How to plan your river flybox - Gary Glen-Young Avoiding the "just in case syndrone

How To Plan Your River Flybox

Gary Glen-Young

A favourite pastime of many fly anglers is looking in the fly boxes of others. Whether this is for inspiration, denigration or flagellation depends upon the circumstances.

SHOCK! GASP! HORROR!

The most common response I get when a new acquaintance looks in my boxes is surprise. They are shocked at both how few different patterns I carry and how full my fly boxes are. The reason for this is because when I fish a pattern I carry a lot of them in different sizes.

Almost every time I look in another anglers’ boxes I am taken aback by the myriad of different patterns being used. I'm also often dismayed by the lack of organisation.

My most common observation is that the average fly angler has no plan for their fly box – there are too many patterns, some very similar to each other. Only a few flies of any single pattern can be found in the box and often in only one or maybe two sizes.

When questioned about which flies they actually fish they can usually indicate a small selection of the options available, glossing over large swaths of the box as “old flies”, “works sometimes”, “just in case” or even “I don’t remember where those came from”.

During the fishing day, when one particular fly seems to be working better than others, heaven forbid that the angler loses the second last example of the fly in the box! That last “magic” fly is treated almost as too precious to allow near a nasty fish. Tippet sizes are even scaled up to prevent the possible loss of the precious and it cannot be fished too far away, lest it becomes lost. Casts become tentative and fish become few and far between.

Nassssty fishes!

The solution is to carry only those flies you will choose to use, but carry enough of them, arranged in an orderly fashion, to make fly selection quick and easy.

I like to keep it simple and carry a single nymph box and a single dry fly box. (OK - maybe another small box with “junk” flies like squirmies, mops and whatnots that don’t really fit the main boxes and would be offensive to non-lure anglers, but that’s it).

Empty all the flies out of all your existing fly boxes. Yes – all of them. We are starting with a blank slate.

Separate the nymphs/wets/sinking flies from the dry flies into two big piles.

Sort the fly piles into the following groups – be brutal about it:

KEEP – these are the flies that you always find yourself using and often wish there were more in the box. We will come back to these… SCRAP – the fly has had its day. Maybe it has lost its hackle, but you can still reuse the hook. Nice bead, horrible body – snap the eye off and recycle the tungsten. GIVE AWAY – to friends who will not read this article but will drink your alcohol and fish your flies without permission or questions. THROW AWAY – responsibly, as in a sealed container, in the dark, in a bin somewhere not close to home. (What were you thinking???)

(NEW) FLY BOX?

Maybe this is your opportunity to justify a new fly box? If your existing fly boxes are old and tatty perhaps you should get a waterproof one with either silicone or foam slots. I prefer medium to large boxes with a good seal.

My nymph box has twenty-four to thirty foam slits per row with nine rows per side and comes with a hard double-sided flap. With smaller flies, I pack them in every slit in a row. For larger, wider flies I skip a foam slit, thus I get half as many flies per row.

My dry fly silicon box has fourteen slits per row and twelve rows per side. This allows more space for the hackles. It also makes a

I would not recommend you pick a foam box with less than twenty slits per row or a silicon box with less than ten slits per row – you want to keep the same flies together in the same row in the box.

I have lost too many small dry flies while digging for the “right” fly when using compartment-style boxes for dry flies to recommend them.

If your existing boxes will still do, give them a service – wash them with warm water and an old toothbrush, then allow them to fully dry. Do NOT use a hairdryer, unless you want to buy a replacement. Give the seal a small coat of silicone grease.

SAME SAME, BUT DIFFERENT

Pick your favourite patterns from the KEEP pile. We all have them. They vary from angler to angler for many different reasons but if you have confidence in a pattern you will fish it better, with more focus, and are likely to catch more fish.

Everyone has their favourite

Separate these patterns into their respective sizes – identify the sizes of the flies you use. Make a note of ones that you are completely out of; an obviously-popularwith-the-fish size.

Now squint at the box - pretend it’s 4AM on a work night and that you woke up to go to the bathroom, but are still asleep. When you look at the patterns you’ve decided to keep this way you may find that, when half in focus, a number of them look very similar to one another. Rather than using very similar-looking patterns, it is better to have distinct separations between the patterns so that they are distinctly different from one another.

Pay attention to different fly styles – caddis larvae are separate from mayfly nymphs, which are separate from tagnymphs which are separate from small streamers.

Caddis dries are similar to hoppers, but are very different to parachute mayflies, which are in turn distinct from shuttlecocks and midges. My caddis patterns tend to run #14-18 while my mayflies are generally #16-20. For each style, I like to have a dark/ black pattern, a light/tan pattern and then sometimes a brown or olive pattern – so two or three colours per style.

I like to standardise bead colours. Too many other anglers’ boxes I open have hot orange beads across too many different flies but not enough copper , silver or gold.

Pick a pattern or two to carry these brightly coloured beads and keep the rest of the beads more muted. The Czechs like to group flies into “naturals”, “attractors” and “wilds”. You want a lot more natural patterns and attractor patterns than wilds in your box. Where flies are close or very similar, pick the one you normally gravitate in the KEEP pile.

You have the option of standardising bead sizes as well.

My preference for bead sizes is 3.5mm on a #14, 3.0mm on a #16, 2.5mm on a #18 and 2.0mm on a #20. If I want to change the sink rate I change the fly size and this changes the bead size. This is simple and prevents confusion on the water, in the heat At the end of this, you should be left with a handful of distinct patterns from one another with little to no overlap in fly colour and with standardised bead sizes and colours.

Highlander had four sequels

Now, for these flies, you want a selection of two or three sizes

This allows you to have a good size range to cover the naturals you will encounter. If there is a primary size that you use more than the others then you logically want more of those flies in the box.

PLAN THE BOX

Now is the time to pull out a pen and a page of A4/graph paper. A spreadsheet also works.

Count the number of slits per row in the box, as well as the number of rows. Then count how many distinctly different patterns you are going to carry.

Decide how many of each you want to have with you on the water. If I really like a pattern, I will carry twelve to fifteen of them in a single size and colour, which is often a full row.

With smaller nymph patterns I tend to carry 40% of the primary size and 30% each of the other two sizes, often all in the same row.

Prototypes/experimental flies get a row of their own and normally five flies of a pattern. Ensure that they do not take over the box or you will end up where you started.

When you find a new pattern you prefer to an existing pattern, remove the existing one from the box – you are not going to fish it in any case.

TIE (or BUY)

Tie in multiples of five of the same pattern in a single size at a time.

Start with the larger sizes, then work down to the smaller ones.

This approach allows you to become more proficient in your tying and helps avoid distractions when tying. Tying a lot of the same pattern at the same time also means less material waste and more flies per hour. You will be shocked at how much time you waste by changing between different patterns, looking for the correct materials etc.

While this article is directed more at those anglers who tie their own flies it does also apply to those who purchase their flies. Anglers who buy flies are a little more limited in their options but should try at least to purchase the right numbers of the same flies, from the same supplier and at the same time to ensure consistency.

I keep my extra standard nymphs and dries in a separate overflow box. These carry anywhere up to five extra flies of any of my standard patterns in a size.

When I lose a few flies from the fishing box I replace them from the overflow box. In this way I don’t have to tie flies in dribs and drabs, something that is very inefficient.

If there are not enough flies in the overflow box to fill the fishing box I make a note of these and then will tie five (or maybe ten) of the pattern to fill up the fishing box, with the excess going into the overflow box.

I hope this helps!