Bent Adams

The Bent Adams - or Bent Wing Adams - is a variation on the popular and ever effective Adams dry fly pattern. Begin by securing your thread to your hook, starting at about the two-thirds point. For the tails, use eight to ten Coq de Leon fibers - a tan speckled feather here. Tie these onto the top of your hook shank back to where the bend of the hook begins. Travel back up to the two-thirds point to begin working on the bent wing. I'm using a grey, barred feather from a Ringneck Pheasant skin. Select your feather, and remove the fuzzy bits from the bottom of the feather. Take the tip of the feather in your fingers and stoke an even number of fibers down from either side of the stem. Wet your fingers to create a point out of the tip fibers. I use a nozzle from a bottle of UV resin to help create the wing. Push the wetted tip of the feather through the base of the nozzle until it begins to stick through the top of the nozzle. Slowly pull of the feather tip to bring part of the feather through - now bent - until it reaches the size you want for your wing. Next, secure the feather by tying it to the top of the hook shank right behind the nozzle tip. Once secure, remove the nozzle and trim away the base of the feather stem and any fibers behind your tie in point. From there, travel to the front of the wing and place several jam wraps at the base of the wing to help it stand up. Now return to the base of your tails. Superfine dubbing in an Adams Grey is used for the abdomen. Taper your abdomen so it is thin at the tail base and grows wider moving towards the wings. Make sure to leave enough space behind the wings to tie in your hackle. Next, split the wing tied in earlier. You do this by carefully pulling the wing in half holding the wetted tips. The feather should split right down the stem creating two well formed wings. Make sure to continue the split all the way down to the hook shank. From there, you can trim out the balance of the wetted tip from each wing, leaving you with two nice looking wings. Finally, tie in one Furnace hackle feather and one Grizzly hackle feather behind the wings. Wrap the Furnace hackle - using touching wraps - tight behind and tight in front the of wing. Once you are near the hook eye, secure the hackle and trim the stem close to the hook shank. Next, do the same with the Grizzly hackle, taking touching turns through the Furnace hackle already in place. Trim it off once you get behind the hook eye. Grab your whip finisher to secure everything and remove your thread. This is a great looking pattern, and it will bring the fish in.