Montana - The Flies

The first decision I had to make about the flies I carried to Montana was what to carry them in.  I decided to use the C and F Boxes.  I had started using them a couple of seasons ago and liked the two I was using.  The rest of my boxes were foam boxes, selected for their light weight, and the foam boxes worked well but only lasted a season or two before having to be replaced.

A bonus result of the switch was that I went from seven boxes that didn't all fit into my vest to five boxes that did fit into my vest.  I also found the C and F boxes were just enough deeper to keep the flies on one side of the box from crushing the flies on the other side of the box when I closed the box.  More capacity, deeper boxes and good holding power so the flies didn't fall out and bounce around lose in the box.  Sounded good to me and so far has been all I hoped for.

Top Water
This box is my top water box. C&F calls it the 6/6 because of its six rows. If you enlarge the picture (click on it) you will see that these flies are small (only a few that are size 14) they are tightly packed.  This box holds over two hundred flies.  Not something you want to drop in the river.

Anyway, here's the overall theme of the box.  Color scheme - that's the key for me.  Most bugs I run into are mayflies and caddis.  The common mayflies I see are Blue Winged Olives, Mahogany Duns, Sulfurs, Cahills and a smattering of gray to black "I don't know what they are" type flies.  Read that, the common mayflies I see are Olive/Green, Mahogany Brown, Yellow/Green, Cream and Black. 

To match as many of the mayflies as possible I selected emergers and duns in those colors.  Right now most of the emergers I have are Cannon Snowshoe Emerger - pick a color.  It comes in Cream, Black, Olive, Gray and Red. If you look close at the box you will see a bunch of these in the third row up in the right side of the box, various colors of each.  Above them you will see some Goodman's CDC Emergers again various colors.  The Goodman CDC Emerger come in March Brown, Blue Winged Olive or Pale Morning Dun colors.  The CDC and Snowshoe Hare patterns fight a constant battle for space in my box because I just can't decide which material I think works best.  But that's part of the fun of it.  I can change the pattern or material as long as I don't drift away from the basic color scheme. 

That "match the color and size" scheme holds true for the duns also.  One of my favorites dun imitations is the Sparkle Dun.  It has a compara-dun wing, a sparse body and an antron sparkle tail. You can get it in Tan, Pale Morning Dun, Black, Olive and Mahogany.  If you look at the second and third rows down from the top on the left you'll find a lot of them tucked in there.  You'll find more on the second row up from the bottom on the right side of the box.  And there is the rub in this method of selecting flies.  Often when you start putting them into the box the flies, because of their size and shape, dictate where they go rather than you putting them where you want them.  I would have like to keep all of the Sparkle Duns together but the 180 degree fan wing crowds the fly next to it.  So several rows of different body colored flies become just a mass of deer hair wings if you don't throw in some tightly wrapped flies in between them to act as spacers.

A similar review of caddis turns up Tan Caddis, Black Caddis, Cinnamon Caddis and Olive/Green Caddis.  Read that the common caddis flies I see are Tan, Black, Cinnamon and Green caddis.  I don't have a lot of caddis flies in this box.  The third row up on the left has a bunch of Henryville Specials and there are some caddis emergers in the top left row.  Why? Well, I just ran out of room. 

The third box down, on this page, is a mixed box and there are a lot of caddis flies in there.  The caddis patterns seem to lend themselves to the larger box.  I'll mention some of them when I get down to that box but for the most part it works out the same as the mayflies.  I'll change patterns as new ones come along that I want to try but the new patterns will take the place of another pattern that I retire from my box. 

Subsurface
This box is the C&F Nymphing case box.  I use it as a combination nymph and emerger box.  My mayfly emergers are in the box above and my caddis Pupa and caddis Emergers are here along with my favorite nymphs.  I couldn't fit all of my emergers and dries into the box above and splitting them up this way seems to work.  I keep the box above and this box in the higher pockets of my vest as they are not watertight like the two large black boxes below. 

Color coding was again a major influencing factor when selecting the flies for this box.  Starting top left, the first and second rows contain Hare's Ear and Pheasant Tails.  I seldom go anywhere without those two patterns in sizes ranging from 12 to 20.  They just work to well to leave home.  Those take care of my light and dark nymphs.  On the right side, top row, I have an assortment of Hare's Ears in olive and the forth row down has my Zug Bugs.  Those are my basic Mayfly nymphs and as you can see they cover the basic nymph colors of tan, green/olive and dark brown to black. 

When it comes to using a heavy nymph to get something like a small Pheasant Tail down I've come to rely on the Copper John.  If you look at the first two rows on the right you'll see an assortment of them.  Green, Black, Red and of course Copper. Just for grins there are a couple with rubber legs also.  Most Copper Johns are a little flashy and if flash is called for I've got some small midge patterns on the bottom left side like the Disco Midge that add some sparkle to any rig.  Except for a couple of San Juan Worms that I keep meaning to try that pretty well does this box.  Except for the Caddis Pupa and Emergers.

My Caddis Pupa fill the bottom right hand row and range from size 12 to size 18 in, you guessed it, various colors.  Cream, Rust, Olive and Tan are the color scheme again.  The Pupa shown here are simple bead head patterns and are easy to tie.  They sink quick and fish well.  I supplement the Pupa with Travis Bead Head Caddis Emergers which you can see make up a good portion of the third row up in the left section.   Same color scheme.  I have tried a lot of emergers and I keep going back to this pattern.  If you tie or buy you should try this pattern, especially in Olive.
 

For a free ranging caddis worm (net spinner) I like the Schroder's Tunghead Green Weenie.  Those fill out the rest of the 2nd row up on the right.  Which brings us to the two compartments on the bottom left that give this box its' name.  You can see that on compartment has strike indicators in it.  They are backups and I don't use that style often - I like the yarn indicators and keep them in a baggie, tucked into a handy vest pocket.  The left compartment holds an assortment of flies I plan on trying soon.  If one or two of them prove themselves they get a chance to compete with the proven patterns for space in the box.  Like I said above patterns come and go but the color schemes remain the same.  Show me a pattern that out fishes the Schroder's Green Weenie and I'll get rid of the Green Weenies.  The strongest competitor right now is the Oliver Edwards Rhycophila Larva.  It fishes well and may push the Green Weenie out.  If it has a drawback it is that I often have to add a split shot to my leader when using it and I don't have to when I'm using the Green Weenie.