Viking Lars | Saturday, 21 August 2021
Whether you're on a 3-week long backpacking trip or away for a weekend (even with the family) it can be both necessary, useful and just nice to bring some fly tying gear. When back packing space and weight are important issues, on a weekend trip that's not as important.
I often leave home for 2-3 days for work, conferences, short fishing trips or weekend trips with the family. And I almost always bring a tool set and materials for a pattern or two. On weekend trips with the family, I'm often the last to go to bed and rather than watching the TV or wasting time of Facebook, I like to tie a few flies.
I'm lucky enough to have C&F's Marco Polo set, which is really, really nice, but also really expensive. But when it comes to convenience (just grab and go) and space, this is the ultimate. If weight is an issue, I think you go go a bit ligther with a more selective approach to tool selection. The C&F Marco Polo holds every single tool one could ever wish for (except tube fly needles, but I've simply added them). I'd really love to see C&F develop a clamp-version as that would give the whole set a much better stability. Maybe I should send them a mail?
The latest version has saved some weight by making the base for the vise H-shaped rather than a solid plate, which for travelling of course is nice, but it's really a bit too light from a practical, tying stand point. The vise jaws are big and strong enough to hold even large, saltwater hooks.
Another really nice aspect to this is that it fits into one of C&F's standard-size flyboxes, which are water tight. SO it'll survive a week in the rain of needed.
Should you get one? Well, you can certainly go cheaper, especially with a more selective approach to tool selection. You can probably also save some weight. But you can't save space and the convenience is impossible to beat if you need to bring fly tying with you on a regular basis, which I often do.Especially at large conferences I tend to retreat to my room in the evening as I'm not the most social person in the world
There's a Marco Polo bag from C&F for the tool box and materials available also, and I'll take a look at that next week. It probably doesn't mean much coming from me as I love bags, but it's really nice and well thought out.
Have a great weekend!
Lars