I sometimes wonder why I have this insatiable appetite to visit fly shops when I really have no need to visit. I usually don't need any new equipment and I have too much fly tying stuff now as it is. I'm like a child who has tons of toys but still loves to go to the toy store to look at all the toys he wishes he had. I can deduce that my passion for fly fishing might have something to do with it. What can I say; I'm like a gear head for fly fishing stuff. It may be hereditary, my mother used to shop at the knitting store and go down every isle looking at everything on the shelf. Hmm, that's where I get it from.

I know I must an easy mark because when I walk in it's "Hey have you seen our new wading boots over in the corner?" or "Where you going this weekend?" No matter how many times I go into a fly shop there are always something for a gear head like me to drool over. And just when you think it's time to go, you can't help but stop and look what the fish are biting on up on the white board. It doesn't matter that I may need absolutely nothing in the way of fly fishing gear or supplies, I always seen to buy something.

I live in Boise, Idaho and as long as I've lived here there has always been a fly shop or two around. Even before that anglers can always remember there being a fly shop in town. Aside from selling fly fishing goodies, fly shops are a wealth of information. Stay in one long enough and you are bound to pick up some tip or a secret hole some other angler gives you with the threat of death if you reveal his secret to anyone. I also find that I'm not the only fly fishing freak in town; there are others like me living amongst the normal citizens of my community.

 

The other day I was in a mega sporting goods store on the scale of a Home Depot. I had gone there to buy a part for my trailer. Of course no trip to this store is complete without stopping by the rather large fly fishing department. This stores fly fishing department is perhaps larger than most fly shops. I just never get the same kind of feeling that I get from a real fly shop when I'm in one of these huge package stores. The employee's appear to know a little about fly fishing but you feel like you're in China. It looks to me like almost everything on the shelves is made in China. Odd brands I've never heard of and close out specials everywhere. When you walk into a fly shop, you feel fly fishing. There is a smell that can only be smelled in a fly shop, it smells like fly fishing. Big package stores smell and feel like, well, big package stores.

Being a passionate fly angler I've always wondered what it would be like to work in a fly shop. The thought of being surrounded by fly fishing gear all day does at times appeal to me, fly fishing nuts love to be around gear. I'm a social guy and can talk your ears off when talking about fly fishing and what better place to talk about fly fishing then a fly shop. However if truth be known who would hire a fly fishing gear head who simply plays with all the inventory all day long. When it finally came time to work I'd probably be off in the corner talking for the last half hour with a customer on the merits of using a bead on nymphs as opposed to not. If I was the owner I would probably have to let me go.

One of the nice things about being a self employed angler is I get to travel around fly fishing the Northwest a lot. Two of my favorite things to do when I'm out on the road is visiting with old friends and checking out the local fly shops. They come in a variety of sizes and shapes. Depending on what time of the year they may be full of inventory or as bare as winter. Most show the personality of the owner who is rarely there. The owner is usually out on the local river guiding his sports on stretches of river only attainable by drift boat. He's more than likely earning just enough money to fill the selves for winter.

One year I was heading to Gardiner Montana to fish the Salmon fly hatch. I decided to go through Yellowstone National Park instead of going all the way around through Livingston. On my way to the park I stopped in West Yellowstone to, as you might guess, visit a few fly shops on the way. You can imagine in a tourist town like West Yellowstone the fly shops are going to reflect that. The first two I walked into had about four employees working behind the counter. These fly shops really cater to the tourist; designer hats and clothes, keepsake nick nacks, colorful coffee mugs with the name of the fly shop and more stuff than I can remember. These shops were packed with stuff. I bought a few flies and left.

Eventually I made it to Gardiner Montana just outside the North entrance to the Park. After a quick stop for lunch and a cold one we went over to Park's fly shop. What a contrast in fly shops between Gardiner and West Yellowstone. Park's was a working man's fly shop. The shop had only one employee, a guide, who was busy working on building leaders and as I was to find out later it was his turn to mind the store. There were a few fly rods and a couple of reels along the wall and the boxes of flies obviously depleted. The young man manning the store was quite pleasant and explained that all the guides were out working their sports over the Salmon fly hatch.

I bought some of Park's fly floatant and spent some time going over the conditions on the river and where the Salmon flies were the heaviest on the river. There were no fancy designer clothes or coffee mugs on the selves' just gear you need to catch fish with. The only people who came into Park's fly shop were anglers who aren't interested in buying a cowboy hat with a Park's Fly Shop patch on the front. The young man who manned the store enjoyed my company and the information he gave me helped me to enjoy the Salmon fly hatch for the rest of the day. In a working class fly shop there is little time to sweep the floors or clean the counter. Leaders have to be made and flies have to be tied. The Salmon fly hatch only comes around once a year and there is little time for anything that's not related to fly fishing.

You can meet some of the most peculiar people of extraordinary character in fly shops spread throughout the Northwest. I was near the continental divide when I stopped for gas. Standing by the gas pump I noticed an old wooden building across the street that read; Mercantile Sodas and Fly shop. After I finished filling my tank I went across the street to investigate further the fly shop part of the store. When I opened the front door I was immediately greeted by grandma and grand pa. It was as if I was there long lost son who came to visit. Grand ma went straight to the kitchen to make me a sandwich while grand pa entertained me with fish stories from his years of fishing and guiding the local river. The store was right out of a Hollywood set. However old the store was everything else was clean and neat. The fly fishing section was in great shape with fly rods, flies and gear for the river just down the street. While grand ma was working on my lunch grand pa took me outside to show me his cane rods and his fresh vegetable garden.

One year I traveled over to Silver Creek, Idaho for the famous Brown Drake hatch. The Brown Drake hatch is an evening hatch and I had all afternoon to fish the Conservancy section of the creek. When I found a good spot to pull over and gear up I soon discovered I had forgotten my wading boots. It's nearly impossible to fish Silver Creek properly without wading so thoughts of driving all the way home to retrieve my boots entered my mind. Fortunately my partner Tony was able to shake me from doom by suggesting we head into Hailey and hook up with a fly shop. I ended up with a loaner pair of wading boots and a handful of Brown Drakes that saved the trip.

And then there was the time I spent a long weekend on the Madison River in Montana. Although I have fished the Maddy for many years I had never had a chance to float it in my drift boat. I drove six and a half hours towing my drift boat only to learn the water had dropped from Hebgen dam to 280 cubic feet. There was no way I was going to be able to float my wooden drift boat in a boney water like the Maddy and have a drift boat at the end of the day. So I thought I'd go into Ennis and check out some fly shops and ask around to see if the conditions would change.

The Madison River fly shop is a working man's fly shop, with guides coming and going, anglers crowed around the flies for sale and a line of anxious anglers at the cash register. I just kind of walked around and looked at the fly gear when I was asked if I needed any help. I simply asked for some information on some of the put ins and take outs and the guide asked me to wait a second, he'd be right back. He was gone only a couple of minutes and returned with a map and proceeded to map the whole river for me and clearly mark the distances in miles and hours between put in and take out. He didn't have to do that for me but that's part of the smell and feels you get from a working fly shop that can't be imported to the mega package stores.

When I'm on the road I love to stop and snoop around in fly shops, its part of the ritual of going on a road trip. No matter where I go or what fly shop I'm in I always manage to buy something while I'm there. Usually I'll pick up a few local fly patterns or maybe some fly floatant that I'm running low on but whatever the case I always seem to leave with a little extra bounce in my step. Rarely do I enter a fly shop and feel cheated. If I don't buy anything at all, I still manage to walk away with some tidbit or river information that I just couldn't find anywhere else.

What fly shops sell better than anything is service with a smile. I walked into one of my favorite fly shops recently and the owner was building a rubber shock leader for one customer while ordering a spare spool for another at the same time. He still managed to look up, smile and say, "Hey Mike, what's up". Good coffee and good conversation is not too hard to find in most good fly shops. Before I left I had the latest fishing report, the fly tying materials that I came for and good fishing conversation with a couple other anglers there.

There used to be around five fly shops where I live in Idaho now there are only two left. With the proliferation of package stores people just seemed drawn to them like Bee's to honey. It has forced many fly shops to close their doors. What anglers fail to understand is you just can't replace the professionalism you get from a fly shop. Yes price drives business but at what price are you willing to pay to lose such a valuable asset to the fly fishing community.

I arrived in Craig, Montana without my hat, it had blown out of the truck when I passed a logging truck and was run over by the same truck. I have to have a hat to fish with for all the obvious reasons. In Craig I stopped at the local fly shop and while I was walking around looking at all the stuff, the owner asked me if I needed any help. I said I lost my hat on the freeway and did he have any. He walked behind the counter and tossed me a hat and said "On the house". Now I ask you, in what mega sporting goods store are you going to stumble in after an eight hour drive and get a hat on the house.