fishpond Road Trip Fly Tying Kit

Four days ago I entered a contest by fishpond on their Facebook page. Well, I won...I won big time! I won their Road Trip Fly Tying Kit. For four days I've been hoping it would come soon, because I've seen a few of their products and really appreciated their quality and how well they are thought out. And today, the wait was over. Minutes after doing my part to devour a dinner pizza pie there was a stranger opening my screen door, peeking through the front window and leaving a package. Initial thought of fishpond....fast delivery!

Now, although I've only had this in my hands for a few hours, I've opened it up three or four times to check it out and see what they've done. This bag is awesome.

The outside front has a nice small pocket, maybe for a cell phone like my kids suggested.

Front

Back

(Well, I guess there's no point hiding it any longer....) I started sewing a few weeks ago....(there, I admitted it) and so one of things I noticed on the outside is that they straps are sewn to straps that are part of the outsides. This makes the stress point where the X's are sewn to likely never tear through. Even though fly tying materials are often light, the base of your vise is heavy, and so this extra strap in the middle will give this strap strength, which will likely last forever.

Open up the bag and you find the inside cover has a large zippered pocket and 4 pockets. This setup is also found on the inside of the back cover. You'll also see in the image below, the first insert. This one has a hook/bead box and thread storage tubes. Both the box and the tubes have Velcro on them and can be removed when in use.

Inside cover and containers

Flip the insert over and the backside is empty...but has a fuzzy back...ready to accept Velcro. The next insert is a combination vise pouch and tool storage. There are two zippered pouches, one for your vise base, and one padded for your vise. Seriously...your vise will sleep well at night. The outside of this vice bag has 18 slots sewn in to hold your tying tools.

Vise Sleeping Bag

Tool storage on left side

 The third insert has 18 Ziplock bags, sewn in groups of 3 to Velcro (shown above). There are two sizes to these bags. The reverse side of this insert has 4 zippered pouches. These pouches are made of plastic backed fish netting and have 2 different colors, to help identify which pouch you need to grab.

Zippered pockets and back cover

 And finally, the reason I keep calling this parts "inserts" is because they can be removed and reinserted. Think about it, you get to your tying party (Guys, Flies & Pies for example) and instead of having to flip back and forth like an old trapper keeper notebook, you pull these out and have more stuff laid in front of you ready to grab.

The bag pulled apart into it's individual parts

Overall, having really just pulled this out of the packaging and looked it over a few times, I got to say this bag is awesome. I can't imagine anyone having any complaints with it. It's well built, has great ideas for storage, and looks like it would be great for either fly tying party hoping or for having tying stuff ready for stream side tying. 

Like I said in the beginning, I won this bag from fishpond....it's mine...all mine. However, I'd be lying if I didn't initially think about putting it up for a raffle at the Guys, Flies & Pies event on 2/18/2012. Unfortunately, this bag is so freaking sweet, I don't think I can part with it. Hey, maybe I can convince fishpond to be a sponsor for GFP for 2012 and send us another one for someone to win at the event. Hey, you never know!