Whatever Happened to Vests?

Whatever happened to fly fishing vests?

At one time, it seemed that fly fishing vests were as critical to fly fishing as a fly fishing rod and a fly fishing reel. For decades (centuries?) fly fishing vests were the distinctive apparel item that fly anglers wore, and we wore them oh-so very proudly. The more fly boxes and accessories and gadgets and gizmos carried and attached, the more jingling and clinking and jangling while walking, the more faded and weathered and beat up the vest, the better. But I never see them now and this makes me a little sad.

Three fly anglers and three fly fishing vests. Maine, 2008.

I got my fly fishing vest for Christmas when I was nine years old, making the vest a round 30 years old now. It’s an L.L.Bean model, size Small. It still fits me (I just put it on to double-check), which makes me wonder how big it was on me when I was nine. It’s khaki-colored, of course, and it has exactly twelve pockets if I count interior, exterior, front and back ones. I never used the back pockets much but the front and interior ones, once I had them filled, were never empty again. I don’t recall how long it took me to fill up those pockets with the correctly-sized fly box or accessory item but at some point I got the vest so dialed and fine-tuned that I can easily describe what goes in what pocket now, without looking.

There are two rows of two pockets on the front of the vest and the bottom row has two small, Velcro pockets on top of the large, zippered pockets. The entire right side of the vest is for floating flies. The big fly box that first perfectly into the lower right, zippered pocket holds terrestrials, caddis, large mayflies, and other various larger fly patterns. The two small, Velcro pockets on top of that pocket hold nylon tippet spools and a couple different types of floatant. The top row pocket holds a smaller box specifically for mayflies and above that is an even smaller pocket in which some ants and beetles are stored.

On the left side of the vest are nymphs and other, small sinking flies like soft hackles. The big fly box on the lower row holds stoneflies and standard-sized nymphs, while the smaller box is filled with midges and emergers and very small nymphs. Fluorocarbon tippet spools, strike indicators, and split shot comprised the two smaller pockets on the bottom row. On the inside-left of the vest is a small, zippered pocket that holds fishing licenses and leaders. The back of the vest has a large, back-sized pocket that I think is for storing layers or a fish that you kept, but I never used it much, save for a streamer box or a water bottle now and then. The zippered pocket on the back was used even less. It took me a while to get the vest this organized but by the time I was guiding in Colorado, I had it the way I wanted it and never changed it again.

When I began guiding in Colorado (2010), vests were already on their way out. As a single data point, consider that there were six guides who worked on the river that summer. Of those six, only three wore vests, myself included. The following summer, the number fell to two of six.

To store so much stuff in a vest, an angler needs to be organized. Considering how much I value the organization of, and how much time I spend organizing, my fly fishing tackle today and the fact that I acquired my vest before I acquired nearly all of my other fly fishing tackle, I wonder if the vest itself influenced the way I organize my gear? In other words, was I predisposed to organization before I got the vest, or did the vest make me more organized?

I can’t remember the last time I put my vest on but I do remember two fishing moments when I reconsidered the effectiveness or appropriateness of the fly fishing vest. The first was when I took my inaugural trip to Idaho Falls for work, sometime in 2011. We’d planned a couple fishing days over that weekend, the first of which was in Zack’s drift boat. I clearly remember stepping into his boat with my vest and not being sure where to put it. No one else was wearing a vest, so I didn’t think that I needed to put mine on; but where should it go? I carefully placed it in the line basket in the bow but Zack quickly assured me that it was NOT to go there. I think I hung it over my seat, but it didn’t fit well there and also prevented me from leaning back comfortably. Witnessing and considering Zack’s boat bag and how he used it as an angling tool - like I’d done with my vest while guiding - I started to wrap my head around the fact that vests may not go so well in drift boats.

Several years later, I found myself in a Washington state trout stream on a hot, early-summer day. A friend and I were planning to spend the entire day on the water, parking one vehicle several miles upstream from where we parked the other. It got so hot, and the fishing was so slow, that we eventually aborted and turned around. I was so uncomfortable and tired and sweaty and annoyed by the time we got back to where we started, that I knew I had to do something differently. I also realized that I’d used no more than a half-dozen different flies over the course of the day and yet I carried more than a thousand with me. My vest suddenly seemed much, much less appropriate for summertime, full-day walk-and-wade fishing, an activity that I once deemed it ideal for.

Thankfully I had a waist pack with me in the truck. I loaded it up with two fly boxes, four spools of tippet, and a water bottle the next day and couldn’t believe how much weight I’d shed and how much more effectively I fished.

It wasn’t long after that that my vest was set aside for the long term, in favor of boat bags, waist packs, sling packs, or simply wader and pants pockets. Nevertheless, I’ve brought my vest with me in all my moves around the country over the past decade-and-a-half. It still holds nippers on a zinger and most of the fly boxes that were once so frequently pulled out and put back. There are a variety of pins on it, collected from various countries I’ve visited, a couple patches, and a handful of rips, scuffs, stains, and repairs. I plan to keep it until I die, or until someone close to me wants or needs it.

There are so many different ways to carry your fishing gear these days, and I’ve tried most of them. These days, my boat bag serves as the central storage place for boxes that are then placed in waist packs and sling packs. I’d like to think that there’s a time and a place for my vest again, though I can’t picture it at the moment. It’s hard to believe that a piece of equipment that was once so critical and widely-accepted is now seemingly obsolete but I suppose there are plenty of other such examples out there.

Maybe vests will make a comeback some day. If they do, and if I jump on the comeback-bandwagon, I hope my vest gets its ten minutes of fame and some time in the limelight. It deserves as much.

Until then, I’m vowing now to wear it at least once a year from here on. Who knows, maybe I’ll spark that comeback myself.

Lower 48

Writers on the Fly Wrap-Up