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thanks for the encouraging words, Guys.
I'm pretty satisfied with my progress so far as a fly tier,
but require frequent feedback wherever I can get,
just to be sure I'm on the mark.

Co: I'm still not great at proportioning my materials, both in quantity and size. I had difficulty getting the length of the wings short enough, the tail sparse enough, and controlling the hackle density how I thought they should be. But tying 4 in one sitting sure helped - I formed a bit of a rhythm, while working out how to make it all happen.

Gyp: The Adams is right up there with me, although I've only used dries for a few months at the end of this past season. My only-ever Brookie on a dry was caught on an Adams, so that says something. BWO is the other I've had great success with. But the Spring will bring a bunch of different hatches, so I'm going to learn other classics like: Hendrickson, March Brown, Quill Gordon, Red Quill. Also, 'Skues'. There's just something so attractively buggy about that old sparse all-black fly...

wako: yes, the fish get to decide, no doubt. I find that, usually, we tend to stress more about the particulars, than they do. Or at least in my case. Because if the fish even get to see one of my dries it means either that a.) swinging wets has been un-productive or b.) fish are visibly rising in great quantity. If it's case a.) my expectations are so low by that point that even rising a fish is considered a success. and if it's b.) I find that one could probably toss a frayed shoestring pierced with a hook, and you'd still catch fish...

CtKenC wrote:

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One observation I might offer, and it has nothing to do with your tying but with that pattern .... I found those big wings tend to twist the heck out of the Tippet and I no longer Tie or Use them.

heh.
Funny you should mention that.
In my brief experience with dries,
I never had a problem with twisting leader until I tied-on an Isonychia pattern -
which had disproportionately large splayed wings.
I wrote about it, and spurred a discussion here,
if you're interested...

I use a lot of Adams, especially the Chute Adams and find that I don't even tie the standard Adams anymore.

In my experience, I've had better luck with the traditional tie, vs. parachute (gyro) patterns.
They (parachutes) are supposed to fair better in fast-water, correct?

I moved on to tying some Blue-Winged Olives over the past few evenings.
Transitioning from the #12 Adams, down to a #16 for the BWO's, was not easy for the first few.
I kept running out of room, and crowding the eye, leaving no room for a proper head.
Once I worked out the dimensions, they came out ok, but my Dun hackles just are too long, I think?
(I'll post some pics tonight, maybe...)
Proper proportion is the hackle should be about as long as the back of the hook eye, to the hook bend, correct?
The hackle on these is easily as long as the total hook, if not longer.
I tried hackle from both the neck and saddle, but can't seem to find anything small enough from them.
"Grade-3" (Collins) states it should have hackles suitable to tie down to a #16, but this particular one seems larger.
Is it kosher to hand-trim the hackles down, once tied? or are the tips necessary to keep the water-tension for the fly to float?

Going to move on to some Dark Hendricksons now...

(side note: my motivation to press-on through all these patterns is to build-up a little assortment to give my Father for Christmas, as part of his gift.
He ties very well himself, but only winged-wets and soft hackles. So, he'll be getting an assortment of Dries and Nymphs from me:
Adams
BWO
Dark Hendrickson
Pheasant Tail
Gold-Ribbed Hare's Ear)

also, another question on proportion:
I started my first tie by reading this tutorial by Charlie's Flybox,
and then adapting it to what I thought would work for me.
In his Tutorial, he stops his dubbing well-short of the head,
and builds up quite a bit of thread between the head and the dubbing to serve as a base for the Hackle.
Is this pretty conventional?
I had a thought to just bring the dubbing all the way up to the back of the head,
and just hackle right over it, (I do this with soft-hackles and "bearded" wets all the time...)
to save having to build-up a base with thread for the hackle,
but wasn't sure if that would add too much "beef" to the front of a dry fly to be effective?
Does anyone tie theirs this way?