Enough Is Never Enough

[reevesr1]

As this spring's fishing progressed, the state of the total disorganization of my fly boxes became more and more apparent. I would find the same fly in multiple locations, would keep flies I bought in their little Fishtales, or Southbow, or Hanson's containers for weeks on end. So this weekend, I decided enough is enough and set aside a couple of hours to fix everything up.

 

Two hours, what a joke. More like 6-8 hours to get it all sorted out. I went through the "fishing department" in my garage as my wife calls it and found multiple containers in the bottom of a bin of flies I'd never put in a box. I found fly boxes I had arranged for cutty trips and completely forgot about. After it was all said and done (3 evenings of organizing), what I found was amazing, and more than a bit eye-opening:

 

1 double sided double box of nymphs (4 areas to store, 7 rows each area of 20 or so slots per row. It's probably 90% full. Call it 500. < size 12 stuff only.

1 double sided box of "bow river" small dries. Adams, caddis, klinkhammer emergers, comparadums, and midge patterns dominate. 7 rows or so per side, 24 per row I think. At least 95% full. 400 flies?

1 double sided box of "cutty" small files. Similar to the box above in size, also about 95% full.

1 big double sided box of worms, stoneflies, buggers, etc. Probably 100 flies

1 "big" streamer box. 15 streamers (can you tell I don't streamer fish much?)

1 double sided box of stimmies on one side and non-foam hopper and big stone fly patterns on the other. About 150 flies.

1 double sided box of big foams. 40 or so

1 box of lake flies and streamers. Call it 60 flies.

So, in the end I have 9 (!!) boxes of flies, totaling likely 1700 or so flies. Yikes. The funny part is how many flies you look at and say "what the hell is this??" And how many flies caught the fisherman, but no fish.

 

Sorry fly shop owners, looks like I might be out of the fly buying game for awhile. Though it does seem I'm low on Chironomids for lake fishing, and need a few chenille stones in the next few weeks!! And maybe some more klinkhammers, and I need some bigger comparadums, and........

 

 

[Teck71]

Hear ya Rick did that 2 weeks ago, not as bad though only about 1200 flies, but still in need of a few patterns that are low or missing. my GF says i need a 12 step program of some sort. and the only reason I ain't on Hoarders is because flies are so small.

 

[ericlin0122]

i think you need to work harder on the lake box, i thought true pro should have 1000+ lake flies

[troutlover]

Hey Rick did you find all those lines and that reel I lent you a couple years ago?

[reevesr1]

I don't know what you are talking about Jared. But I did find a xmas card full of flies!

 

If anyone is looking for a reel with a broken drag with a clear 5 or 6 wt intermediate sink on it, I might know where one is. Either that or a spool of full sink.