After looking at the fly box post and some others I was wondering how many flies, ballpark, do you carry when trout fishing? And as an aside, how many of each pattern or size do you carry?

I "guesstimate" I have around 300 on average and maybe more when fishing new waters. I use a Richardson box that I modified to add trays to, so that number can change. There are many days I could get by with an Altoids box but I use the chest box to carry other goodies so it goes with me all the time.

I recently reduced the number of each pattern I carry since I keep ample restocking quantities back at the car. This enables me to carry more of a variety of patterns without adding flyboxes and I realized after years of fishing that the likelihood of me losing more than three of one pattern or size is small. Besides, a trip back to the car where the beer is stashed isn't all bad.

It looks like some of you carry 6-12 of a pattern in your boxes and a thousand or more flies; am I wrong?

[This message has been edited by Bamboozle (edited 26 January 2006).]