A Good Idea

I had a rare brainstorm this weekend. A buddy called and suggested a quick afternoon trip for crappie. Of course I haven’t fully transitioned from hunting into fishing and in my tying I skipped ahead to bream, not thinking about crappie being the first target species. I had practically no crappie flies and so I had to tie some up. I was thinking about a box to put them in and it hit me that I could make an extra bottom for my stripping bucket and put the flies in it like a fly box. The line tender bottom goes on top and all I have to do is pull it up to access my flies and then put it back to fish.

I realized that all I have to do is make a few more bottoms for bream, saltwater, stripers and bass. I can just change out the bottoms when I need to. I actually have a different bucket for my kayak so I can rig up a bottom just for kayak sight casting and leave it in. The convenience of it is great. I can’t believe I haven’t thought of it before. I have a nice Orvis sling pack and fly boxes in it and I will take it with me, but this is much handier and quicker than trying to get my bag, unzip, it pull out fly boxes etc. I lose a lot of crappie flies because of having to fish for them in woody brush piles etc. This way if I lose a fly, I just drop the rod in the holder, pull up the line tender bottom and grab a fly, push the line tender bottom back in place and tie on. And sometimes I have just an hour or so before dark at the house or the office and this will be easier to just grab the rod and bucket and go. The sling pack is hot and sweaty to wear in the summer and this will eliminate the need to take it on my short jaunts to the neighborhood pond. I intend to zip tie some species appropriate leader material flat on the bottom. I already keep nippers on the belt. Leaders, nippers and flies all in the bucket. I think the result will be that I burn up less daylight on getting flies to the tippet. And we all know how expensive daylight on a fishing trip is.

Postscript:

Here’s the bream bottom:

I found I can layer them in the bucket so I have a crappie bottom and a bream bottom in at the same time. Since the photo I have cut a hole in each one to make it easy to my finger in and pull them out. I’ve got a hook in my storeroom and I can use the hole to just slide the various bottoms on the hook to keep them organized. I think I’ll even make one specifically for the Hex hatch.

I like it. I may even be forced to create a trout bottom. Did I really type that? Yep, Hell has frozen over! (My colleagues tease me because I rarely go trout fishing. I have nothing against trout, just the drive/travel.)