Trout opener in Ontario is always an exciting time and it was of course especially so for us this year because our new fly shop on the banks of the Grand River in Fergus is now open! We also started our seasonal store hours in our Fergus shop on the same day so the doors were open at 6am on the first day of the season and we were delighted that we had our first customer within 20 minutes of turning on the lights. We were not sure how the day would go because we have not yet done a huge amount of advertising and we ended up holding our breath after that first customer came and went because customer #2 did not show up for another 2 hours – but thankfully he started the flood. By the end of the day we all had smiles on our faces because there were well over 50 people through the doors and sales were excellent thanks in no small part to our friend Gary who purchased 2 Winston rods(!). I spent much of the day being a ‘WalMart Greeter’ chatting people up and buying coffee while Rob and Mike handled sales and while I did not get onto the river because we were so busy it was a great day by any measure. After we closed the doors we had a quick meeting to discuss how the day went and I realized that the opener for me hinged on one moment in particular…
Towards the end of the day I took a break with my friend Gary and we headed around the corner to the Brew House for a late lunch. When we came back to the store we walked in and saw a handful of guys decked out in Simms waders who were buying flies and one of them was wearing a WILSON’S cap. I did a double-take when I saw him standing at the counter because for some reason it struck me that he had not purchased his WILSON’S cap in Fergus because they have not yet arrived (they will this week). Looking back on the moment I have to laugh because the thought that went through my mind was, “Where the heck did he get that cap?”, and then it suddenly dawned on me that he had purchased his cap in our other store in downtown Toronto.
Stupid as it sounds, at that moment I realized we were no longer planning to have a second store in Fergus but it was in fact a reality. It came down to a cap…




