Wow – what a difference a year makes! Today marks the end of what has been by far our best January in our store’s history. Thanks go out to our customers who have made WILSON’S their fly shop of choice – we greatly appreciate your support.

Our owner, Jim Wilson, is in Bozeman today meeting with Simms and he will be back tomorrow with what we hope will be some great news… stay tuned!

This is the 14th Christmas season in our store’s history and we hope it is going to be our best yet for one simple reason: we have more inventory in the store this year than we have ever had at this time of year. In fact, we are expecting a(nother!) fill in order from Simms before the end of the week and we have more fly tying materials coming to shore up the occasional holes we have on our material walls that are starting to appear. The fact that we have a few holes appearing on our fly tying material walls is also a great sign because this has never happened so early in the fly tying season. Word on the inventory we have has spread and we look forward to seeing many more of our customers in the coming weeks!

The first Monday of September is a public holiday in Canada called Labour Day and this year the holiday falls on Monday September 5 – one week today. For most students across Canada this weekend marks the official end of summer because school starts up the day after Labour Day so we suspect that we will be seeing a lot of long faces on younger customers in the store this week as they prepare themselves to return to class. That said we also anticipate seeing more than a few smiles on the faces of our older customers who are parents because these are the folks who are looking forward to a bit of peace and quiet as their kids head back to university. The coming weekend is one of anticipation and change for people on many levels. For our store this weekend marks the beginning of a new fiscal year and we think/hope we have much for which to look forward.

Fiscal 2012 at WILSON’S is going to be a) better; b) worse; c) more of the same; d) whatever. Of course we can’t predict with certainty what is going to happen but based on the changes we have implemented in the last 8 months and what we have coming down the pipe our bet is that 2012 at WILSON’S is going to be a bell weather year for our business. Most importantly, the launch of our new ecommerce site has been welcomed by both our suppliers and customers and we are looking forward to continuing to build it into Canada’s Online Fly Fishing portal.

As the trout season winds down here in Ontario and the Atlantic Salmon season gears up in the Martimes we will continue to work feverishly on completing the fly and fly tying sections of the site. If there is anything you need please do not hesitate to send us an email or call us toll free – we will welcome the break from the computer screen! In the interim, we have to get back to work as well…

As the trout opener in Ontario creeps closer we are continuing to be amazed by the number of calls we are getting from customers across Ontario and, for that matter, Canada, with requests for inventory. Don’t get me wrong – we appreciate the opportunity to sell more product to new customers. But we are starting to feel like we’re the only fly shop that has any inventory. Hmmm. Maybe we should be filing this in the category of “Don’t Look a Gift Horse…”

On that note, we received our new inventory of Cocktails this week which started selling the moment they were put on the wall and we have placed another order with a new fly tying material supplier for a few interesting items that will be arriving shortly…

What it comes down to is this: we have more reserve inventory in our back room at the moment than most stores have on the floor so if you are looking for something please let us know!

[And if you are not aware WILSON'S is having its 13th Anniversary Sale this coming Saturday April 16. Members of our online fly fishing club are entitled to 15% off all purchases so sign up as a member this week and plan on coming in for a visit. We will also have Junior St. Onge who manages the Salmon Camp and Camp Bonaventure on the Gaspe visiting the store - we hope you can join us!].

For the 17th year, Toronto’s Winter Hatches Fly Tying Club is hosting a Fly Tying Symposium at the North York Civic Centre. This year’s event is being held on Sunday February 6th from 8:30am until 5:00pm and we encourage members of the fly tying community to support the event. This is the only event in Ontario dedicated solely to fly tying and if you have not gone you should put it on your calendar.

The day is divided into four 75 minute sessions and class sizes are limited to 20 participants so to ensure you get the sessions you want you should book sooner rather than later. This year the speakers include Chris Day, Steve Hunt, Ian James, John Johnson, Steve May and William Gerrard. For more information please go to http://www.winterhatches.org/images/WH_Symp_Broch_11.pdf