Every fly shop dreads the ‘shoulder seasons’ in our industry. These are the times typically between fishing seasons when sales slow to a trickle. In eastern Canada an argument can be made that one of our shoulder seasons begins in October and runs until April but that is stretching it a bit…
Our shop is located in downtown Toronto about a 10 minute walk from the corner of King Street and Bay Street and many of our clients come in on coffee breaks or their lunch hours. As the temperature dips and we start piling on clothes we get an increasing number of customers coming in to look through our salt water flies and leaders and then have a gander at salt water rods and reels. They also have a peak at the salt water wading shoes and sun protection like the Buff headwear we carry (which truly is a great product). Everyone in our shop has a love/hate relationship with these people because although they are good people and wonderful customers we’re annoyed that they are going on these trips and we’re not (at least not as often as we would like). So in they come to shop and ask advice which we give out freely – but admittedly often with envy.
Each shoulder season is also typically accompanied by a ‘silly grin’ season where people who are going on these trips come into the store beaming with anticipation. We hate those guys too (but just for a moment). The only thing worse is when they come in after their trips with tans, even bigger grins and great stories. We are now in full blown ‘silly grin’ season and our selection of bone fish, tarpon and permit flies is starting to get whittled down so we have our in-house fly tyer James Wachiuri tying Crazy Charlies, Clousers and crab patterns to keep up with the demand.
Just talking about these trips has me thinking about the Bahamas. Wait a minute, I’m grinning. What’s with that ?
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