i said to crack myself up if you want pure honesty...

DarDy's story reminded me of my old fishing and hunting pal Shad who had the bait shop in Bemus Point over at Chautauqua Lake for years [RIP]. I was hanging around counting out worms with him one day when a guy comes in looking for bait.
Guy: How much are the nitecrawlers?
Shad: $2.00 a dozen
Guy: J.....Cr...t where I'm from in Buffalo they're only $1.25 a dozen
Shad: Why the F.... didn't you buy them in Buffalo
Guy: They were all out of them
Shad: When I'm all out of them they're $.50 a dozen, now get the F... out of here and don't come back

ORIGINAL: musthuntmusky

now that is some fantastic business ethics and I'm sure this guy is retiring from the mass of customers he treats so well.

... this whole debate on my hatred for fly shops stems from a similar story.

My father and his friend, ignorant to fly fishing, stopped in the local shop in search of advice on getting started.  The owner wasn't helpful and quite rude, acting  annoyed with their abundance of questions... 2 minutes after entering,they walked out, and the owner lost a lot of potential business, yet he cries about e-commerce putting him out of business.

He did quite well actually and his funeral was well attended. I don't approve of some things but a "hatred of fly shops" hasn't been something I've had to deal with yet. Might be time to reassess your priorities. Course, we all have to think strongly about something. Right now, I think I'll have a drink.

Regardless of where you stand on this issue, I think there's little denying that fly shops stand alone beside small, independent coffee shops in their ability to treat the general populace like livestock while taking care of the regulars...and still managing to stay in business. The elitism associated with the sport (and there IS plenty of that going around, despite a host of truly nice individuals), sees to it that, in some places, there's a feedback loop of misnathropy. Fly shop has 'regulars', fly shop has 'FNGs', fly shop owner complains about FNGs to regulars, regulars' egos are inflated at realizing they're now part of the fly shop's "inner circle", because of this, they buy/spend more there, allowing the fly shop the luxury of casually dismissing the clueless FNG, which further stokes the ego of the regulars, etc...

Doesn't happen in every shop, maybe not even in MANY shops...but it DOES happen.

I've been fortunate enough not to run into that attitude too much when I was just getting started, otherwise it would have been plenty enough to encourage me to go right back to my trusty UL spinning rod. As it happened though, the first time I encountered it personally, I was just a bystander, while the fly shop owner ran down a customer to a 'regular'. They both had a good laugh and I was thoroughly put off. Haven't been back since.

and you think it's so absurd that when a potential fisherman comes in to inquire about purchasing equipment he gets treated like a nothing??

i take it back, pop 2 valium, 2 mg each.

lol troutslammer.. do you know how to read??

in previous posts, I said I do buy mundane materials from fly shops, but now reels, rods, wading equipments, etc.

.50 cents?  cheeseburgers? a wife?  haha man

haha so you're starting to get the picture?


the grannom thread was opened for others to weigh in on what they use during the grannon hatches, I posted a caddis fly that works well for me during grannom and green/tan caddis hatches, as well as other bugs that were hatching while we there, and the pattern below it that we took fish on since they keyed in on them opposed to the grannoms.

i wouldn't take any of my posts here with any seriousness.

i still think you need a valium though

well figuring we landed more than enough, I think it didn't matter... those fish are dumb stockies.

i catch em on live bait.. 

ORIGINAL: rippinlip

Like the Indians used to?

Butts....

RE: the fly shop debate, it seems, by this point that the discussion has boiled down to this: sure, the local shop may cost more, but you're getting some intangibles for that money, in the form of tips, suggestions, local knowledge, etc.

At this point, it becomes a matter of 1) how much more are we talking? and 2) how valuable are the intangibles.

All of this talk so far also seems to be generally coming from the angle of a shop in an area less-frequently visited, because, by the rationale of both sides, you should know your home waters, and not really need any of the intangibles that the local shop offers (other than burnt coffee and the roasting of the FNGs). By this reasoning, supporting the local shop really makes little sense for the experienced angler, as all he's doing is spending more for the same product and getting information he already knows. At the same time, he's helping to keep that shop in business...a key source of information and supplies for out-of-towners and newbies to crowd his home water. This also kinda puts the shop owner in a bit of a spot too, as he has to balance providing useful information to customers with maintaining some measure of discretion, otherwise, he'll find his locals suddenly tight-lipped about their successes.

By a strict business sense, for the average angler, its in his best interests to take his business away from his local fly shop, and instead patronize fly shops slightly out and away, in areas he only fishes a few times each year.

On that note, I've had some really great and some less-than-great experiences at fly shops. My "local shop" is one where I know the guy and he knows me. I've spent several hundred there, but spread out over a few years, and while I may not have gotten any fantastic information, it's all been good stuff, and I dont really expect him to spotburn for me. The key here is that he was helpful from the first time I walked in there, and continued to help me out over the course of several months, when I was only walking out of there with $5-10 worth of tying material. When the time came that I was in the market for a rod, and he carried one of the ones that I was looking at, I didn't hesitate to buy from him.

In other shops, it seems to be that the info you get depends entirely on your total when they ring you up. Not a bad practice, business-wise, but in that situation, their 'friendship' rings a little hollow. One shop I've only ever visited twice, first time, I came in and started talking to the owner, and he was friendly but provided absolutely no info until after he rung me up. I only got a bag of dubbing and some feathers, and my info that he passed on to me was basically about a "spot" that anyone willing to walk more than 150 yards from the parking area would find and fish through.

A few months later, I was back, and this time, they happened to have a book I was looking for, so my total was more in the $50 neighborhood, and this time, the tip was clearly more useful, telling me that an expected hatch hadn't arrived yet, but the hatch that was supposed to be about done was still in full force.

While I appreciate the help, and I completely understand the mutual back scratching, I guess I just feel that often fly shops think they're offering a lot more than they really are in terms of intangibles. The same internet that is stealing their sales is also providing the same free info they're leveraging.

I only have two comments:

1. The Drake is right, you could use a hair stacker and a lesson, musthuntmusky, duud.
2. Yesterday I got 16 on mealies.

WTF??? I hope that last post kills this thread. Never got a decent piece of advice from any fly shop owners that I hadnt already knew something about. I learned most from my old man who learned from his old man who learned it all from >50 years of trial and error. Nothing beats personal experience. Its in the blood.