Lost Fly Box

[reevesr1]

When fishing cutthroat rivers, I tend to carry two double sided fly boxes. Each with about 300ish slots. The big one typically has 50-80 flies in it I would guess.The other is my small dry box. It has 250 to 300 flies at any one time.Many of them I fish, many more I should fish, and some are of the "what in the hell was I thinking when I bought that?" type of flies. A few were bought on discount sites, the vast majority at my three go to fly shops. So say $2.50 to $4.00 per fly. I keep one of the boxes in my wader pouch. It barely fits, so I rarely bother to zip up the pouch. This weekend on the Oldman, I paid the ultimate price when I noticed it was gone. I looked around for it, but I remembered distinctly messing around in the river and bending down, so I was pretty sure it had fallen out and drifted away. I was also pretty sure it was my big dry box. Sad, sure, but it's pretty late in the season now and the big foams are not really producing any more. I figured i could go get some hopper patterns for the bow and I'm set for the rest of the year. A little later I realized it was actually my small dry box. I then looked harder for it and wished I had put my name in it somewhere.

 

I'd never really thought about the sheer $ value of the flies in that box. Here is a news flash, as one of the guys at fishtales said "you'd rather lose a rod." That is totally true. There was AT LEAST $750 worth of flies in that box. I'm $600 into the replacement cycle, including the box, and I'm sure I'm not done yet. I have a big trip coming up and I'm not going to be short of flies. As always, I'll probably end up throwing a purple adams or small pmd's (cutties love white flies!) most of the day and whatever fly I really need I won't have, but it won't be for lack of trying.

 

Oh, and my name is in my new box. So when I lose that one I'm sure to get called. I can promise that I'll zip up my stupid wader pouch from now on. If I lose it again, I'll offer a $0.50 per fly reward.

 

And I broke the tip off my rod when I tripped in some dead fall. $50 for a new tip. Small potatoes.