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Purple Haze
A dry fly, tied #12–18, carried year round. It imitates nothing in particular, which is the point: it is what goes on when no hatch matches the water temperature.
A parachute dry fly built on the Adams frame with the grey swapped for purple, tied on a standard dry-fly hook in sizes 12–18 with purple 8/0 thread. The tail is moose body hair, the body purple superfine dubbing, the wing post white calf or poly, and the hackle grizzly wound parachute-style around that post. It imitates no particular insect. What it does instead is show up on broken water, where it consistently outfishes the grey version for reasons nobody has satisfactorily explained, and it earns its place as a searching dry — the fly that goes on when the honest match keeps getting refused and there is nothing on the water worth matching anyway. The parachute hackle sets it low in the film while the white post keeps it visible in the chop. Trout are the quarry, and it is a pattern worth carrying in every season.
- #12–18Hook size
- dry flyType
- AllSeason
- —Hatches matched
What it looks like
A drawing, not a photograph, and not traced from one. Its proportions were read off 5 independent reference photographs of the pattern and written down as 5 measured characteristics — wing angle, tail length against the shank, how far a hackle fibre reaches — every one of which had to hold across more than one of them before it could be drawn. What survives across many photographs of a fly is the fly.
What it imitates
It is also tagged for mayflies generally, no hatch at all — a searching pattern.
Tying recipe
In tying order. This dressing is the standard one — these patterns have been in the publicrecord for decades — and materials substitute freely: the proportions and the silhouette are the pattern, not the brand of dubbing.
| Hook | Standard dry-fly hook, sizes 12–18 |
|---|---|
| Thread | Purple 8/0 |
| Tail | Moose body hair |
| Body | Purple superfine dubbing |
| Wing post | White calf or poly |
| Hackle | Grizzly, parachute |
When to fish it
An Adams with a purple body, and it consistently outfishes the grey one on broken water for reasons nobody has satisfactorily explained. A searching dry.
Carried all year.
Target species
- Trout
Rivers it fishes well
Rivers with a page here that sit in the regions where the insects this pattern imitates are recorded — which, for a searching pattern, is all of them. It is a claim about coverage, not a report of a fish caught.
- Au Sable River northern lower Michigan · July mean 72.1°F
- Catawba River the North Carolina mountains · July mean 76.7°F
- Jackson River the Virginia mountains · July mean 66.3°F
- Muskegon River northern lower Michigan · July mean 71.0°F
- Escanaba River the Upper Peninsula · July mean 68.3°F
- Saint Croix River northern Wisconsin · July mean 77.2°F
- Smith River the Virginia mountains · July mean 51.9°F
- Tygart Valley River the Virginia mountains · July mean 74.6°F
- Kalamazoo River southern lower Michigan · July mean 71.3°F
- Aaron Creek the North Carolina mountains · July mean 76.7°F
- Aaron Run the Virginia mountains · July mean 77.1°F
- Aarons Run the Virginia mountains · July mean 74.2°F
Related patterns
Same type of fly, or tied for the same insects.
- Adams (Catskill) dry fly · #12–20 — The original. Rides higher than the parachute in broken water.
- Parachute Adams dry fly · #12–20 — Universal mayfly dun imitation. Every angler carries these.
- Chubby Chernobyl dry fly · #8–14 — Foam attractor and indicator in one. Hopper-dropper season starts here.
- Elk Hair Caddis dry fly · #12–20 — Floats forever, skates on command, works when nothing is hatching.
- Griffith's Gnat dry fly · #18–24 — A cluster of midges in one fly. The winter dry, and the answer to unexplained sippers.