I have been going to write this article since January but other topics kept popping up.
I think that I am pretty organized but the last few years things just keep getting more and more hectic and some days I don’t know if I’m coming or going.
Which has led to me being more disorganized than I ever have been.
I keep thinking that if I can just get 2-3 free days then I can get stuff straightened up. But I keep getting more and more writing assignments, picking up more magazines & websites, shows, seminars, hunts and fishing trips lined up.
So, this morning I got up early as is the norm and thought OK, I’m going to get control over one small area of my life-I’m going to get my flies organized.
I get my flies from flydealflies.com and get them in bulk. Then of course I’ve scored and bought a few fly boxes full of flies at garage sales in addition to all of the flies I’ve accumulated elsewhere.
I had my flies rat holed in boxes in the garage, in my fly vest and who know where else. A few years ago, I got an Evolution backpack tacklebox which has a lot of plastic trays to hold your lures.
This winter the thought hit me-I ought to order some extra trays and use them to store my extra flies. That way I have my own little storehouse and every time I go flyfishing I don’t have to run down to the fly shop to grab a handful of flies. I’ll just pull a few out of my stockpile, restock my vest and I’m good to go.
Even though I had a stockpile, it was disorganized. So, here’s what I did.
I divided out the flies and put them by groups in different trays. For instance, in one tray, I put my dry flies. In another one my nymphs.
In another one my large wooly buggers, bead heads and skull heads.
If you’re smart enough you may put them in sequence. For instance, in one tray in the first slot you may put your size 18 elk hair caddis flies, next size 16, next size 14 and on down the line.
I didn’t get this detailed because I was sorting them as I found them. And besides, think of all the caddis flies that you might have. Olive, black, ginger variant, red etc. etc.
So, overtime as you add more colors to your collection it is bound to get jumbled up so you can’t keep it totally in order by type/size/color.
So, I didn’t worry about doing so. As stated above I somewhat tried to keep them grouped by types. And in those types were all sorts of colors and sizes.
To further explain what I mean by this. The top three rows on one trey are all elk hair caddis’s but they are not in order by hook size. By this I mean I didn’t start out with size 18 reds, ginger variant and black.
Then the next two are size 16 red and olive, the next three size 12 red, ginger variant and black and on down the line. You still with me? I just put all of my elk hair caddis flies in the first three rows.
Then on the lid I wrote the type of fly and size. Now I can check inventory. If I’m running low on one or two flies, I can call flydealflies.com and stock up.
When I’m going on a flyfishing trip, I’ll determine which flies I need, check my fly vest and stock up.
If things get haywire, I assume that with a cotton ball and some rubbing alcohol I can clean off the description on the top of the trey and designate a new title.
If you’re going on a long trip, then you can throw a few trays in your suitcase and be good to go for the week. I think that this is going to be a good system.
Now that I see how many flies that I have, should I store my trays in a bank safety deposit box? Include them in my kids inheritance? Or maybe skip a generation and will them to my grandkids!
Tom Claycomb is a hunting enthusiast and writes a bi-monthly column for Great Basin Sun.