I picked up two soap trays (the travel type with lids) for $1 and a huge sheet of craft foam for $0.97. I cut the foam to size and glued it to the tray and lid. They look great, and should store a lot of flies!
I also use Dollar Store pill boxes for nymphs, and sometimes find discarded geometry boxes that my students have pitched and glue foam into them.
So…what do you do? Please share your ideas for homemade fly boxes. I’m sure you all have better ideas than mine.
Try gluing foam to the insides of an Altoids tin. Makes a great pocket sized box that is easy to use as part of a “Travel” kit and a unique gift set with some flies too.
I have some Altoid Tins with foam on one side and strip magnets on the other. Works great for small nymph/midges. Use the magnets from hook packages, cut to size, and Zap-a-Gap. Cheap, easy, and fits in a pocket.
I don’t like Altoids. the box isn’t worth the price.
I use plastic folders, cut out a convient size, and glue foam on the inside, then use a hair elastic to hold it closed. What is really neat is thet I can make them to fit my vest pockets.
Actually hair elastics are great. They don’t turn to gue like rubber elastics. Started keeping a few on mmy stick shift when my daughter was young (20 years ago). Now I buy them in bulk. Daughter calls them mini bungies.
I also like Altoids tins. I had my mom tell the people she works for to save the tins for me, and a week or so later I was getting overrun with tons of tins. I glued foam into many of them, and kept some just as tins.
It’s great, Because a tin of altoids takes me like a month or two to finish.
The only real issue I find with the altoids boxes is that they are a little cramped for finger room to get a specific fly out, if you have 'em stuffed with flies.
I’ve used your soap boxes, too, but put in strips of 2 layers of foam to stick dries and streamers into. The boxes can be bought at Wallymart for 2/$1, and the foam is .50/sheet for the adhesive backed kind. I don’t use them that much, but the kids all have them.
For large salty flies we use plastic video tape boxes with a double layer of foam.
The majority of these boxes are too flimsy to be of much good, but there are some heavy duty, aftermarket ones that hold up pretty well.
I have a number of clear round plastic boxes that once held a roll of electrical tape. I will often just carry one of those with a few loose flies in it for bluegills. One has several smallmouth sized gurglers in it while another holds a small selection of streamers. I just put them in shirt pocket with a single spool of tippet material for comfortable smallie fishing on hot days
instead of sheet foam I have used insulation foam for doors, I like the closed cell kind that is flat with glue on one side and domed up on the other (think of a D lying on its back). it raised the flies up and made them easier to get out.
I like the plastic check envelopes I think I bought one for a few dollars at office max or something.
The accordian type with like 8-10 slots, held together by an elastic. In each of the slots I put a piece of that craft foam and pin my flies to that. It also lets me take out the foam patches and put new ones in for different occasions.
I use it for my streamers and can pack a lot of flies in that envelope.
My father fly fished for many years and always used those little round tins chewing tobacco comes in. He never chewed but claimed the smell from the tin got on the flies and helped mask the human scent. Don’t know if that was true or not be he sure caught his share of the fish.
I’ve used this stuff inside some nice cigar boxes a friend gave me. They make good storage boxes for special flies…e.g. I keep sample flies or flies given to me at expos in them.
