[walksinwater]

King,

Check out Fly anglers on Line website. They have a section about a fish's veiw point with photos of a real fly and a tyed fly on water. You decide what the fish is seeing.

In my humble oppinion the upper part of the dry fly is for me to see. So I may mend and slack the line and react to the current to keep it drag free. The bottom of the fly is for the fish to choose a tasty morsel. When the fly disappears, a fish appears. Which will always amaze me.

The wing tips on an adams are also a Scottsmans way of fruggally using a cape and hackle.

[Ouzel]

Good point to bring up. We should try to imitate the natural as much as possible.
Ed Koch, in his book, "Fishing the Midge" pp 98-102 Tying the Little Olive; at least for that fly recomends tying in wings. But he mentions he was fishing a quite stretch of the Yellow Breeches (PA).
As may be noted the big difference between Eastern Flies and Western Flies is that our flies are much bushier because we have more grade to our streames and rivers and their rougher over all.
How good a look does a trout get through a distorted window?
Given the fact that the naturals will have a "certain look" even in bumpy water I think an illusion will serve as well as burning and tying in wings of feathers or calf hair.
The illusion I use is a white post, more often now a rainbow post, tied on a parachute style fly. I also try to tie the post about 1 /12 times the hook gape for no other reason that this is some type of standard for drys.
It would be nice to be a Doctor Dolittle for awhile; I sure would like to get some real answers to these compendious questions.

[Crosby]

Tie all my parachutes with a duck wing for a post- after done cut it to look like an upright wing- seems to work fine.

[Curtis Fry]

If you feel the parachute adams is the pattern you want to go with, I would suggest tying them "thorax" style. Basically, use dun/gray turkey flats for the wings and tie the hackle in there traditional style. Then when you're done, just clip the hackle along the bottom of the fly, giving it a lower flatter profile in the water. Full bodied, bushy hackled patterns are not your best bet for the Provo or the Green. They may work on smaller quicker streams with less educated trout.

Like I've mentioned before here, I personally don't like using many hackled patterns on the Provo and the Green. In my experience, comparaduns and no-hackles had far outfished my traditional hackled patterns (adams, bwo's, thorax, etc etc) on those rivers. Plus IMHO, hackle is a pain in the "neck" to deal with, buy etc etc.

One day, if my fingers are feeling up to it, I'll tell my "why I switched from hackle" story. Won't look back now.

Fishon!!

[mcgx2]

The only real way to answer your question is to tie a bunch of adams with and without wings and see what the results are. I don't know if it would make a difference or not. As stated in some of the other posts and much of the literature I have read, one should try to immitate as much of the fly as possible. IMHO wings do make a difference, if they didn't why would they put them on no hackle flies like paraduns etc?

mcg

[Ouzel]

Part of the fasination with fly fishing, tying flies and flies in general is that it is not static but a moving target and resulting conversations.
Each year biologist, pro fishers, pro fly tyers and individuals learn various new details.
The weather and water life activity can change from moment to moment.
One experience does not make a theorm; and chaos can rule! Boy can it!
The frustation of not solving the current riddle and elation when you do; but that may mean only for that fish; and what about the next one or the next section of water.
But catching fish, for me, is only part of it. Mountains, pine trees, running water, solidtude etc. are other parts of the overall experience.
I am happily, "haunted by waters".