24 Feb The Junk Box

by Bryan Eldredge

My parents always had one drawer in our kitchen that we referred to simply as “the junk drawer.” It was always the top drawer, most readily at hand. That made sense, but Mom was sometimes bothered that guests sometimes stumbled upon it when looking for silverware. The Junk Drawer for the position of honor not because it was the cleanest or most organized of the drawers. It just had stuff, and everyone needs stuff.

A Day in the Life of My Junk Box

Considering the usual contents of that drawer it occurs to me that maybe we called it the “junk drawer” not because it held real junk but because that was easier to say than “the drawer with all of the stuff we find most useful but that doesn’t readily belong in any other kitchen drawer.”

The junk drawer’s contents included some staples:  needle-nose pliers, scissors, several kinds of tape, batteries, a flashlight, string, screwdrivers, matches, lighters, keys, empty key rings, pens and pencils, safety pins, an old pocket knife or two and other dissimilar items. Basically all the stuff Dad would carry in his pockets if cargo pants had already been invented.

There was also a certain amount of fluidity to the contents. Stuff that seemed worth having but didn’t have a place would go in the drawer. Coupons, for example, and scraps of paper with phone numbers or addresses scribbled on them floated around the drawer. And there’s transient stuff, too, like my little sister’s bobby pins, padlocks, glasses, twist ties, medicines and assorted hardware.

I can’t tell you how many times during my youth I yelled up the stairs asking Mom if she knew where something or other was only to hear her ask, “Have you looked in the junk drawer?” No search was ever complete until the contents of that drawer had been sifted.

The thing about the junk drawer is that I don’t believe my parents ever made a conscious decision to collect these items and to put them in a single drawer. Rather, I think it came into being through a certain pragmatism born of utility. Like I said, everyone needs stuff, and stuff has to go somewhere.

I don’t have a junk drawer in my home now, but the junk drawer lives on in my fly fishing pack. One of the great challenges for fly fishers, especially those who who tie flies, is keeping all those flies where we can find them. We’ve got boxes for BWOs, chironomids, drakes, buggers, tricos, attractors, small nymphs, stoneflies, caddis, etc., etc., etc. Most of us do, but after a while, you find you need a wheel-barrel to carry them all. Organized fly assortments are, well, organized, but at a certain point they become functionally inefficient. At that point, some disorganization helps. For me that means—you guessed it—”the junk box.” Briefly defined, the junk box means one box with some of everything.

To be sure you’ll find a few flies in each my go-to patterns, Higa’s SOS, Hare’s Ears, Prince Nymphs, Copper Johns, sow bugs, Pheasant Tails, PMXs, Parachute Adams, Trudes, Parachute Hoppers, Elk Hair Caddis, Stimulators, Klinkhammers, some Wooley Buggers, Muddlers, and Clouser Minnows and the like.

Once I’ve got the basics covered, I throw in a few imitations of the specific hatches I’m likely to see. For example, I almost always carry some BWOs and PMDs. For hatches that have short runs, I will usually just add some for the month or so around that hatch—green and brown drakes, for example.

Then there’s the stuff that makes it a “junk box,” the stuff that sort of fills in around the edges. Right now my junk box has at least a few of all of the following (in no particular order):

Hot Wire Princes, Zug Bugs, Czech Nymphs, Chamois Caddis, North Fork Specials, Special J’s (a fly UFG co-owner Jeff Lindstrom developed), zebra midges, thread midges, disco midges, Yong Specials, brassies, San Juan worms, rock worms, Steel worms, annelids, Vladi’s Sexy Worms, glow bugs, bead eggs, hot glue eggs, Barr’s Emergers (BWO, PMD and callabaetis), Rainbow Warriors, Lawson’s Emergers, soft-hackle caddis, Bloody Marys, Bunny Midges, Griffith’s Gnats, (probably a half dozen unnamed midge patterns), parachute BWO, Bruce’s BWO, Sparkle Duns (multiple colors), Dave Thomas Specials, Renegades, Bugmeisters, Sailor Ants, Dave’s Hoppers, a beetle or two, Chromies, Ice Cream Cones, Royal Wulffs, Au Sable Wulffs, scuds, leeches, Platte River Specials, Pass Lake Specials, Captain Americas, a bucktail or two, callabaetis cripples. . .

Well, you get the picture; it’s a mess! Just like the junk drawer.

For some, a messy box can cause a lot of angst, but what appears to be chaos is not without its design. Here’s my blueprint. First, my junk box is not a large box. It’s medium sized because I want to be able to carry it at all times, even in the pocket of my shorts. In order to get all of those flies in the junk box, I prefer a box with lidded compartments in a variety of shapes and sizes. (It’s amazing how many flies, especially nymphs, you can get into a three-quarter-inch cube!) Spring-loaded lids are a must; they let me access three or four compartments at a time while keeping the others covered. I don’t want to dump the whole thing or have a big gust of wind strip me of all the dries at once.

Just like Mom and Dad’s kitchen, I have other, more organized spaces. I usually carry at least a half-dozen boxes, and often, when I know exactly what fly I’m looking for, I will go to one of my neatly-arranged, specialized boxes. That usually takes a little more work. Just like Mom and Dad’s drawer, my junk box it always closest at hand, so chances are that when it’s time to change flies, I’ll end up with that box. And when the fishing is tough and I need a little inspiration, the deepest  recesses of the junk box often hold just the thing to renew my hope.