Just curious on what are every buddies favor first day dry flies are.
Say you could only care a hand full of flies what would they be?

The one dry I fish first is a Gary LaFontaine pattern he dubbbed the Gray Coughlin. It's a caddis dry that also seems to cover a number of light-brownish mayfly hatches.

Hook size: 10-22
Thread: Brown
Tail: Brown Hackle ( I prefer Whiting)
Body: Hare's ear tapered to decent thorax
Wing: LaFontaine used grizzly hackle points but I prefer gray zo-lon (sp?) a crinkly synthetic that I think catches and mixes light nicely
Hackle: Brown and grizzly mixed.

This is my go-to fly. I don't carry an Adams anymore.
Coughlin

Size 14 Adams.

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Thanks for sharing I haven't heard of this fly but sounds easy enuff. Shoulda bought that cree from Becker. Perfect fly to tie with it.

Size 14 Parachute Adams or a 14-16 Elk Hair Caddis

Elk hair caddis and Griffiths Gnat. Big and small can catch them all!

For dries, you generally have mayflies, caddis, midges, and terrestrials to cover.

For all but maybe terrestrials, there are "generalist" flies which can do a decent job of covering anything within that category, but it's real hard to find flies that cross categories very well.

For mayflies, I'd be just fine with parachute adams in the appropriate size. If forced to choose one size, it'd probably be a 16, which is going to cover sizes 14-18 well enough. Drakes, MB's, and tricos are about all I ever run into outside of that size range, and you can use the midge for tricos.

Caddis, I'd probably take a CDC over a deer/elk hair pattern. Deer/elk hair patterns float too high. That's great for skittering, but it sucks when you want to fish in the film. With the use of floatant, for me, it's harder to sink a high floater than it is to raise a low floater.

Midge - I'd be fine with a black thread body, size 26 or so. As said, it doubles as a trico. Usually I tie em as tricos, spent winged with tails. If I need a midge, snip the tails off, spit some tobaccy on the wings to darken, ruffle the wings up, and dry em. You have essentially a griffith's gnat!

Terrestrials - I'd go with a black ant or beetle. That's about all I use in the terrestrial dry fly category, actually.

Size 14 parachute mayfly with light dun chute, tan body, and dun tial and hackle.

Any thing tied with CDC :)

My go to fly right now is the Royal Wulff, I've used it every trip this year and have catch about 50 trout with it so far. I'm doing a one fly season this year, meaning I'm going to fish with it until I don't catch any trout. I'll keep everyone posted on it.

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I thought the Grey Coughlin was an Adams with duck quill wings. The duck wings give that tented caddis effect. Are your Z-lon wings tied upright, or back over the body?

My go to drys are either parachute Adams or quill parachutes for variety, and the traditional Toth EHC. The CDC and elk are easy and effective, but I think the traditional pattern is more durable.