Rickard Gustafsson | Friday, 30 October 2026
More often than not I bring a fly rod when I leave home. You never know if there will be a chance of fishing or some casting. I do this because it has happened once, twice or more that I have been some where without a rod and a good chance for fishing, or casting, and nothing better to do. And it is very few times that I have brought a rod and regretted the decision.
Many times I bring a rod as I know that I will have a chance just to get some practice in. But even in that case I bring some flies. You never know if you will stumble upon some interesting fishable spot. For this purpose I have built my pocket fly box. It is just a small tin box for mints where I have added some plastic foam to stick the flies into. I have had this box for a couple of years now and quite recently I have seen that a company have started making the exact same fly box as I made myself, with just a bit fancier insert and a magnet in the lid. The magnet in the lid is a good idea that I will add to my box. An even small tin box than mine would work well. I just happened to make mine like this and I like it a lot. It fits in my pocket and still can fit a decent number of flies.
With such limited room for flies the choice of what you put in the box becomes hard, or very easy. As the space is very limited you really have to consider your selection of flies. It becomes a quite interesting exercise as suddenly the choice of flies can be very easy. Suddenly you know exactly what you really believe in. I always start with some Hare’s ear in natural and black, some small and some bigger ones. That could be enough, you can catch anything on a woolly bugger but you can catch even more on a Hare’s ear. I usually go for the ones without a bead, but some with a bead is good to have also. You can cover a lot of situations and species with some Hare’s ear flies.
Then I usually grab something floating thing. A couple of Bastards or some dear hair sedges, or both. They are quite small so both can go in.
The bastard, Busen in Swedish, is a very simple fly made from just some seal fur dubbing. It can be fished as both floating or under the surface. At first it floats well, and if you chew a bit on the fly adding some saliva it will sink slowly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LscFO4G6LvM here is one way to tie it, I happen to skip the weighting on the ones I have tied. I seem to have a thing for flies named the bastard. The copper bastard is one of the flies I trust the most in the salt.
Then a streamer or two, either some olive woolly buggers, or some small zonkers. It is not perfect, but you are ready for many situations. A Hare’s ear will catch everything and what you don’t catch on a Hare’s ear you will catch on the woolly bugger.
This selection covers a lot of situations. Not all, but a lot of them. It works well in salt water also, but if I know that it is only salt that is on the menu the selection will look a bit different.
So if you have the rod and the flies you aren’t completely ready. You need something to cut the line and de-hook the fish. I have a small folding scissors that also has a part for grabbing hooks. A very nifty tool. It folds down so small that it fits in my small box. Not the perfect tool, but it does the job better than teeth and fingers.
If it is a situation where I don’t really know that there will be some possibilities for fishing showing up the setup will usually be setup for casting practice. So a spare leader that fits for fishing will be brought, or at least some tippet to setup the casting leader for fishing. If you want to go really compact here some tippet can be put in the box. But I probably want to go for a fresh leader if I’m fishing. A spare casting leader can also be nice to have, you might need it and it doesn’t really take up any space.
A net is nice to have, it makes things easier and is safer for the fish. I tend to always have a net in the car so that makes it easy for me. I also have a net that folds up very small. The rim of the net is of some springy metal that can be folded. Not the best net, but workable.
I always bring at least this box with my rod if there is the slightest chance of fishing. I learned the hard way what a bad idea it can be not bring some flies if you have the rod at the WCs 2024 in Sweden. The competition was placed right in a very good spot for seatrout fishing. We had seatrout hunting herring and tobis in the casting court during the competition! It would be quite funny to see someone getting their fluff stolen by a fish during a competition. And an interesting thing to handle for the judges and probably the jury also. The closest I’ve gotten to this is roaches striking my accuracy fly during practice.
I have some ideas about the rod and line kit to bring along, but I’ll save that to another time. I’m getting a bit rushed to get this thing finished right about now as Paul needs it, about now Wednesday evening before he takes off into the jungle.
PoD: How my box looks right now and the small scissors. There are some bonus flies in there now, I thought the super puppan could work a wasp.