Martyn White | Thursday, 23 March 2023
The fishing has continued to be good this week with plenty of rain in the mountains bringing more maruta into the rivers and more rain forecast. Unfortunately, yesterday's fishing also included the loss of my nymph box.
The box in question was an L-size C&F job with an added swing leaf so I'm talking, conservatively, 600 flies. Absolutely gutting. But there's a lesson or two learned too;
No more grey, black or green boxes. I spent an hour or more trying to find my box to no avail. It might still be on the bank somewhere, but I couldn't see it. I'll be switching over to brightly coloured boxes because it'd be harder to miss a bright red rectangle. I quite fancy the Fulling Mill competition box, but would rather it was silicon than foam.
I'll be adding name & contact labels too- a suggestion from a friend that never occurred to me. It might not always work, but certainly in Japan there's a high probability that if someone finds it they'd contact you or hand it in to the local police station.
Do 1 thing, I was fannying around trying to make a video of the maruta fishing because of a several requests after I posted pictures on YouTube. I don't normally do that, and trying to make something decent was taking up a lot of my attention, which is an ideal situation for a box that's looking do fall out of a pocket unnoticed!
Go back to chest pockets or a waistcoat. I just had my box in my Jacket pocket, easy but less secure than in a top openin chest pocket or top opening waistcoat pocket. Yes, it's a rare occurence but it's easy to wear a different garment.
Luckily I've had about enough of the maruta for the year anyway, when they reall fill up the river it gets a bit too easy to hold my interest for long. I'm still pretty scunnered though, but I'm trying to move forward, at least I'll be tying my flies and not buying them-I've alread got hundreds of hooks, beads and materials so the immediate finacial cost is essentially zero.. well that's what I'm telling myself anyway! I'm now trtying to plan the tying for the replacement. Annoyingly, despite being able to instantly identify any missing flies from the box while looking at it, I'm struggling to be remember exactly what was all in there. At least it's all quick ties, and I can take some solace in being able to tie a box from scratch and make it an absolute beast.