Need ideas: Post your fly box photos!

[Fossil4Life]

Greetings all! I''m in the process of taking stock of my dry/nymph fly inventory and organizing my flies and fly boxes accordingly. I thought it might be fun, for those who chose to do so, to post pictures of your current fly box set up and configuration.

I'm looking to consolidate from 4-5 fly boxes down to two, and looking for inspiration among the membership here. Looking forward to seeing what fly boxes everyone is rocking!

 

[BrookieChaser]

I use the "working box" method introduced by George Daniel.

 

[pcray1231]

Older pic, but shows the basic idea.

Richardson, 3 trays. C&F slit foam throughout.

Bottom tray, the bottom contains big flies. So my streamers and buggers, stonefly nymphs, etc. On the lid are random flies, including all of my egg collection (sucker spawn and glo bugs mostly), and all kinds of random attractor stuff.

Middle tray is the one shown, and is generally my hatch matcher's box. On the lid are my mayfly nymphs and smaller dry flies and emergers (olives, tricos, midges, etc.). On the bottom are my bigger mayflies, the majority of which are march brown and sulphers. But the contents change seasonally somewhat. Wulff's and Adams and generic flies go in here too.

The top tray has a leader wallet on the lid. On the bottom about half of it is caddis imitations (all life stages). The other half is stuff I'll just refer to as "lead". Czech nymphs, anchor flies, etc.

 

[NewSal]

 

[ryguyfi]

If I were to count, I would say I have close to 20 boxes of flies. I however have them sorted so I only take what I need for the day. I have more than a few dry fly boxes that are specific to a hatch or a part of the season. No need to carry anything else except that box for the day more often than not. On top of that I have a fully stocked nymph box with several hundred nymphs, a few streamer boxes, egg boxes for steelhead, bass box, saltwater box, small stream trout box, etc. I just swap out what I need for the day. And yes, I can always use more flies and more boxes.

 

[The_Sasquatch]

Like Pcray, I have a Richardson. Mine is a 4 tray box, but I don't even try to get all the flies in it. One tray isn't for flies, I keep things like split shot, indicator, floatant, matches and a tamper in it.

The other 3 trays are like this:
Nymphs and wets
Hatch specific flies (a good mixture of common PA mayfly hatches)
Caddis, wulffs, stimeys and other attractor patterns

I use a harness w/ my fly box that has 2 side pouches. In one pouch I have a small midge box and a box of various streamers (which I only carry when conditions warrant it or when I'm fishing for smallmouth bass)

The other pouch has my keys, phone, and briar
Peace
Andy

 

[The_Sasquatch]

Oh, and the other thing is, my foam trays are swapable. So I have a few trays that I don't carry, particularly around the "hatch specific flies". I tend to swap them out as the hatches come and go.

 

[salmonoid]

I decided to try and standardize my boxes somewhat, and settled on the Scientific Anglers System X setup. I have seven of their suitcases, which hold four inserts of flies each. And then I have a number of their cases with different types of inserts (dry, nymph, streamer, etc.). I use the suitcases as my bulk storage and then I make up boxes to cover either a specific need or a range of fishing conditions. I can usually grab a box with an insert and cover most fishing conditions, or grab two, and satisfy my day and night fishing needs. And I also have a few larger streamer type boxes, some from Risen Fly (the adhesive on the foam leaves a bit to be desired, Ryan ;-) as well as one from Umpqua. And those serve primarily as my bulk streamer storage boxes.

Secondary storage places include patches on vests or packs, the console in my car, random places in my car trunk and sometimes, my socks or kids' backpacks, depending on where I might accidentally drop one and have it get hooked on something or someone (had a mouse on my sock and my kid found a muddler minnow on her shirt - was cleaning up after a trip tonight).

 

[Swattie87]

I’ve adjusted my setup down to 4 boxes…Concept behind my setup is my desire to only need to carry one box at a time. Here’s the breakdown of the 4:

1. Gemmie/Small Stream Box (small size) – Attractor dries, a few generic nymphs, a few small streamers. I also have a few bigger night fishing flies in this box, since it’s generally the one I carry while backpacking.

2. Hatch Matcher/Limestone (medium size) – Different life stages of the common PA hatches I run into most often. Sulfurs, MB’s, GD’s, SD’s, and different Caddis make up the majority of it. To a lesser degree, some BWO’s and Quills in there too. Some scuds, sculpins, terrestrials, and other limestoney stuff as when I’m hatch fishing it’s often on a limestoner.

3. Warmwater/Bass (large size) – Bigger streamers, poppers, big nymphs, whiteflys, etc.

4. General Trout (medium size) - Little bit of everything box. Doesn’t have an arsenal of any one fly, but a smattering of everything. Not good if a specific massive hatch comes off as I may only have 2 or 3 of that specific fly in there. I try not to use this one much, but when I don’t know what I’m gonna encounter, or I’m planning on fishing a bunch of different kinds of streams in one day, I carry this one.

Each of the above has a few of the real everyday basics too…Adams/EHC/Buggers/etc. Works for me, and I haven’t really run into a situation where I’ve been wishing I had a different box. Nice to not have a pack full of boxes I’m not using while hiking around too.

 

[ryguyfi]

I've improved the adhesive on the briefcase boxes. The manufacturer just puts a double sided tape on them which comes out with any amount of heat but I've had them add some extra spray adhesive which seems to help the foam from coming loose in the most recent batch of the boxes. Still working on seeing if I can get the foam to stay better.

Got new waterproof briefcase boxes in the last few months that have a different foam insert and don't seem like they will have any issues with them coming undone.

 

[WildTigerTrout]

I carry the majority of my flies in my 4 tray Richardson chest box. I tend to swap some in and out depending on the time of year and hatch activity. I recently purchased a new Richardson 3 tray "Ultra-Lite" chest box that I intend to use as my summertime terrestrial box. I may still carry a couple of small fly boxes in my vest at times but tend to use conventional fly boxes more so when fishing the smaller mountain streams. I use a neck lanyard and a small Fishpond waistpack for that.

 

[afishinado]

Fossil4Life wrote:
Greetings all! I''m in the process of taking stock of my dry/nymph fly inventory and organizing my flies and fly boxes accordingly. I thought it might be fun, for those who chose to do so, to post pictures of your current fly box set up and configuration.

I'm looking to consolidate from 4-5 fly boxes down to two, and looking for inspiration among the membership here. Looking forward to seeing what fly boxes everyone is rocking!

I find it useful to separate my flies by type as well as dry / wet. If I'm fishing the surface I choose flies in my dry boxes and vice versa for underneath with nymphs or streamers.


Dry:

Mayfly Dries / Emergers / Spinners

Caddis Dries / Emergers

Stonefly Dries

Midges


Wet:

Mayfly nymphs

Caddis Larva / Pupa

Stonefly nymphs

Wet flies

Streamers

It would be difficult to boil down all the above fly types into two boxes. Perhaps you can sort your flies and carry two dry boxes and two wet boxes from the above. Good luck.

 

[LongLineRelease]

For trout I primarily use a Downs Chest box with changeable trays for my local (central PA) fishing.
I keep three trays on it year round:
1. Softhackles and spiders on bottom/CDS's on lid
2. micropatterns: midges/olives/tricos/shrimp&cressbugs/PT's
3. streamers on the bottom/anchor nymphs on the lid.

I have a 4th tray with caddis and a 5th tray with sulphurs (also yellow sallies/cahills/craneflie). I put these on during the appropriate time on year.

Special situations: I'll cary extra boxes that have more mayfly dries, immitative nymphs, grannoms, big dries (Green/Brown/Slate Drakes and March Browns).

brookies fishing: 1 altoids box with brookie flies and a terrestrial box.

Dedicated Streamer and Nigh fishing: I have a cheap chest pack with big streamers and wet flies on the integral tray patch.

Smallmouth and largemouth have homemade boxes: cliff bugger beast style.

 

[ralphs007]

I like the Richardson,but I don't think I wanna wait a year to get one built.Their customer service reviews,left a lot to be desired.
I'm looking into getting a Downs chest fly box,and I should have a quote for one tomorrow. I ordered a five tray one,but I'll only be using three trays at a time.
I figured it would be cheaper to order the extra trays now,instead of buying them separate later on.
P.S
I guess its a PA. thing,because some of the other forums,don't even mention chest fly boxes.

 

[afishinado]

Tomitrout has a real nice one for sale here.

I looks like a Richardson clone.

 

[ralphs007]

Thanks for the heads up afishinado! Tom gave me a great deal on this box.
Ralph

 

[SteveG]

I'm also consolidating and working on having the following:
Midge & Baetis/BWO box (smaller box)
Mayfly & Caddisfly box (standard size)
Stonefly/Drake/Terrestrial box (standard size)
Cressbugs & Scuds (smaller box)

I'll be cycling flies out as hatches come and go, and have applicable nymph, wet/pupae, emerger, dry, spinner patterns for each hatch. Then store in clear myran boxes. The cressbug/scud box would only be carried if on a spring creek or tailwater.

I think this system will be good when doing trips out West too, since there's a variety of different water and hatches as well. I can just cycle flies in the evening before we hit new water, and still keep the storage boxes in the vehicle in case plans change last minute.

 

[shakey]

I use altoid tins.

 

[JoeE]

I only fish with chestboxes and have 5: Fye, Richardson, FyteDeck, Downs and a Hatch.