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…
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