What's in your box?

[Matt Bailey]

Interested to hear what thought process people go through when filling up your fly boxes, and for those willing to share what is in your fly box for certain waters/ species?

I tend to have one "bread and butter" box for small saltwaters species, one larger box for salmon, tailor ect just filled with clousers, decievers and surf candies, and a freshwater box for when im chasing trout and reddies (although I generally only fish the wooley buggers and bms).

Only usually carry a few different varieties of fly at a time so I force myself to give them a good fish rather than changing every hour.

[Tony Ong]

This is probably not that straight forward a question to answer Matt. This is especially so if you tie your own flies, and like to experiment. In every fly box, there are the proven and tried and trusted flies. There will also always be a handful of experimental flies. Finally, there are flies that have never caught a fish that need to be culled.
These days, if I don't have space in a fly box, I stop tying.
Below image are my saltwater fly boxes. They are all set up for different applications.

[Tony Ong]

This is my 'go north' boating fly box. I've whittled it down to 1 box. It covers everything I need for a couple of weeks up north, except for billfish flies. I do carry a bag of spares. These are an insurance policy in case the fishing is really good. There's not many times that I have had to resort to the spare flies, but they still come along regardless. I don't tie flies when I'm away on a trip.

This C&F box below is my walk around box. It gets chopped and changed depending on what I'll be targeting. This still has some flies that I was getting ready to fish Shark Bay flats before Boneheads this year. Unfortunately cancelled. Red and orange flies for sharks in skinny water.

[Tony Ong]

This is my local boat box. Will do everything from herring, skippy, and bream, to salmon, snapper, and Samson fish. Still a work in progress. There's still space to fill in this box.

[Tony Ong]

Walking and estuary boxes.
The blue c&f box are flies with 'light eyes.' Lots of charlies, coz they work. Bms flies also have a place in my box. Sometimes, fish just zone in on bms style flies. Termite/flying ant patterns are specific to late summer hatches.
The black c&f box are flies loaded with more weight (more for fishing out of a boat, but also useful when fishing around bridges and structure where there is strong currents). Surface flies for whiting, tailor and herring blitzes.
There's a handful of experimental flies in here. I'll fish them, but if they don't work, they get moved on.

Final box is the disco shrimps. This box is more for when we head down to some of our southern estuaries. We cast into some gnarly terrain. Sometimes, it just isn't possible to retrieve flies.

[Matt Bailey]

Thanks Tony, great reading.

I have not been doing any fly fishing from boat, but thinking it's time to dust off the tinny.
Can see the value in arranging flies by weight - I do seem to be tying far lighter these days than when I started - probably due to me mostly fishing the shallows and SW streams.

I have been tying so many clousers and charlies in various colours and styles over this crazy isolation year I need to visit Dan for a couple more boxes to store them in...and don't think I'll need to tie any more for years to come