hi everyone it's colin mckeon from the new fly fisher and if you're like me
you're probably busy right now it's the middle of the winter you're working on
next season your time flies you're organizing your fly boxes you're doing all these things
to get ready for that next season well i've got a great couple suggestions for you that'll really
help you in organizing that'll help you far into the future many many years and it's down to two
things one and this is real important is a labeler a simple labeler with different color tapes
the second thing that's really important and we'll get into more detail about this
is having different types of containers and boxes for storage let's go through this
on how you can get better organized for on the river and back at home for fly time
so the labeler does a lot of great things when it comes to organizing your fly boxes i have a
lot of different fly boxes and i have different ones because i'm fishing for different species
and you may be the same you may be in an area like i have where we have trout fishing but
i also have bass i have pike of a you know warm water species so one of the ways you can organize
your fly boxes which is again one of those things we all accumulate is you can use different colors
i buy different color tapes so i can label the boxes different colors and so a good example
is i'm using white for my trout flags and here what i've got are streamers different boxes
and i can identify this is small streamers and it's white so i know it's from my trout these are
strip leeches and then even better not only can i label it there's dry flies for my trout fishing
but i can also put my name and phone number on the back in case i'm concerned about leaving it
on the river falls out on my vest whatever we've all done it you got your phone number on there
good samaritan's gonna give you a call and say hey i found your fly box
but let's go into the next thing the coloration of the tapes so i'm using white for the trow i
guess what i'm using yellow for my atlantic salmon flies for my bass i'm using green and i match all
the fly boxes to whatever the species is that i have got labeled up so it makes it a lot easier
for you to readily identify what flies you've gotten what boxes because you've got a label on
it saying it's streamers but same time you've also got it that you're identifying what the species
is so that's going to help you a lot in terms of the bins or how you organize and more importantly
when you need to get them in a hurry your friend's giving you a call and say hey let's go over to the
river and do some fishing tonight just like that you've got so in terms of organization
i really like to get everything sorted out like my reels so i know this is my hydros two and threes
could be your sages whatever the reels are but i can make them that this bin is specific to
my bass or my five or six weights and what i've done is i've used luggage tags here and put them
on and put the labeler on there because there's nowhere really effectively put it on this case
like most of the real cases that are up there and this one as you can see is the same thing
again hydros3 you can organize these reels for your next trip whether you're taking this
with you or you just want to have it ready and you can jump into it and grab the reels you you need
which let's talk about the reels so the reels now we all have different size reels large arbor small
arbor regular and then you have the lines okay this is where we have all the problems i do and
it comes down to the labels they give you when you buy a fly line let me show you what i'm talking
about the little stickers they give us which are really fantastic well we put them in our reel
and you can put them on the inside here or it could be you're putting it on the inside here
but the problem is you see the oils got into this one when i probably lubricated it
they either wear off they get wet and they start to deteriorate that's where the network comes in
because i get really frustrated when i don't know what the line is and i'm in a
hurry to grab with my fly fishing gear where i'm packing look at that it's on the inside perfect
and this works on all types of reels haven't had any problems with these they don't come off and
even if they do you just punch out a new label put it on there's my weight forward six floating
if it's your bass line if it's your sync tip type three it's all set you know what it is on the
reel another one of the great things about the laborers of course is that if you're like me
i'm trying to get organized by using different bins and we'll talk about that in a second but
i buy all these bins when they go on sale and they're really fantastic especially get them
all the same size in this case i'm not showing that but you'll see how i do organized for that
here's my bin it's full of all the insect repellent i use
there's all my indicators whether it's for river or for lake i can go in there replenish
my vest replenish my bag whatever it is when i'm going out next time but it's all organized
and then even my sunglasses because i have different sunglasses at different intensities
based on the conditions and i've got the uh the cases inside here but it's labeled it's real fast
and easy to find and i even have down here my weighting staffs all organized with the belts
helps you when you're trying to pack for a trip helps you when you're coming
in quick to go out fishing all these bins and especially the labeler helps you get organized
so we're on fly boxes what i've done is i've bought all the same size bins which
are approximately this size and i've labeled them here's my trout flies my streamer fly boxes over
here of atlantic salmon steelhead fly boxes here's my bass cart walleye flies but i put them in the
bins so i know where they are and again color coordinated and labeled so they're ready to go
and then for my flies my actual extra flies i've even got them organized by the different types
whether it's pike flies wooly buggers it's grasshopper patterns it's muddlers so many
different options but if i do it this way it's easy to find them to replenish a fly box
so like most people i used little stickers here on some of my bins and they're great and you
write on them and then you just peel them off put a new one on but the labeler again does the
same thing but real easy to see and then if you use the different colored tape you can actually
have it that you use different colors for the different types of hooks so an example
right now i have all these mustaches with white if i had another bunch of hooks and they might be
gammagatsu i could use a yellow label key is the endless possibilities of how you
organize using the labeler and of course using the bins as you saw i'm using these
bins because of the convenient size they fit i know where my stuff is real fast and easy
so one of the things i do want to talk about besides the labeler is the actual plastic bins
if you're like me i kind of bind them here and there i'm trying to change that i'm
trying to have continuity in the bins that i have just like i'm doing with the labeling
and one of the bins i really really love are the ones they use for under beds these are the ones
you see people sometimes they'll have wheels on stuff like that you don't necessarily need that
but these bins are fantastic here's two different models but they're great because you can put
all your fly boxes into them they stack on top of one another they carry a ton of stuff
keep your stuff dry um obviously not air tight there are things you can buy they're air tight
especially for the fly tying side but these bins you take them you label them on the end
you put them on shelves you stack them in a corner right away you know where everything is real easy
and if you have them that they're the same then they the grooves are made to be stacked on top
of one another it's a perfect way to do it whether they're small boxes or they're big boxes like this
so to round this all up a labeler like this is really indispensable whether it's for on
the river with your fly boxes and your flies or even your reels using different colors for the
fly boxes your fly lines even you could do lots of different options even use colors for species
but key is if you get one of these labelers you buy different size bins you can really get
yourself organized whether for fly fishing on the river or lake or back at home here when it comes
to your fly tying area a labeler is a great way to help you get organized and find things quickly
you