As if life wasn’t hectic enough these days (see my post on Saturday), this week is starting with the hope that we will finish the reorganization of the store that was made necessary by the arrival last week of our new inventory of fly tying materials – and when I say new inventory we’re not talking a little here we’re talking a LOT. We should also have our new thread display (that holds 240 different kinds of fly tying thread) that we ordered a few weeks ago installed by the end of the week and will post pictures of the new layout shortly.

By the way, if you are interested in taking a fly tying lesson please email or call us. We offer courses every Saturday morning for beginner and intermediate fly tiers and we also host an “open vise” session every Saturday afternoon.

[Ecommerce Update: we have requested updated files from our suppliers and have started loading the system. Once that is done we will be beta testing for a few weeks and then launching. We will continue to keep you posted]

Our Boxing Week sale is on December 28-31! Up To 50% off ! All rods & reels are a minimum of 20% off! All fly tying materials 30% off and all gift items are 50% off!

NOTE: Only while supplies last!

If you are not aware of the Ringwood Fish Culture Station and the important work that is accomplished there you should take a moment and visit their website. Located on Highway 48 just north of Stouffville, the hatchery is responsible for providing a large percentage of Lake Ontario’s stocking quota including the entire Ontario stocking allocation for chinook salmon. Over 500,000 chinook salmon fry are produced at Ringwood annually – quite a feat for a facility run in large part by volunteers. Other species raised at the hatchery include rainbow trout, brown trout and Atlantic salmon which are all destined for Lake Ontario tributaries.

The Lake Ontario fishery is a major contributor to tourism attracting over 10,000 visitors annually and the estimated value of the resource is $140 million so it is an important part of our provincial economy. However, we heard a rumour late yesterday from a reliable source that the provincial funding upon which this facility relies heavily is about to be cancelled.

We hope this is not the case and are wondering if anyone has heard anything ?

For more information on the Ringwood Fish Hatchery please go to www.ringwoodhatchery.ca/

We launched our current website just over 2 years ago and have been kicking ourselves ever since. Although the site is secure and it has a lot of great information, as soon as the site went live we realized there were some systemic problems that were not user friendly and needed to get corrected. Unfortunately, as is the experience with many businesses getting online, the horse’s arse we hired to do our website turned out to be one of those people who over-promises and under-delivers and he walked away with our money saying, “Too bad for you – sue me if you like”. We were left with a website that is so difficult to edit solving a Rubic’s Cube looks easy.

Over the last 2 years as we have been asking our customers what they want to see, interviewing website designers and getting quotes on what it would cost to get the site corrected (and I have to admit I was appalled that the quotes ranged from $1,500 to $48,000!). It is probably fair to say that website design is still in the ‘wild west’ of business because you encounter companies who focus on the sizzle but never deliver the steak and there is no uniform or ‘industry’ pricing. Well, after 2 years of frustration and a handful of false starts we finally found a group that focuses on the steak – and has the track record to prove it.

We have been inundating Ruth and Joel with your feedback and suggestions for the last couple of months and think we have come up with a site that is going to put some smiles on some faces – most importantly yours. If we can get the information requested by Ruth to Joel and he can get the last few pieces of code done this weekend, it looks like the first phase of our new website is going live early next week. After 2 years of false starts I have to admit hesitation in stating this but the Beta site they have walked us through is looking great. The second phase of the site will be our the ecommerce section and we are hoping to have the basics on line before the end of the month.

So, keep an eye in the next few days – and please let us know what you think…

[Moderator's Note: we should point out that the service provider for our blog has been excellent - it is the knucklehead we hired to do our main site that we would like to have drawn and quartered!]

This note is from the category of ‘jumping the gun’ just a bit but what the heck. Snow hasn’t yet fallen in Toronto and here we are already talking about the start of the 2011 season. Let’s just put it down to anxiousness and a burning desire to get back out on local trout waters… or just being a bit nuts.

One of the signature fishing shows on the Southern Ontario calendar is the Toronto Spring Fishing & Boat Show. Held in mid-February at the International Centre near Pearson International Airport, this show is one of the rays of hope that winter is nearing its end so while you are thinking about it, put the dates on your calendar.

By the way, you can click the following picture to get a larger, easier to read version…