Organizing fly boxes...

[PV_Premier]

Thanks for all the input. I have some work to do to try and thin down my herd. I'd love to get back to the simpler times of a dry box and a wet box for trout. I find that while I carry 100 pattern by color combos, this season I fished maybe 20 of them.

[bigfly]

I used to be the guy who fished 6 flies for the Sierras, my sensei told me that's all that was needed. It worked well.
But then I started looking at the menu......and fishing more than silly backcountry fish, shifting to heavy use fisheries.......
There are so many food forms out there for fish, that it naturally leads to more fly boxes.
I realized over time that the trout's diet is varied, and they graze on lots of stuff. Not just the hatches.
Once you start seining you will carry more flies........unless, you are trying to make this activity simple? Really?
More than once I pulled a rabbit out of my hat, by having that strange fly.............
I mean, how often do ya fish a giant American water beetle? Or a lady bug? Perhaps a pink hopper? Maybe a floating Brown trout fry? Baby crays? Mice?
I'm surprised I can keep it to 6 boxes......

Jim

[PV_Premier]

Oh, I hear you Jim. I guess I find myself in the camp of "I catch enough fish on the basic patterns to suit me, most of the time". Even on the Truckee, LT, Yuba (i.e., not "silly backcountry fish")...I get skunked occasionally, but certainly not often...fishing the same half a dozen nymph patterns and 2-4 dry flies plus a few attractors, terrestrials. Could I catch "more" in any given day with a more varied fly selection? Undoubtedly on some days. Will it be often enough to justify carrying around 8 fly boxes every day of the year? I dunno.

So maybe I am yearning for simplicity...I don't know. I think what I am really looking for is refocusing on the experience of being out in it all, versus having the right fly on hand to trick every single fish and wrecking my back in the process by carrying all that weight. Maybe...

Remember, I started the mouse thread earlier this winter. Those flies stay in the box...regardless of how my little experiment ends...