Fly organization

[Polarbear78 0]

What are some methods you guys have come up with over the years? When I started tying about a year and a half ago I rushed out and bought at least a handfull of boxes( along with a bunch of materials) and at the time didn't mind... had a box for dries, a box for wets, a box for streamers.. you get the idea. Now that I feel I am getting the feel for tying better and focusing more on quality and not quantity I was trying to think of what the best way was to store the flies I have. Carrying a few boxes every time got pretty old pretty quick... trying to wade down the river with my vest loaded with 5 fly boxes got pretty annoying. I'm not taking credit for coming up with the idea as I have seen it before, but I have now started using those plano utility trays or what ever they are called to store all my flies in and only put what I am planning on using in one easy to carry convient fly box when I go somewhere, or take the entire box if I'll be in a boat or something. You can adjust the little compartments to fit what ever size fly you need to fit in there. For my dry and wet flies I plan on printing out the pattern and size on a sticky label and attaching it to the little divider, kind of how you see in some fly shops where they have all of the individual flies you pick out yourself. For my bass, pike and panfish flies I don't really pay attention to hook size so for those I will just separate the flies by different patterns or types of patterns... Hopefully this helps somewhat for now as I am sure later down the road, just as in fly tying I will learn a few more tricks every now and then to make things easier and think back and ask myself why I didn't think of this before.

[lykos33 0]

Same prob here..too many boxes of different types o' flies. ..and now I've added salmon flies to the mix... May have to try your method..thanks for the idea!

[Crotalus 0]

I have a mayfly/midge box, a caddis box, a streamer box, a terrestrial box and a nymph box. This year I am adding a pike/meat box.

 

But the one I carry the most is the Cliff's Super Days Worth that holds mayflies, midges, caddis, streamers, terrestrial and nymphs I can carry 2-3 of several different patterns. If I am going to a known local stream then that is the only box I take, if I am going to unknown water all the boxes go in the gear bag but stay in the vehicle unless I need something that I dont have in the CSDW.

 

If I had any say at Cliff Outdoors I would make the box waterproof and use microslit foam for the dry fly section

[kentuckytroutbum 0]

I have the Flambeau Blue Ribbon boxes with the removable leaf in the middle. Allows me to organize by flies by type. They're waterproof, and the VFF for holding flies, and don't get torn up by the hook points.

[MIKE*A 0]

I use the plano boxes as well......I would typically stck one or two boxes for trips down to the river....if i am in my kayak, I just load everything up in the boat bag.....That Cliffs box Croatalus suggested might be the ticket....I haven't seen one yet, but wil certainly look into them....

 

Mike

[iFly 0]

A lot of the flies i use have weedguards which get mashed or bent in a fly box so i just put them in a watertight electronics box. Not super organized but it beats using a fly with a bad weed guard in grass.

[YoughnessMonster 0]

I have a dry box, nymph box, streamer box and an junkfly box. All are arranged in a disorganized fashion. I have a swing leaf box for my dries with slit foam but have noticed that the hackle get mangled from not having enough room. Is it better to use compartment boxes for dries?

[Lance Kekel 0]

I'm a bit of a packrat but I can generally keep myself to 4 full sixe boxed and midge box. I group mine like this:

 

1 - Dries: light colored mayflies and caddis

2 - Dries: dark colored mayflies and terrestrials

3 - nymphs and emergers

4 - streamers

 

1 - small box for tiny flies.

 

The only wild card to this is when I'm going to be fishing a when the larger dark mayflies are the focus I'll sometimes skip the streamer box and carry a slightly larger compartment box of dun style flies to cover those that are size #12 and larger. I tie a lot of these as catskill style and I don't want them getting crushed by loading up a double sided box. The other dark mayfly box then carries all the spinner patterns.

[flytire 0]

[carlp5351 0]

Here are a few articles I did on my blog. So far I have give a tour of 5 of my fly boxes. What I have realized is that I'm not done, I still have about 4 boxes to go.

 

 

 

http://cpsflyfishingandflytying.blogspot.com/2011/02/fly-box-tour-box-1-all-things-little.html

 

http://cpsflyfishingandflytying.blogspot.com/2011/02/fly-box-tour-box-1-all-things-little.html

 

http://cpsflyfishingandflytying.blogspot.com/2011/03/fly-box-tour-box-3-caddis-and-mayfly.html

 

http://cpsflyfishingandflytying.blogspot.com/2011/03/fly-box-tour-dry-fly-boxes-1-and-2.html

 

http://cpsflyfishingandflytying.blogspot.com/2011/12/fly-box-organization.html

 

carlp

[H.Champagne 0]

I organize my flies by time of year, not wet or dry. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter. I can build perfect boxes based on what could hatch. Anyone who has been fly fishing even a few seasons has a rough idea of what is going to come off that day. Saves a ton of space.

[ThreeJsDad 0]

I like the idea of doing it by seasons but I follow something similar to Rene Harrop. I have a box of dry MayFlies, a Nymph box, Terrestrial and Caddis box, a Box or two of Olives and now a couple of boxes of Midges. i have been using the Myran boxes for many , many years. I have some that are 10-15 years old.

 

Paul

[Guest]

 

Now that's just too damn neat! Just kidding-great looking boxes.

 

Dave

[dogsnfish 0]

I had separate boxes for caddis, mayflies, stoneflies, midges, streamers, nymphs, attractors. Spouse gave me a 32 compartment Wheatly for Christmas so decided to take the David Hughes approach and have two boxes I carry everywhere with representatives of the major bug groups. Now I am trying to have one extra box for each of the places I fish, so I am only carrying three boxes at a time (except for steelhead, where I only carry one or two boxes). We will see how it works this year!

[FrequentTyer 0]

Wow! You are all much more organized than I am. I just started filling a 5 tray Richardson chest pack this winter that I'm hoping will replace the 4 small boxes I have been using. I also have a warm water box and about 5 poorly organized Altoid tins. I knew that I was poorly organized, but seeing Flytire and Carlp's boxes I'm feeling rather inadequate.