Fly Tying Organization

[tctrout]

In my newest video, I share a CHEAP way to organize some of your materials. In the containers, I store beads, dumbbell eyes, etc. Feel free to post your ideas, too...and happy new year, all!

Tim

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjmTuuw_opk[/youtube]

 

[Fly-Swatter]

I use old, cheap particle board dressers to store boxes of hooks, beads, feathers and fur. THis is stationed next to my fly tying bench.
The dressers were "free" in that we had used them as starter furniture and upgraded to solid wood for clothing use decades ago.

Within the old dressers I have 3 levels of organization:
1) I have a hook drawer in the old dresser that...
2) houses plastic hook file containers (ie, Oregonizers) that are...
3) labeled as "dry", "wet/nymph", and "streamer".

I know it sounds a little OCD, but it's nice to be able to quickly lay my hands on the stuff I need.

I did the same with some cheap plastic drawers purchased at discount stores, but they are PIA to open and close. I think my wife needs a new dresser soon...

 

[afishinado]

Hey Tim,

Great subject!

I have a tip I've been using for a long time. Every tyer has what seems like a thousand small zip lock bags to hold all types and colors of dubbing fur. I bought clear business card pages to replace the individual bags (see pic below).

I take the dubbing out of the ziplock baggie and place it in each pouch. Each page holds 10 dubbing mixes. You can label each and seperate all your dry fly dubbing, nymph dubbing, natural fur, antron mix, etc. and put each type together on the pages.

The pages can go into a binder or binders (if you are a dubbing afishinado like me). Finding a dubbing mix is as easy as paging through to find it rather than going through piles of individual ziplock bags.

Also, if your dubbing is labeled you can quickly ID what color and type of dubbing is used up and needs to be replenished.

In addition, when travelling with my tying kit, I know I will have the dubbing I need by bringing the binders with me and can actually find what I'm looking for!

 

[melvinp]

Do you mean your not supposed to have feathers,Thread,estaz,hooks and so on all mixed together in a giant pile.

 

[afishinado]

melvinp wrote:
Do you mean your not supposed to have feathers,Thread,estaz,hooks and so on all mixed together in a giant pile.

Lol...

I've been tying since I was 10 years old and have never thrown any of my fly tying materials away (close to 50 years of tying!) :roll: :roll: :roll: :-o

My tying desk is a good sized desk close to 6' long, next to it is a file cabinet, and the last annex is a shelving unit. That's close to 11' of cabinets, drawers and shelves all filled with stuff. If I didn't organize it, I'd spend more time trying to find stuff than actual spend the time tying flies.

My tying desk is an fairly inexpensive Ikea computer desk. The keyboard drawer makes for a two-tier working and storage area since the front of the drawer folds down and pulls out. This doubles my working and storing surfaces (desktop and drawer) for tools and materials. When I'm done tying I just push in the drawer and fold it up without having to put everything away.

I use the hanging file folders in my desk and file cabinet to store my dubbing notebooks as well as all types of material I have stored in big ziplock bags. The hanging file folders are labeled. In the drawers I use dividers you can buy in a hardware store for smaller items. On the shelves I store books as well as plastic containers filled with different types of material.

Computer desks and file cabinets are easy to find and come in all kinds of shapes and sizes. Best of all, most are a lot more reasonably priced than most "fly tying" desks or furniture sold out there.

Works for me.

 

[Fly-Swatter]

Melvin: Hahah, it seems to end up that way, right? I start off nice and organized and, after a handful of patterns....chaos! I find the re-organization process to be somewhat meditative.

afish: Same. I've been tying and accumulating for nearly 30 years. I have some catch-all containers on my desk top that are supposed to be for economy of materials (using the drops from previous flies), but I keep forgetting to use them.

 

[tctrout]

afishinado wrote:
Hey Tim,

Great subject!

I have a tip I've been using for a long time. Every tyer has what seems like a thousand small zip lock bags to hold all types and colors of dubbing fur. I bought clear business card pages to replace the individual bags (see pic below).

I take the dubbing out of the ziplock baggie and place it in each pouch. Each page holds 10 dubbing mixes. You can label each and seperate all your dry fly dubbing, nymph dubbing, natural fur, antron mix, etc. and put each type together on the pages.

The pages can go into a binder or binders (if you are a dubbing afishinado like me). Finding a dubbing mix is as easy as paging through to find it rather than going through piles of individual ziplock bags.

Also, if your dubbing is labeled you can quickly ID what color and type of dubbing is used up and needs to be replenished.

In addition, when travelling with my tying kit, I know I will have the dubbing I need by bringing the binders with me and can actually find what I'm looking for!

LOVE the idea and I've seen others use that system for dubbing. It's way more organized than mine, so I may have to switch to it eventually. Thanks for sharing...

Tim

 

[Fredrick]

I’ve been using these bead containers for several years now in this video. I highly recommend using these for beads, hooks, lead eyes,cone heads, articulated shanks, fish skull heads, etc. They come in different sizes also
https://www.michaels.com/craftmates-lockables-organizer-3xl-14-compartments/10442311.html


https://youtu.be/80ZK0Yxg8xk