This is an interesting pattern, and an american classic that is worth having in your box. It was created by the american fly fishing guru Lee Wulff and Joe Messinger. Originally the "Irresistible" pattern that Messinger developed, I believe in the 30's, was with deer hair wings, and only brown hackle. Wulff later added the calf tail hair wings, which he is ever so famous for. I'm not sure if Lee Wulff also added the dual-colored hackle, combining the coachman-brown and grizzly, or if this originated from the Irresistible Adams.
First of all it is pretty much unsinkable, which makes it a pretty good strike indicator if you like fishing several flies, and maybe having a nymph or two hanging behind it. This fly is also excellent in tempting fish to rise, even if they don't seem to be in the mood for any of your other flies.
What I find interesting about this pattern is that this can be used the same way as you would with a Humpy dry fly, but also this pattern can pretty much take the place of a salmon Bomober if tied on a larger hook. For this tutorial I have chosen a size 8 hook, with a thick wire to be able to withstand a decent amount of pressure if the really big one were to take it, or a salmon.
For this fly I use the Uni 8/0 in Fiery Brown
First tie in the tail. Originally this fly was tied with natural elk hair for tail, but I chose some very coarse deer hair dyed brown instead. As I didn't have elk hair at the time.
Trim of a bunch of hair from a white calf tail, and stack them well. The more equal in length you get the fibers, the better it will look, and it also makes it easier to separate them into two equal wings later. Tie in well a good 1/5 of the body length behind the hookeye. The proportions I prefer for this fly is to have the front 2/5 for hackle and wings, and the last 3/5 between the hackle and tail is for the deer hair body. If you tie on smaller hooks you might have to adjust a bit. I will however recommend a hook with a good shank length for this fly.
Trim of the calf tail hairs with an angle to help taper the body a bit, but mostly to make sure the fibers won't slip out. Calf hair is very slick!
Tie down the ends of the hairs and make the underbody. Add a thin coat of superglue to make the fly more durable and also eliminating the chance of the wing ever being pulled out.
Now for the fun part; Tie in a decent amount of deerhair or roedeerhair over the body section using the same technique as you would on a Goddard caddis or a muddler head. To make sure you will not trim of the tail in the next step ALWAYS tie the first bunch of hair on with the butt section pointing backwards, and preferably a little bit shorter than the tail.
Now to trim the body. There are several ways to do this; the two most common is to use a sharp razor blade or one can simply just use a pair of scissors. I would might recommend the latter if you aren't very experienced with shaping deer hair, but a razor blade can be much quicker.
Now to split and rise the wing. This step is pretty basic, and the first step is to separate the wing into two equal parts, secure them with first a few crossing turns of thread and then a few figure-8 turns. Once you have the equal parts secured, you simply lift them by making a lump of tying thread in front of the wing. A few more figure-8 or crossing turns may be added again to give more support.
Now tie in the hackles. For this fly I went with a grizzly and a dyed brown grizzly rooster hackle; both genetic. Originally I believe it was called for one grizzly and one Coachman-brown hackle for this pattern. A pretty common color combination that is used in several American dry fly patterns.
Keep both hackle stems adjacent to each other and cover the front 2/5 of the fly in close turns, and preferably an equal amount on both sides of the wing.
Last step is to secure the hackles well, form a head and finish off with a whip-finish. Trim off the thread and add a few coats of varnish to the head.
Irresistible Wulff - J. Messinger & L. Wulff
Hook: Any dry- or wetfly hook will do.
Tail: Elk hair
Body: Deer or roe-deer hair, natural
Wings: White calf tail
Hackle: Coachman-brown and grizzly wound together
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This step-by-step tutorial I actually made many years ago, but I kinda liked how it turned out so I thought it would be worth posting. This little work also gave me a third place in a Norwegian fly-tying contest.
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All photos are taken by me and shall not be used without permission.