Day 23 - Plans Change

Today I had planned on writing about fly tying. I had some patterns that I was hoping to try out this week sometime. However, as previously mentioned, since my wife and I just moved into the area, most of my material and tools were in boxes in the garage. It wouldn't have been so hard if they were the only boxes out there. Unfortunately, they were among other boxes that look very similar in nature (damn banker boxes).

After about an hour of sifting through boxes, I found five boxes of materials. There may be another two or three out in the garage, but I have the majority of the stuff now. I then hauled them into the office and started sorting through the vast amount of material. I have so much stuff. I jokingly say to my friends that I have the largest collection of fluff and feathers known to man.

Anyway, I started to sort through the boxes. In my exhaustion of packing, I had ended up throwing everything into boxes will-nilly like. Scud backs were mixed in with bucktails, pheasant skins were mingled with yarn, dubbing was packed in vises... it really was a mess. I finally ended up sorting the stuff into some major categories. Seven to be exact.

Through the course of our move, we had gathered another bedroom set (thanks Abigail & Josh) which has freed up a seven drawer dresser tower. My wife has agreed that I can use this dresser to store the materials. Kind of works out quite well because of the seven categories and the seven drawers.

The first drawer holds a tray of tying tools, various packages of hooks, odds & ends vest tools, and quite a few "sample" flies. The second drawer is my feather drawer. Everything from pheasant tails to marabou to goose biots. The third drawer is my chenille drawer. It holds trilobal, micro, braided, and polar chenille. The fourth drawer is my Krystal Flash drawer. The next drawer is dubbing drawer (complete with Seal fur). Drawer six holds the odd stuff (well at least odd for me). It contains foam, fur, faux fur, and scud backing. The final drawer is my bead drawer. It also includes my hot glue gun and colored glue sticks. Thread is stored on top of the dresser on a spool rack.

It took me quite a while to get everything in a manageable semblance of order. I really should go back through the drawers and organize them a little better. I know that some my patterns that I want to tie (which WILL happen tomorrow) will require peacock herl. Its in the second drawer, and that's all that I know. Tomorrow I will end up emptying that drawer to locate Hungarian partridge feathers, peacock herl, ginger hackle, and possibly even biots. I'll also have to up-end the fifth drawer containing the orange dubbing and hare's mask. Just needs to be done.

So, I didn't end up tying flies today. Probably just as well. It looks like I might also need to take a trip to the fly shop for some hooks. I have a plethora of dry fly hooks, but my thoughts are on tying wet flies. Oh well, plans change and I guess you have to roll with the punches.