Organizing My Bonefish Flies: Part 1

What a mess!

While preparing for this spring's bonefish trips, I decided to organize my bonefish flies. This is not a small task. I have dozens of boxes jam-packed with literally thousands of bonefish flies...and they are a mixed up mess. Some flies are now rotted with rubber legs stiff and in in some cases, falling off. Some flies are badly rusted their bead chain eyes now an oxidized blue/green. Some flies are ridiculously antiquated with big epoxy heads and massive weed guards. And a few flies are totally absurd leaving me shaking my head trying to remember if I was ever stupid enough to actually tie on one of these monstrosities.

Fortunately, many in all this mess are totally useful and in some cases, quite cool. The problem is... all these flies, the good, the bad and the ugly, are totally mixed up.

First step, get similar patterns together.

Eventually, it starts to make sense.

So the thought of separating the functional flies from the whack jobs seemed like an eye-watering task, but once I got started, the process took a life of its own. At one point, I had flies all over the countertops in my garage. Some flies were in little piles, some were singles, some went immediately in the garbage can and some were so weird I put them in a pile because I simply didn't know what to do with them. Here are a few of the old, the ugly and the soon to be discarded:

The good...

The bad (what the hell is this anyway… seriously does anyone know?)

The old... (epoxy heads are ancient and the antithesis of a quiet entry)

Another old epoxy head… state of the art at the time!

What do I do with all these epoxy heads from the 70's?

Some of the original bonefish flies… they are collector's items now!