I’m anxious for some good dry fly fishing. How about you? I was on the river the other day waiting for insects to hatch and find a fish or two rising to them. It never happened, but as I changed flies, I looked in my fly box and thought it was time for some fly box spring cleaning.
If you haven’t fished for a while, how many empty spots are in your fly boxes? It might be a good time to check and sit down at the vise or visit your local fly shop to restock those boxes.
I pulled my PMD box out and noticed some holes and a few mangled flies. Well, there are more mayfly imitations in here besides PMDs. You’ll find March Browns, Mahogany Duns, Purple Haze, Light Hendrickson, and Quigley Cripples.
I need to add some Improved Sparkle Duns and RiverKeeper Soft Hackle Cripples, my favorite mayfly imitations.
My Green Drake box doesn’t look too bad, but I need to pull out the smaller drake patterns I used for the fall hatch. It won’t be long before size 8 and 10 duns are floating down the river!
This BWO fly box needs the most attention. I don’t use many of the Quigley Film Critic or Mayfly Cripple flies. I’ll remove half of those. In addition, IOBO Humpy flies are scattered in the fly box. I carry these in dun and tan colors. It will look better if they are arranged properly.
My favorite BWO imitations are:
The Caddis fly box looks pretty good to me. I might need to pull out a few flies so I can add size 16 tan X Caddis.
Lastly, I’ve offered this tip before. Here is a great way to “refresh” those dry flies that have been scrunched in a fly box since the last time you were on the water. You’ll be amazed how this works! Here is a link to my RiverKeeper Flies YouTube channel where I demonstrate how it’s done.
Enjoy…go fish!
