Morning,

I caught up with Jeff Jones (fly box maker extraordinaire) just before the recent BFFI, where he informed me that he was retiring - if you've never seen one of Jeff's hand-made oak fly boxes before, you're in for a real treat.

If you've been a part of our email community for any length of time, you will no doubt remember that we did a range of really nice Mayflies in one of Jeff's boxes - they sold out within hours!

On chatting with Jeff, he offered us the very last of his small fly box stock - which we gladly snapped up:

Just as our conversation was ending, Jeff also mentioned that he had a really nice, but quite large, fly box - if we could do something with it.

Too right we could ... fast forward a couple of weeks ... and

Jeff's fly boxes arrived with us last week & they are stunning!

We knew exactly what to do with his regular 'pocket sized' boxes - see our Fly Concierge Service further below - but, it took us a while to figure out what we do with the 'big one'.

We've created a 'one off' and called it The Barbless Flies Vault:

We've only one of these - and we're going to sell it - but it's not cheap!

This mega fly box from Jeff is hand-made from oak and measures:

42cm Wide x 26cm Deep x 5cm High

It's also stuffed full of dozens and dozens of our best flies - both Artisan and Bosnian.

In total there are 500+ flies contained within the box (48 different patterns, with roughly 10 of each pattern - in all the right sizes).

The fly patterns included cover the whole trout river season. Here's just a few of the 48 fly patterns which are included:

• March Browns
• Iron Blues
• Blue-Winged Olives
• Hawthorns
• Daddy Long-Legs
• Tungsten Nymphs
• Perdigons

• Bosnian Mayflies
• Regular Mayflies
• Beetles
• Shrimps
• Hi-Viz Klinkhamers
• Stoneflies

We've only one of these - and we're going to sell it - but it aint' cheap!

Our Barbless Flies Vault is on sale for the princely sum of - £750 - yes, you did read that right - s e v e n  h u n d r e d  a n d  f i f t y  p o u n d s 

The Barbless Flies Vault contains 500+ of our premium barbless river flies (valued at over £800 themselves) and Jeff's stunning Oak compartment fly box (valued at £120) - when you look at it like that, £750 is a bit of a bargain!

Full Disclosure: Jack and I originally only put this together to see what it would look like, with no intention of actually selling it. But, as the saying goes "you never know who's reading this", so if you fancy it, as a bit of a 'Brucie Bonus' I will even hand-deliver the Barbless Flies Vault to you - so long as you are within an hour's drive of Scarborough!

On the subject of Jeff's more pocket-friendly fly boxes ...

My recent long-form article over on our "The Fly Fishing EDGE" subscription platform about Fly Box Organisation seems to have struck a bit of a chord with lots of you - judging by the emails I've received over the last few weeks, all centred around two subjects:

1. Saying what an easy way it is to organise your flies, whilst taking much less to the water; and
2. Asking if we could make them available to buy through Barbless Flies

This set me thinking, and re-ignited the idea of:

Just like a Concierge at a hotel, there is no reason why we can't provide a personal service and curate sets of flies specific to you and the rivers you fish - all we need to know is which part of the country you fish in and we can do the rest. We have over 2,000 different patterns in the warehouse, so the flies themselves aren't an issue!

So we are going to do exactly that ...

We are starting with seasonal fly boxes for Spring & Summer - just like the ones I use myself.

We did something very similar for a very good customer a few weeks back, he called me on the day he received his curated fly selection, his exact words were:

"I just had to give you a call. The flies you sent me are fantastic, which is usual for you, but the box is out of this world (and I work with wood every day). I can honestly say that opening that box reminded me of just how I felt on Christmas morning as a kid."

Thanks Philip, I love taking phone calls like that.

Each one of Jeff's oak boxes will contain a minimum of 40 of our best quality flies, along with the box of flies you will also receive a document explaining which flies are in each box and information on how to get the best from each of the patterns.

Here's how the process will work:

1. You place your order for the seasonal curated fly selection through our website - you can click on any image or button contained within this email to view the seasonal selections (we are starting with Spring & Summer).
2. Once you receive your order confirmation email, reply to it giving me the following details: your name, your order number and the location of any specific rivers you fish. You can also include any extra information which you think is necessary, i.e. if there are any specific restrictions on your water.
3. I will do the research into the flies for your particular area and season.
4. I will then personally put the full fly selection together and ship them to you.

As you can probably imagine, this personal service does come at a little bit of a cost, £97.50 to be exact, but for that you receive:

• A minimum of 40 of our best quality flies presented in one of Jeff Jones's oak fly boxes (these easily fit in wader or vest pockets); and
• A document outlining the fly box's content and detailed information on each pattern included - all tailored to you and your river.

Please Note: Due to the unique aspect of this product, it's not something we can just pre-make, pluck off the shelf and ship the same day as you order (like we usually do), there will be a couple of days delay in shipping these to you as each is curated and tailored to your individual area/river/season.

Please Also Note: I believe this is outstanding value when you consider the flies alone would be around £75 and the box £45, plus you receive a detailed run down of the fly patterns contained within your personally curated selection - and, I have to spend quite a bit of time researching the best flies for the job!

If our Concierge service proves popular, we will extend it out to other selections, but to get us going we are concentrating on just seasonal boxes for Spring & Summer.

If you have any questions etc on our Concierge Service please get in touch with me and I will help where I can.

Tight lines.