The Taxonomy of Your Fly-Tying Crap - Junk Drawer Entropy

In the middle of last summer I moved into a new apartment. Moving is great in that you get to shed a lot of garbage and streamline your life a bit. Yet, the fly-fisherman in me is also an obsessive hoarder when it comes to the threads, feathers and steel that comprise my tying material collection. Over the years, I've tried to marshal this trove into order using an ever expanding array of organizers, bins and racks (thanks Container Store). Inevitably though, these spaces devolve into something totally useless with contents barely recognizable. This phenomena is called junk drawer entropy.

Six months later and at the start of the New Year, I decided to finally get my materials in order. Sorting through of all of this stuff is nothing short of an exercise in taxonomy. Grouping like with like soon grows into a totally insane enterprise with a never ending set of common sense ways to organize this crap. Maribou with maribou and tinsel with tinsel.

With some sixty days until the start of the inland trout season, I have an unholy amount of flies to tie and boxes to fill in preparation for days on the water ahead. I should really be more careful with my bugs when I'm outside, but my favorite fishery, Wisconsin's Driftless, really has a way of stealing your flies.

With everything in order, I can begin my annual tying spree in earnest. In just a few months, I'll have tied enough to satisfy the bulk of my needs for the approaching season. On a Friday in March not too long from now, friends and I will compare our boxes as we prepare for the Opener the following morning. Hopefully, it will be warmer than 16 degrees.