Umqua Fly Patch

I shared the Umpqua Fly patch on Facebook as soon as I first saw a picture of it and then stumbled into it in a fly shop this several months ago. I was on my way to river at the time so the patch went along for its first trip to water that day. Since then it has been a constant companion.

Overall I was very happy with the patch. I wanted the patch as a either a minimalist fly "box" or a quick place to stash flies as they are being fished or changed out. In light of those goals I feel I got what I wanted.

The patch has two ways of holding flies. 1) Slotted foam 2) Magnetic plate.

The slotted foam is nice, but it is "trout fly" size foam. In other words it is not suited for large flies on saltwater hooks.

The magnetic plate is a nice place to put a fly while doing other stuff (i.e. chasing down a leader blowing in the wind). Personally I like to keep my flies more secured then with only the magnetic plate, but this is a purely personal preference. The plate does seem to hold flies very well.

The patch is definitely large enough to hold a days worth of flies once totally loaded...if you are not the type to carry a million flies.....most of us are....its ok. In such cases the patch is a nice complimentary tool to use.

I  was surprised by the number of different ways the patch can be attached: 2 clothes pins, carabiner, velcro, and lanyard. The velcro particularly caught my attention since its has an adhesive patch that could be put any number of places (I.e. boats, fly boxes, tying travel kits, etc).

Pros: versatile attachement points, lots of space for size 10 or smaller flies, strong magnet.
Cons: Foam slots don't hold large hooks well,  Bulky flies will over lap and limit space.