Organizing Dry flies in a box ?

[waynep]

I have a compartment box for my dry flies. I am trying to re-organize them as I move to a different compartment box with more compartments.

Do you all put flies of the same size, different types in the same compartment? Same type but different size in each compartment?

How do you all do it?

wayne

[J Castwell]

Sometimes...

[Jed]

I organize by color first and then have seperate sections for midges and other tiny flies, for attracters and for E.H. Caddis.

jed

[Diane]

Jed, why a section for elk hair caddis?

[Jonezee]

I just do all the San Juan worms by color.

[pspaint]

Organize? What's that?

[Normand]

Heres one of my dry boxes



Caddis and beetles/ants on one side attractoers/mayflies on the other.

[Tracy]

It really depends on when you ask me. The only thing that does remain consistent is that they are separated by type, color, and space permitting, size.

Right now I have terrestrials and midges separated from my other dry flies. The midges are in a very small box that fits in one of my upper vest pockets.

Sometimes I'll pick a small selection of these flies for a certain fishing location, and put them all into one palm sized box.

This could all change, however, the next time I get bored and have a little time on my hands.

[kengore]

I have struggled with this same question. Here is a solution that works well for me...

I use 2 kinds of boxes, large ones for bulk storage and small ones for stream side. The big boxes organize my flies for easy tying and inventory. The small boxes are for fishing.

The large boxes are (10"X16") single compartment Plano boxes with a foam ripple on both the box and the lid. I can easily get over 1000 flies each box. I organize the flies to facilitate my tying and access, it's my home equivelent of the big display cabinets at the fly shop.

For example, my mayfly box has all of the may fly patterns I like to tie. I neatly stick the flies into the foam in patches sorted by size, color and quantity, one row of dark BWO size 18, then a row of size 20, etc. I can take the box to my bench and quickly see what I need to tie to replace lost flies. Three of the big boxes fit neatly into a soft side nylon briefcase and get tossed into the back of the car for road trips.

The small boxes are pocket sized and are organized for specific fishing trips.

They get filled or emptied as the seasons or my destinations change. I select the bugs I am most likely to use in a days fishing on a particular river or a specific hatch.

For example, in the spring I put togehter a BWO box, with nymphs, emergers and adults. I might put a second 'dry and dropper' box together with big floating drys and tiny nymphs and scuds. A third box might be 'grab bag' mix of attractors, hoppers, ants and other once in a while bugs.

[Photojoe4]

I TRY to keep my dry flies seperated into 3 basic groups: Mayflies, Caddis, Attractors (includes ant, beetles, hoppers). I also keep them seperated by pattern, and if I have a lot of one pattern (BWO's for instance), I seperate by size as well.

Regards,
Joe Martin
Salem, OR