UNI Products Fly Tiers Corner

Creativity By Committee

March 2022

Article and photo by Jimmy Jacobs

The Irresistible Wulff is a dry-fly pattern that could have been created by a committee. If that committee did exist, it would have consisted of Charles F. Adams, Leonard Halladay, Charles Darwin, Joe Messinger, Victor Frankenstein, and Lee Wulff.

The Adams dry-fly pattern is generally credited to an event on Mayfly Pond near Traverse City, Michigan in 1922. Charles Adams saw an insect hatch and asked Leonard Halladay to tie some flies that matched what he observed. Thus, the Adams came to be.

Joe Messinger of Morgantown, West Virginia then used a bit of Darwinian logic to morph the Adams pattern into the Deer-Hair Drake in the 1930s, by adding a spun and clipped deer-hair body. The name of the fly was later changed to the Irresistible.

We haven’t found any information on who first used a bit of Dr. Frankenstein’s methods of sewing body parts together to take the white kip-tail wing of Lee Wulff’s creation and attach it to the Irresistible, but the result is impressive.

The Irresistible Wulff is buoyant and visible. It also is perfect for fishing the rough-and-tumble freestone streams of the Southern Appalachian Mountains. Its ability to stay on the surface in riffle areas, while the white wing is easily seen in the shadows of rhododendron make it a good choice for southern creeks.