Last year in this space — the exact space, my March 2025 column — I shared 10 items to begin a tacklebox. Most anglers start with a spinning rod and lure or bait, especially youngsters; and as I write this, after prepping the house for the coming St. Patrick’s Day Snow-And-Ice-Mageddon, looking ahead to sitting in a canoe in the sun and glancing through napping eyes at a bobber sounds like heaven.
I began fly-fishing in my teens, and I still have the ratty, tan fly-fishing vest Mom bought my brother and me right after we moved up here, back when Tom’s East Bay was a different store that, for the life of me, I can’t remember … a Giant maybe? That vest is now my dedicated salmon and steelhead vest, 35 years later.
Getting started in any kind of fishing can be daunting if you step into a sporting goods store planning to gear up. With the allure of fly fishing growing exponentially over the years, it’s a gear-and-gadget paradise. But unless you’re planning on extensive fishing to either picture-postcard locations or across multiple days, you may need nothing more than your rod, line, a handful of flies, and something to keep the sun off your neck.
Here are 10 essential items (or groups of items) to stock up a beginning fly-fishing vest. With these, you’ll minimize frustration and fool a few fish as you learn and gain experience. And there’s a reason I suggest a vest over the other options of carrying your gear – okay, maybe personal opinions – that are shared in the sidebar. Everything should find a home in a lightweight, comfortable vest. (Note: this is not to get started fly fishing overall, so I’m excluding a rod, reel, line, net, etc.).
1. Basic tools: These include, most importantly, nips or clippers to cut line; forceps for mashing down the barb on a hook or removing a hook from a fish’s mouth or your finger; and a soft retractable tape measure (in case you plan on keeping any fish). For easy and efficient access, attach the nips and forceps to pin-on, retractable reels and affix them to your vest on your dominant hand side. There will be many days when you won’t touch 99% of the flies in your fly boxes, but you’ll always use these two items.
The tape measure isn’t totally necessary but nice to have so you know how much more to fudge on the size of the fish you caught. If you go too far overboard, no one will believe you. It’s all about the lies being believable and realistic.
2. Flies and Fly Boxes: It’s not fly fishing without flies, of course, and you’ll spend the rest of your fly-fishing career learning about fly patterns, how to fish them, how to tie them, stream insect life, hatch schedules, and so much more. For now, simply go to a fly shop (or YouTube) and ask for their help in putting together a beginner’s basic selection for the water and fish you intend to pursue.
3. Leaders: Leaders are the clear monofilament section of a fly-fishing rig, with the thick end attached to the colored fly line. They’re anywhere between 7 and 9 feet in length and taper down from the thicker diameter to a wispy tip, generally represented by an “X” value — 3X, 4X, 5X, and so on. The higher the number, the thinner and more delicate the line.
When you tie on a new leader, you can attach the end – the tippet — to the fly for the first handful of flies. But the more you cut back, you’ll be backing up into thicker line. Which means you’ll need more material that is specifically…
4. Tippet: These are thin spools of a certain X line; it’s all the same. It pays to carry a basic selection of 2X-6X, but you’ll generally do most fishing with 4X and 5X. These spools typically last a long time depending on how often you fish and how often your casting catches a tree.
5. Thermometer: This might not be entirely necessary — you’re at the river, and regardless of what the water temperature is, if fish are feeding or not, or if flies are hatching or not, you’re going fishing. But as you gain experience, knowing the stream temperature can give clues to what insects are hatching, how active the fish could be, and what flies or fishing techniques might work better (on the surface or down deep).
6. Floatant and desiccant: If you plan to fish dry flies, you’ll need a couple of items to help flies float. Floatant covers any number of materials that coat the dry fly and help it stay buoyant, and desiccants (powders) dry out a waterlogged fly and make it serviceable again.
7. Bug spray: Bugs in fly fishing are a great thing, as long as they’re not feasting on your neck. Just keep bug sprays away from anything plastic such as fly boxes; and I also like to keep it away from my rod, reel, and line.
8. Flashlight: Fewer places and activities on this planet will make you lose track of time more than a beautiful stretch of river with hungry fish in front of you. Sometimes, you hit everything right and the flies are hatching and the fish are biting – and actually at the end of your line, too. Before you know it, the sun has dropped below the treetops, you can’t see your line anymore, and you’ve got a hike to the car.
9. Emergency Supplies: Fit these into a small pouch or Ziplock you can roll up and hide in an inside pocket. It doesn’t need to be a pack that keeps you alive for six days in the wilderness; rather, a few items to help while on the water – Band-Aids, antibiotic ointment, your preferred painkiller to stave off a headache, matches, small pocket knife.
10. Readers: OK, this might only be for a certain age group, but if you’re over 50 and want to spend more time fishing instead of trying to thread your tippet through a hook eye, put the ego aside and get some cheaters. Put them on a lanyard around your neck.
A simple vest simply stocked is a great gateway into the world of fly fishing. Before you know it, you’ll be filling it up and lugging more stuff than you need on the river until you eventually learn to pare down and go back to basics.