Perfect Fly Patch for Flats Wading (2024)

Hi All,

I love wading shallow water for bonefish. I'm paring down to my perfect, minimalist setup, and one thing keeps dogging me: the right fly patch. I keep a little fly box w/ bonefish patterns in different weights and sizes in my shirt pocket. I'm looking for something that serves two purposes:

1. It needs to securely hold 2-3 big flies with 8-10" of wire bite tipped. When I have a shot at a big cuda, small shark, jacks, etc, I want to be able to quickly swipe a big ugly fly with a wire tipped, make the switch, and make the shot. Generally it is a mirage popper, and a big variation on a deceiver.

2. It needs to hold used bonefish flies so I don't get my unused flies all salty and wet.

Ideally it would either clip or velcro to my waist pack. It could be two different things, I suppose.

I've thought about:
-getting a piece of pre-cut C&F slit foam insert and attaching it w/ velcro (too floppy? maybe just right?)
- Tacky Tube (too small? opens on its own? able to hold big hooks?)
- Smith Creek Streamer Patch (seems sort of junky, and like it would be flapping around).

I've already tried shirt pockets, pack pockets, zip locks. Lost too many shots untangling the mess, or unhooking my shirt, pack, ziplock, etc.

Any experience with the above, or good ideas out there?

Thanks all!!

I grasp your dilemma. Anything protruding from your body while wading can potential engage an errant coil of line. These days I mostly fish out of a skiff and can have several rods rigged including one for 'cuda...still, to switch when an alternative species appears can be...oh well, its gone. To clip off a bonefish fly, tie a loop and attach a pre rigged wire trace; its a nice idea. I like slit foam boxes and use them effectively but such foam as a patch could easily have a large and wire laden fly fall out on its own. Lambs wool entangles flies.

So, if one attached his 4' of 16# Fluoro tippet with his Non-Slip Loop affixed bonefish fly to the 20# strand above it with a largish loop-to-loop instead of a Blood Knot and had a single big wire traced fly in a small thin plastic box just big enough to hold the fly itself and put it in his pocket, it would not have another such set up fly to entangle with. One could (in theory) un-loop his tippet and smaller fly, loop on the bite tippet, put the shrimp fly back in his pocket (in the little box) and zing out a hot shot crossing Mr. Tooth's path and strip like crazy.

For short wades (ie guide says don't need to take water) I carry a small double sided waterproof fly box with bonefish flies in one side and in the other side a spool of tippet and a cuda fly and a popper on wire . I used to carry stuff in shirt pockets but I recently converted to hoodies without pockets so the waterproof box in pants pockets is a must.

For used flies I have a homemade patch. Get yourself a giveaway plastic card holder/wallet (bank card, loyalty card, whatever) and some self adhesive foam sheet as sold for re-lining fly boxes. Line the wallet with foam and there you go. You can also put used tippet in it. Like me you're obviously obsessive about not putting salty used flies back in the "clean" box.

Wading in saltwater is what I do
I've always either just shoved used flies in my pocket or a small plastic Plano box with holes drilled in it
.....But recently here on these pages, someone (thank you very much) mentioned that they use a streamer wallet
As I have a couple of them around that I don't use, I thought that was genius. !

Ooops.. I don't know how that ticket picture showed up or how to remove it

I've got a 4" piece of PVC pipe with two Neodinium rare earth magnets epoxied inside. I clip that to my sling pack and drop my flies inside that. The flies cling to the magnets very well.

When I get home, I just run fresh water through the whole thing and pull the flies out to air-dry before I put them back in my box.

Cheers,
Graeme

This is super helpful. Y’all are brilliant. I’ve tried the loop to loop leaving tippet on the fly, and I like it, but I’m slow w actually making the switch w the loop to loop. I’m going to tie some leaders that way next time though and see if I can get food w it. I’ve also played around w these Japanese micro snap clips by owner. Brought in a monster cuda on one recently. Had to horse it in due to lemon sharks and I thought it would give but it held pretty good. But I hate the idea of a picky bonefish or worse a permit turning up it’s nose at a snap, and the thought of having 10#test on when a big cuda finally eats. So I was thinking of moving the snap between the tippet and the leader. Might help w turning over a bigger fly too. Might be a recipe for tangled messes too. We shall see.

I’ve also gotten ok at wading w a rigged 10 weight out of the way. But it is still a pia. And swapping them might take me just as long as switching flies.

I really like the strong magnets in the pvc. That could be a game changer. And I’m thinking the one fly box might be worth considering too.

Original Cormorant: I’m having trouble picturing what you are saying exactly. What’s the thing you stick the foam to? Almost like those cheapy black plastic fake leather dodads like a bank gives you to put a checkbook in? Tell me more.

Thanks all for the notions. There aren’t too many people to get deep with this sort of minutia...

P.S. Riptide, I wish I could have been there with you at the Beach Club. But I was 1. Only started going to shows when it was almost over...

parsnip said:

Original Cormorant: I’m having trouble picturing what you are saying exactly. What’s the thing you stick the foam to? Almost like those cheapy black plastic fake leather dodads like a bank gives you to put a checkbook in? Tell me more.

Click to expand...

Absolutely - I have used a credit card/business card sized dodad but a cheque book sized one would accomodate bigger flies. It's simply to avoid used flies loose in your pocket. I got the idea from a fly wallet given away free in Trout and Salmon magazine (UK) some years ago, and when the foam was destroyed by use I replaced it and realised that I could use any little plastic wallet with self adhesive foam sheet.

Out of focus but you get the idea

Rip Tide said:

Wading in saltwater is what I do
I've always either just shoved used flies in my pocket or a small plastic Plano box with holes drilled in it
.....But recently here on these pages, someone (thank you very much) mentioned that they use a streamer wallet
As I have a couple of them around that I don't use, I thought that was genius. !

Ooops.. I don't know how that ticket picture showed up or how to remove it

Click to expand...

The Grateful Dead...$6.00.....This certainly does bring back memories of my misspent youth.

Hey all,

Thanks again for all this. Super helpful. I’m going to do some playing around w magnets and see what I land on.

karstopo said:

Watch that neodymium magnet in the saltwater environment. It will corrode. Most stainless hooks aren’t magnetic either.

Click to expand...

I make sure I completely envelope the magnets to protect against that corrosion. Definitely a problem though - if they smell salt, they rust!

On SS, I avoid it because it's not as sharp as high carbon steel and the fish is more likely to survive if I break off a fly. (My flies generally get lost or damaged well before they rust, but I do wash them after use. )

Cheers,
Graeme

I’m not much on stainless hooks either for the same reasons, much softer it is than tempered and forged carbon steel, but stainless is the norm in many spots over here. Many of the fly sellers online and otherwise in the USA use stainless hooks for most of their saltwater patterns.

Interestingly, I recently snagged and pulled up a fly tied on tin plated carbon steel out of the depths of the freshwater lake I live on I lost less than a year ago. The hook was almost completely rusted away. Freshwater.