If you’re anything like me, you have an extensive collection of flies. Buying enough fly boxes to store all the purchased and tied flies you’ve accumulated over the years can get expensive fast.
I’ve been making my own, very simple to make, very cheap fly boxes for a few years. They’re a good size and hold a large number of flies. They may not have the professional look of commercially purchased boxes, but as you can see in the picture above, they get the job done just fine.
It only takes about 10 minutes to make one of these fly boxes, with a total cost of below $3 a box.
Materials needed:
- Box – $0.99 I got a bunch on sale from Micheals.
- Foam – $0.99 For a sheet of foam, I buy the thick stuff, but you can get thinner foam for cheaper.
- Scissors – You should probably have some lying around the house.
- Super Glue – $0.99 for two bottles at the Dollar store, so $0.50 each.
Grand total of $2.48 each plus tax for one of these boxes. Here’s a picture of the materials needed!
Start by pressing down foam down on open face of box.
This will leave an imprint of the size and shape of the box. Cut the foam along these lines to get a piece of foam that fits nicely into the fly box. put some glue near the corners and center of the side of the side of the fly box you are attaching the foam to and press firmly.
Do the same to the other side if you want a double sided fly box and voila! You are done!
Looks good doesn’t it! No need to spend money on expensive store bought fly boxes. For the spin angler, these will hold inline spinners, jigheads, spoons, and pre-rigged plastics as well.
A tip to make the foam last longer is to mash the barbs on your hooks. If you’re using these boxes to store hooks with barbs, the foam is going to get torn up within a seasons use.
Maybe you want to spend money on a proper fly box after all? Or maybe you think my DIY fly box looks like crap? If you buy from the link below, I get some beer money.
Great idea Ben.
Not being able to fish for the past few months has had the effect of overflowing fly boxes.
I don’t know about Micheals, but Dollarama sells self adhesive “fridge” magnet material in large sheets that could be placed on the “b” side of the box for smaller flies.
That’s an excellent idea John. Thanks for the reply!