I know the difference between these stages of a bugs life. I have a couple of questions about them.
When putting these in a box to put in my vest/chest pack should they be put in a compartment style box or a leaf style box?
Since general flies such as the Adams, sulphur, light Chill and BWO should be in most boxes, are there any special styles of Duns and Spinners be carried also, just in case?
Thanks.

You should always carry rust spinners of different sizes. Very easy to tie and cover many species of mayflies.

thanks for that answer. anyone have any other information or care to answer my other questions?

I carry my hackled flies in a compartment box so as not to crush the hackles. I also carry my spinners in the same but that is just because of how I have them organized (wow, just said my boxes were organized). The rusty spinner in various sizes is pretty much what I use although there are a few hatch specific spinners.

There are spent winged spinners and upright winged spinners.

I have more luck on upright wings, but I know many will say the other.

I just picture sulphurs landing on the water to drop off their eggs. And at that point, thier wings are still upright.

You can separate "spinners" into 2 categories.

The one MKern said where they are "egg laying"

Then the spent wing ones where they have died off after mating or depositing.

Both are stages of bugs that you mentioned. ie bwo, march brown, sulphur, etc.


Rusty spinner covers most spent wing spinners, but I tie a few egg laying dries to cover that stage too in an upward wing.

I have no compartments. Everything I have goes in my Richardson, which is full of C&F slit foam. I simply carry too few of too many varieties of flies to make compartments worthwhile.

That said, I stuff my box too full. It's not the foam that messes up the wings and hackle. It's the fly in the next slit over. If I spread em out better I wouldn't have a problem with that, but then I'd have to carry less flies. If I was less lazy, I'd do more box maintenance, and remove the flies that aren't seasonally appropriate. Like, there's no reason for me to carry Green Drakes until late May, trico's until July, and freakin cicadas for another 15 years or so!

Rusty's are by far the most important color variation of spinner, and should dominate any spinner section of any box. Have em basically from size 10 on down to 20, as many bugs can be imitated with them. For other colors, I'm much more specific "match the hatch" type thing, so you only need one or two sizes. I do carry a lighter, yellowish brown which better imitates some species of sulphur and cahill, generally 14-18. Blackish olive to match the Drunella variety BWO's (sizes 14-16). Green Drake spinners with a white body. Tricos with a black thread body. I think thats about it for spinners. I tie em all spent wing, but I don't put the head cement at the base to keep em perfectly flat and splayed. That way, you can just tease em up a little if you need to.

By the way, spinners are the easiest ties ever. That's one thing I almost never buy.

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^Got a good laugh from that. I struggle with this too...there's always that "just in-case" in the back of your mind. I've adopted a two box system for most of my fishing. One specific to the type of stream I'm fishing and what I'd expect to run into at that time of year, and one "little bit of everything" box that I almost always carry...that one's a disaster...way too many flies in way too little space, but that's sort of the fun of it.

The main exception is Brookie streams...I have a small Brookie box with maybe a dozen or so patterns, and that's all I carry on those streams.

As far as spinners, I generally only carry them when there's a reasonable chance I may run into a decent, legit hatch where that's all the fish will be keying on for a period of time. Then it depends on the hatch itself. Rusty's in larger sizes (10-14), Sulphurs in the 16-18 range, and small black ones for Tricos.

I can't find a dry fly box I'm happy with. I know what I want, I just can't find it.

One of those compartment boxes with the individual spring open lids, ON BOTH SIDES OF THE BOX!

I can find a ton with one side that way and one side foam, but not both.

I might adopt the "many" small boxes method. box for caddis, box for bwos, box for march browns, etc.

Right now its a separate box for the following; nymphs, dries, streamers, eggs (2), small streams, and terrestrials.

As of now, i carry about 10 boxes. I carry box number 1, nymph box with a flip leaf in the middle, it carries every nymph i have which is about 700 flies. i carry box number 2 which carries all my streamers. Box number 3,4,5 and 6 (compartment style), carries my Caddis, Adams, Light Cahill's, Sulphurs, BWO's, Royal wulff's, Humpy, stimulators and Griffith Gnats (compartment style). My dry fly box is a 12 compartment style box. it's a little small but the next size up i see is a little to big. Box number 7 carries my spinners along with my midge nymph/emergers. Box number 8 carries my terrestrials (compartment style) in spring through fall. Box number 9 and 10 carries all my hatch specific flies for a certain time of year (compartment style). I was hoping to find 1 foam style box for my dry flies instead of carrying 6 or 7 compartment style boxes but everyone tells me it ruins the hackle so till i find out differently, compartment style boxes it is.

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Ryan - Here's one. It's the 40 compartment model. Not cheap though...

Velcro two cheap ones together. When I worked at Hille's we sold 8 and 6 compartment boxes for $1.50. $3.00 for a custom fly box ain't bad.

side nots: Gander Mt. used to, and probably still does, sell 12 compartment dry fly boxes for a buck. The clear plastic models were $6, but the hazy plastic ones were $1. didn't stay on the shelf long though.

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That's EXACTLY what I'm looking for. But $50 is not in the budget. A plastic alternative to that for half the price would sell like hotcakes IMO.

this is what I use:
http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12 ... 0944&ci_sku=SPM5668748003
I cut the holder into 4 and 3 rows pieces. I organize each row into type of fly and time of year, so I can mix and match which rows go into my bag for each trip. Each compartment is locking and stay secure in the holder.

That looks pretty cool, studiomule. Thanks for the link!