Too many flies?

[roosters977]

I don't think you can have enough flies, But i think this is a good amount!
Is this a common amount of flies to own or.. ? :lol:

http://s244.photobucket.com/albums/gg7/roosters97/

 

[roosters977]

I cant seem to get the pictures to come up :/

 

[gochs]

Works for me. But I'd say you have a well rounded setup. I seem to have a million of each, considering I lose a lot. I have one side of my box full of nothing but PT and HE.

 

[roosters977]

I lose a lot of flies as well. And more than half these flies come from a GREAT assortment i got from ebay!

 

[just_jon]

Too many flies????? Not possible.

 

[bmi2677]

Currently I just pick flies up when necessary. I used to tie quite a bit in high school, fell out in college, and have yet to pick it back up. I miss it, but I dont have the funds to buy everything again from scratch. Its cheaper for me now to pick up what I need to hit the stream and go from there.

I have quite a large selection of dries right now though, but my nymphs are severely understocked.

 

[Squaretail]

I've had more than enough flies for quite a few years now, but I just kinda keep adding to the assortment. Could probably start some kind of charity. "Flies for humanity".

 

[pete41]

I use tie flies over the winter just to be involved with fishing but since I was streamer fisherman I usually bought a couple dozen a year to fish with.
Anyone can tie nice looking itty bitties and hangy downs as the small stuff was called out in the west , the 2s and 4s are something else.
Learned the hard way to try before you buy in bulk.
bought a small fortune worth of Dave Whitlocks supposedly state of the art sculpin imitations.Rave reviews in flyfisherman mag. and others,claiming one of the master tier's had truly out done himself this time.
Took them to the river and ended up throwing the whole batch away.
They looked so realistic out of the water but that's not where the fish were.He used so much hair you needed to either skeletonize the flies or add so much weight they were a sick joke-seemed to disappear from the fishing news shortly afterwards.Duh

 

[ryguyfi]

I can always use at least a dozen or two more....



If I sat down to tie everything that I wanted for my box, I would never get up from my tying desk. There's ALWAYS something you can add. I was messing around with a crab pattern yesterday for my family vacation to the beach in a month. Took me about a half hour and isn't quite right, but I'll tweak it. I could have a dozen of those, a dozen clousers, poppers, and other streamers on salt water hooks, just for a week on the beach. I won't care to mention what typical trout/steelhead/salmon flies I'd like to tie if I had the time.


BTW... I probably have 1000 plus flies in my boxes already...

 

[PaulG]

It never ends, I have way to many flies and still keep buying more. Alot of times I go imto a shop to get info, so I don't want to leave without buying something, so I end up getting a few flies.

Ain't it fun!

PaulG

 

[jjsjigs]

One can never have enough.

 

[trowpa]

I like options - but especially like to have piles and piles of my favorite few patterns.

Like this morning - i was a 1-1 ratio of flies lost to fish caught. If i keep that up i'm either gonna have to stop catching more fish, or keep up my stockpile. (I prefer the latter)

 

[sniperfreak223]

not enough...I keep about seven boxes in my vest, and another 25 boxes in the bed of the Jeep, but then again I fish for a lot of different species.

 

[Fishidiot]

As an avid tyer who generally caries a lot of flies, I've reached the point in recent years where I now break my flies out by game fish. I have separate fly boxes for:
Smallmouths/sunfish
Muskies
Steelhead
Fl Keys/flats
Northeast saltwater

For trout fishing, in addition to my chest box I carry several other boxes with various flies.
At least a couple times a year, I'll go through these boxes and cull out 10-20% of the flies and give them to FF friends who don't tie their own. Or I'll take a razor to 'em to recycle the hook. How many flies are too many? It's a matter of personal preferance.
I like a lot of flies.

 

[NoMoreCornChuckin]

"Flies for Humanity"?? Isn't that already occuring every time I tag along?

 

[Chaz]

Every time I try to pare my fly collection down I end up needing some rarely used fly. So I’m done with paring down the flies I carry, instead as they get old and not used so much I don’t tie more.

 

[RLeep2]

Every February when I'm doing The Big Sort for the new season, I cull out about 300-400 flies and send them back home to my brother south of Erie. Usually, the ones I send him are between 8-12 years old. He keeps what he wants (he's only an incidental fly fisher) and he either passes the rest on or he s-cans them.

I don't care. They're out of my hair at least. Except that just about every year, I find a couple more old tupperware containers on a back shelf in the basement with another 200 or so in each.

It never ends...