If any Fly Fishing Club would like us to help promote your next meeting, work day, spey clave or fund raising event please send us details and we will be more than happy to post them on our calendar and promote them on our blog. We appreciate you letting us know about them and will be more than happy to help in any way we can.
Send your email to Jim@wilsonstoronto.com
A customer came into our store last Saturday who had not been in for quite some time. He entered, stopped for more than a few seconds at the front door, looked around and then he did something that made my day – he smiled. He didn’t smile at me, he smiled at himself and I was fortunate to catch his face at that moment. I watched him take a few more steps into the store and continue to look around. I finally caught his eye, we greeted one another and he said, “I haven’t been in for a while and I’m enjoying this. Let me look around for a bit before we chat.”
He walked past our discount table where we have fly lines and some discontinued items on sale. He then walked looked at one of our luggage walls with FishPond, G.Loomis, Orvis and Filson. From there he walked through the clothing displays, paused and looked at the 50% off rack and then went to our wading wall where we have waders and boots from Simms, Orvis, Patagonia and Cloudveil. He looked at some of the new items we have on display and then wandered through our reel area where we have products from 10 different reel manufacturers. He paused, looked back at me and smiled again. He then walked over to look at the fly vests and outwear and turned around to look at our rod wall were we have rods from 8 manufacturers. He again paused and spent a few minutes looking at rods and then looked at our book and DVD wall to peruse the titles we have. From there, like a kid in a candy store, he wandered into our fly tying materials section and walked up and down the aisles looking at our inventory. By this time we was getting close to where I was standing and I asked if he needed any help. “Not yet thanks – but I’m having fun !”
By the time he eventually worked his way over to me he had been in the store for at least 45 minutes. We shook hands, exchanged pleasantries and he asked, “How many fly line manufacturers do you now carry ?”
“Well, let’s see… seven at last count.”
We talked about his family and how work was going and our conversation turned, as many do these days, to the economy. Of course we eventually got back to talking about fly fishing and he said that last week he started to get ‘the itch’, started thinking about fishing this year and wanted to come in to see us. As we finished our conversation he looked at me, smiled the same smile he had when he walked in and said, “This has been fun. I haven’t been in for some time and things have changed here – I’m impressed. I’ll be back next week.”
“Thanks for noticing.” Then I smiled.
We are pleased to announce that if you book a guide or a trip to any lodge through our store we will give you a gift certificate to spend with us equal to 10% of the booking. For example, if a guided day is $300 we give you a $30 gift certificate and if you book a trip to a lodge through us that is worth $2,500 we give you a gift certificate worth $250. What we are doing is turning the lion’s share of the referral we get as a retailer back to our customers. To our knowledge no other fly shop in the fly fishing industry is doing this.
Why pay more ? Book through WILSON’S and put more money in your pocket. Check out the Destinations and Guiding pages on our website and book your fly fishing trip today !
WILSON’S opened in 1998 in part because I recognized that Toronto needed the kind of fly shop I couldn’t find when I first got into fly fishing in 1993. Like many new to the sport I wanted to shop in a fly fishing store that had great selection, excellent service and staff that were not intimidating who offered friendly advice. I couldn’t find one in Toronto at the time so decided to open our store and hope we are the fly shop for our customers that I wanted to find back then.
From an economic perspective I also thought opening a fly shop might be a good move because I read a book in 1996 by David Foote called Boom, Bust & Echo and anticipated fly fishing would eventually start to replace golf – as it had replaced tennis before it – as the sport or choice for Baby Boomers. In particular, I thought this trend would start to accelerate as 2006 approached. Why 2006 ? This year was the 40th birthday of the last year of the Baby Boom and the traditional ‘typical’ fly fisher has in the past been a 40+ white collar male with a high disposable income who wants to be associated with a lifestyle that has cache and an aire of exclusivity with which people want to associate. The tennis clubs in the 1970s and 80s held this mantle when the Boomers were aging and as knee and back problems associated with being a part of the Baby Boom (otherwise known as aging) started to appear, Boomers literally grew out of tennis and gravitated towards golf & country clubs.
Since we opened in 1998 a few things have changed in the sport. First, women are now one of the fastest growing demographics in the sport due in no small part to the fact that many breast cancer hospitals are introducing fly casting into recovery regimes. The motion of casting a fly rod is similar to the physiotherapy women undergo after mastectomies and being outside enjoying fresh air, the relaxing sound of running water and concentrating on something other than having cancer is a wonderful way to escape the daily stresses of life.
Secondly and of equal importance the image of fly fishing which was once viewed as rather staid, stuffy and, frankly, full of itself is being retrofitted by magazines such as The Drake and the Canadian Fly Fisher along with entertaining videos including the Trout Bum Diaries and Fly Max Films. Fly fishing may be for the 40+ crowd but it is now also a sport for Generation X who are looking for something exciting and off the beaten track.
Thirdly, experiential travel is seeing more people want to go more places to do more things – and, coming back to the demographics, fly fishing is on many people’s ‘life list’ of things to try. Combining global travel, fly fishing and conservation is a natural for many people.
Well, it’s February 2009 and I read in the paper last week that in 2008 the number of golf rounds played declined by 0.8% and merchandise revenue per course fell 6.4% The demographic shift we anticipated in David Foote’s book back in 1996 has perhaps finally started to appear.
Now if this economic situation would just clear itself up…
Please feel free to check out the web site of Simon Gawesworth, a renowned Spey caster
from the U.K. who makes his home on the U.S. West Coast. Simon is one of the guest speakers at the Grand River Spey Clave on May 30.
What 2 fly fishing travel seminar most interest you?
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