Cleaning Out and Restocking My Fly Boxes

I’ve heard more insects have been hatching on my home waters, but I haven’t experienced it yet. It’s spring after all! I say that as I look outside at a couple inches of new snow. I was out a few days ago, the first time since we returned from Argentina. Yes, that’s a long time for me not to fish! I need to take some time and get ready for some serious fly fishing which will begin in a little over a month. Cleaning out and restocking my fly boxes is the next task at hand to ensure I’m ready for those upcoming hatches.

Yes, those are my dry fly boxes with a few holes here and there. What you probably can’t see are several of the flies have tricked multiple trout and either need to be replaced or “steamed”.

“Steamed” you ask? Just hold your fly over the steam of boiling water and watch fibers spring back to life. Here is a short YouTube video I made showing how to do it.

The fly boxes on the left and middle hold flies to imitate Blue Wing Olive (BWO) mayflies and the middle has Pale Morning Dun (PMD) and March Brown imitations. The holes are for these flies:

These are my two favorite styles of mayfly imitations and I tie them in different sizes and colors to imitate hatching insects available to trout.

In my Green Drake box, I need to remove the smaller flies used to imitate Flavs last September and October with a few sizes 8 and 10 flies for the upcoming Green Drake hatch beginning in mid to late May. It’s my favorite hatch of the year.

Here are four favorite imitations I use for the Green Drake hatch.

The final box in the first image holds most of my caddis flies. It has the fewest holes and should be easy to fill.

The reason it looks much neater is because I didn’t use many caddis late fall. Trust me, beginning in late June and July that box will look much different!

These are my two favorite caddis imitations. Yes, I carry other flies as well, but usually one of these are the first I tie on the tippet.

How do your boxes look? It might be time to pull them out and take a look.

Don’t wait until the day before heading to your next fly fishing trip and be disappointed you didn’t restock when you had the chance!

Enjoy…go fish!