i was walking through walmart looking for some multivitamins, when i spied out of the corner of my eye a 7 day pill storage box that would make a great fly tying hook or bead storage box. add a few labels to cover up the days of the week and off you go! this box has small levers that you push down to open the compartment and the inside has a curved bottom. 28 compartments. the underside of the box has 4 rubber feet to prevent sliding.
Only because I tie hundreds of small dries and standard nymphs/soft hackle throughout the year. I have about 4 of those full of my most commonly used hooks, great idea and they do work well, the ones I have look a bit bigger than those pictured (not too sure where I bought them) they will hold about 500 #10 standard dry hooks per compartment (that translates to about 1000+ #16 standard dry hooks).
I don’t tie as many as Steve, but I use the smaller pill cases. I like being able to write on them. I didn’t shell the $$ on the stickers, I just used an exacto on the raised letters and braille, and wrote on the box. Stickers are a much better idear. They are easy to carry, but if you don’t get the locking boxes, cut the finger tabs off. they stick over the edge, and get caught on EVERYTHING AND COME OPEN!! Loose hooks = bad idear.
Much prefer to keep hooks in either soft boxes or original plastic bags. Same is true with beads. Let’s say you drop either on a hard surface. What will happen? Now try the same with a pill box. Results will not always be the same. Add to this the fact that any pillbox is going to take up more room in the tying kit than the usual plastic bags, and I never quite understood why someone would want to go this route. YMMV.
the box i bought didnt have the raised lettering and i didnt want to butcher it trying to scrape off the printed letters (believe me i would have. remember edward scissorhands?) so i used the high dollar stickers (.0028 cents per label) to mark each compartment
i’m just showing an option in storing whatever you want to store. everybody’s preferences are different (or better) and you should use whatever works for you
I think that is a spendid way to store hooks, Normand. (Seeing as how I do something similar - patting us both on the back!)
My wife bought me an inexpensive carrying case at Michaels (or similar craft store) that was filled with plastic boxes, very similar to your pill boxes. I label one box on it’s side as “dry fly”, another as “wet fly”, a 3rd as “streamer”, and so on. These boxes fit sidewise in the carrying case, so when I unzipper the case I can immediately see the specific box I may want.
Then, I label each compartment within the case with the hook style and size, going from left to right across the box with the hook sizes in sequence.
You’d be amazed at how many tens of thousands of hooks you can carry in such a small space, yet be able to put your fingur on exactly the right hook within seconds.
I have used the type that are just a single row, for dubbing dispensers. Drill a quarter inch hole in the bottom of each unit. Fill the compartments with whatever dubbing you want and it is really easy and convenient to transport. Get one for wet flies and nymphs and one for drys.
I’ve got a bunch of different ‘pill boxes’ for hook and fly storage.
Great for hooks. Since the bags my hooks come in are a bit unwieldy, I need a way to separate them into manageable quantities.
I just buy some of that adhesive backed magnetic tape and stick a small piece in the bottom of each compartment. Hooks won’t fall out.
I found a set of seven small boxes at the dollar store, each was labeled with a day of the week and each had three compartments: morning, noon, night. One of the three was larger (don’t recall which, but it doesn’t matter). Made great little fly boxes…you could get a couple dozen nymphs or dries in each of the smaller compartments, and the larger one would hold a doxen small streamers or 'buggers. Fit three of them easily into a shirt pocket. At 7 for a buck, I should have bought more of them.
Good stuff Normand. I’ve been using this system for beads and hooks for a while. Like Buddy, I found a 7-pack with four compartments (snap lids) and they are very, very handy. You can easily fit 3 in your shirt pocket without any bulk. I use them mostly for midges and small dry flies. Good tip; thanks for sharing.
I thought it was labeled just fine to start with. This is what you tie with Sunday morning… This is what you tie with Sunday Noon… This is what you tie with Sunday Evening… And so on. Looks fine the way it came to me. :lol:
The pill boxes are also great for storing your own blends of dubbing. Try mixing wool yarns with rabbit, beaver, opposum, kangaroo and other soft furs and underfurs. You will love the colors that you can blend…and now store!
I have mixed thoughts here (mixed up mind perhaps???) When I started fly tying I started using the 7 day boxes, 1 each for wet, dry, streamer, nymph, etc. hooks. But as any tyer knows that wouldn’t last long, and after accumulating so many different styles and sizes I don’t use those any more. However if someone uses the SAME style hook in several sizes, and ties a lot of flies with said hook style, a 7-day box would seem like a viable idea. The 28 compartment idea might appeal to a production tyer maybe?
I found at a dollar store what it sounds like qquals is describing. A set of 7, 4-compartment boxes (about 1.5"x3") in a clear plastic box (without lid)that they all fit in. I use those for misc small items.
Another storage item I really like are the gift card tins. Especially from Cabela’s since they stack nice. I use them for stick on eyes, and other flat small items. Less than $2 and I pick another up every time I stop at one.
Like Bass bug said this is suited to those of us who need a place for everything and everything in it’s place!!! As a production tier of sorts I use hundreds of dry hooks from size 22-10 so I have 3-4 hundred hooks in each compartment at any one time and they stay on the top of my desk so if I have an order I just pop it open grab a couple /three dozen hooks crank the fly out and then go take a nap… I also keep one with standard 2x nymph hooks from 22-4 on my desk and a box with scud hooks from 22-2 as well… all the rest of my hooks are stored in the original packaging in plano boxes… try storing upwards of 3,000 hooks in the little plastic mustad boxes in one place and being able to find them quickly… not gonna happen in my chaotic mess. It works for me rather well and has been great thus far (4-5yrs now) I’ll never go back.
When I first started out I bought a cheap storage box, you know the kind…those little compartments didn’t always shut tight. It only took only one fall from my work station before I scrapped that idea and went back to my individual Mustad boxes. I was picking up thousands of hooks for days. Don’t think I ever got them all sorted out.
There are good storage boxes out there and the one that Normand started this post with might just be one of those good ones.
Thanks for posting - this kind of post brings out lots of ideas that can be adapted to each persons need, and space constraints. Many have figured out what works best for them, but for some this could radically change the way they store/file/catalog etc, their hook/bead/dubbing space. Thanks again for getting the wheels in motion! This is the stuff that keeps it interesting - as they say - It’s all good!
