A View Into My Fly Box

Extravagant Ones:

 

Consistent with the adage that "you always want to see what is the other guy's fly box", attached is a photo of that now fully recharged fly box of mine, a tour of which is as follows: 

 

Working from left to right, in the far left-hand row is my arsenal of my smaller dry fly (i.e., flies that float on top of the water) mayflies designed to imitate the dozens of species of those wonderful bugs (a dozen of each of which could easily alight on your smallest fingernail with room to spare) who spend most of their life as bugs crawling underwater and then, as they near the end of their life cycle, "emerge" to the surface of the water in "hatches" (often by blowing air bubbles around themselves, thereby floating atop like a thousand rising balloons), whereafter they "rest" on the water's surface, shed their shuck, pop out their wings and then fly aloft only to mate, whereafter the females return to the water to reposit their eggs, thereby beginning the life cycle again.

 

The next three columns of flies are examples of mayflies in their nymph stage--these flies are "wet flies" and are fished subsurface and are designed to imitate one or more of the mayflies in their larval and/or emerging stages.  Ninety percent of a trout's consumption is of flies in their nymphal stages and, hence, the preponderance of those in this fly box, atop the middle row of which are four red San Juan worms (aka, "the dreaded worm") which are ever so effective along with the 8 specimens of white-winged prince nymphs (aka, "the fly formerly known as Prince") right beneath them [on Rock Creek I refer to the SJW and Prince as "the McDonald and Burger King menu"!].  Just as is reflected in these rows, nymphs come in different sizes and colors depending on the time of day, the river and the weather conditions (hence, the efficacy of a guide!).

 

The container(s) on the right hand of the fly box contain a gaggle of different dry flies, starting in the upper right with my own "unibug creation" to match beetles and spiders, a series of larger mayflies and, on the upper right some yellow humpies.  The middle row starts with my foam fly searcher patterns (from which we will attach nymphs creating our "hopper dropper combination", whereby we can fish BOTH a dry fly foam fly and a trailing, underwater nymph, thereby getting "two shots at the apple" and ends with a smaller collection of foam flies designed to generically imitate the wide families of floating bugs that trout feed upon in Montana's rivers.  The bottom row (which, frankly, looks like a mess) is really the "money section" of this box which contains in the middle section imitations of the golden stone fly (my "go to fly" in late June and early July and, on the right, my caddis fly collection--a bug so prolific that when the "caddis fly hatch is on you will have to turn your car's windshield wipers on to see when amidst its flurry--the hatch is like being in a snow storm.

 

So, folks, there it is:  A view into my fly box!  When each of you are here with us, as part of our program, your guides will provide all flies that you will need (the each carry hundreds of them each day on the water) and they will even tie them to the end of your lines for you, so don't fret if your own box is either partially full, empty or nonexistent!

 

Best to all from the scene of it all!

 

Rock Creek Ron