Storing and Organizing Tied Flies

[sandflyx 0]

Just one stack out of several,

[Wavey1988 0]

I have a random assortment of fly boxes they go into. Mostly foam lined, some with compartments. That's when I remember to put them in said boxes. I have a random selection of flies on my desk that sometimes get stored in my hand.

[notenuftoys 0]

I don't store every fly I tie in a fly box - I use small baggies, and label them. Too often I can't remember the name of a fly a year after tying it, so labeling helps.

 

 

I recently saw Cliff's Big Cliff and Super Day's Worth boxes, and I'm going to give one of them a try. It will hold zebra midges of 2 or 3 colors, parachute Adams, parachute BWO, pheasant tail, prince nymphs, copper johns and wooly buggers in a couple different colors. My thinking is these are the most common flies, and will most like be used on almost any trout water I go with. Then I can just add another box or two for specific types of flies that match a specific river's hatch.

 

At least this is my theory. We'll find out over the next few months if this theory actually works.

[BassMouth87 0]

I did a bit of an overhaul today in order to try and keep my fly stock a bit more organized.

 

I emptied all of my fly boxes and moved everything into plastic craft containers in the following categories:

 

Pan Fish

SteelHead- Spey

Steelhead- ESL's Bunnies

Trout

Terrestrials & Foam

Poppers

Eggs

Buggers

Clousers

CrayFish

Dries

Swap Flies

Flies Tied by Others

Assorted(Random)

 

As my collection of flies grows I plan on extending the boxes to 1 of 2, 1 of 3, etc but these will be the main storage area of flies that have just been tied, or flies that are in surplus. All of my fly boxes are now empty in preparation for the season. As it approaches I will start tossing together boxes that correspond with species or the area I am fishing (XYZ Pond, Baseball Diamond Stretch of XYZ River, ABC Lake, Bass, Trout, Steelhead, Panfish etc). I should be able to get away with only having 2-3 boxes on the water at anytime, and I will be able to replenish them after a day fishing by going back to my main storage containers and topping them up,...we will see how long this works for lol.

[hook549 0]

I sure am glad to see that we all have the same problem of 100x more flies than we will ever need or use.My wife reminds me of this everyday when i am sitting at my bench

[Munkdogg58 0]

I am somewhat new to tying, over the past year I have been tying more and more midge patterns. All of a sudden I have filled up all of my flx boxes I have gathered over the years.... I think I will start using old hook bags ( the TMC have a magnet) to store my growing collection.

[cameron 0]

I have about twenty or so of the big Plano boxes. I tie one fly, one color per column, with the sizes going down. So, say the box is 12 by 6 compartments, the first column is all olive scuds. The top compartment is a size 12 unweighted. Next down is 12 weighted. Next is 14 unweighted. Fourth is 14 weighted. Last two are unweighted and weighted size 16. The next column is the same, but in tan. The next column is the same, but in grey. Then the same three repeated, but this time with flash under the shell material. When I'm going to fish a tail water I grab a small fly box and put two or three of each in it. Once I run out, I go back to the Plano to reload. As I tie, I drop them into the Planos. I might have fifty or more in a compartment, but I only cary a few with me on the water. This is overly organized, but my mild OCD (is there such thing as mildly obsessive?) didn't like tying per trip, then finding that the plans got cancelled so boxes got filled, moved, filled, moved, until my bench had more boxes than I could easily go through. So, I started tying into larger piles and pull when I need them.