Helpful hints
Putting It Away
By Elaine Cook
Storage of fly tying materials can be frustrating or fun depending upon how organized your materials are. Here are a few helpful tips for getting and staying organized:
1. Small amounts of dubbing, perhaps from a fly tying class, can be securely stored and easy to find by placing it in one of those small plastic pockets of a plastic sheet that holds slides or baseball cards. Of course, label it as to the type of dubbing.
2. After removing a hackle from the skin and using only part of it, you don't want to throw it away... way too expensive! A small ziploc bag works well. Keep all kinds in there and when in need of a hackle in the future, check the bag first.
3. Hooks store well in pill boxes, particularly one that looks like a Rubic's Cube and has thirty separate compartments. They are hard to find in pharmacies, but some fly shops now carry them or will order them for you. Be sure to label each compartment with hook number, make and size.
These are only three ideas. What you want to do is: organize (#1); be frugal (#2); or consolidate (#3). There are dozens of ways to deal with all of your materials. So be creative and have fun!