Sitting on the Dock of Bourbon Street

I was sitting on a balcony on Bourbon Street last month with Calvin, KK, Erik, the Trout Shop guys, and who knows who else. I was tired, the night before had been a big evening, and I hadn't even realized the smell associated with the mayhem of the famous street in DT New Orleans. We were there, among many other fly shops, guides, and fly fishing suppliers of course, for the fly fishing retailer show. From the balcony you could see everything happening on the street, seemingly life below the balcony was going by like a time machine compared to our slouched, worn out positions above. 

The night before with the same company we swapped stories, talked about good selling gear, argued over which were the best rods, discussed water conditions on the Missouri, but that night we just sat there. So I found it odd that the first time in a long time that I have really had time to sit and think about the fly shops, and what we were doing and where we were going was on Bourbon Street, New Orleans, with things you will have to go there to see, happening all around us.

We are all heading to the Clearwater in a couple of weeks to fish with the staff from our new Ponderay, ID fly shop headed by Calvin Fuller. The fly shop up there is doing great, and we even have a great girl staff member named Megan doing an excellent job for us up there. The fish the Clark Fork, Pend Oreille, Coeur D'Alene, Clearwater, and many other area waters. Jimmy Houston (the famous southern bass fisherman and TV host) joined us in Ponderay, ID to open our new store up there last month, we got to go fishing with him (KK out fished him on the fly for Smallmouth bass). 

We are meeting on the Clearwater with our whole staff from all fly shops to start putting our heads together for our next fly shop in Omak, WA. We have some area gurus meeting us for our first North 40 Spey Clave. We are going to have to work hard to make sure each fly shop carries local characteristics, local knowledge, the right flies and gear for the area, and passionate fly fishing employees (this all gets more difficult as we get larger). A corporate meeting, I guess maybe yes, however ours are in puffy coats, fleece pants, among hung waders, spey rods, and around a fire ring on a 40 degree night discussing the hatches, fish, characteristics of the Methow, Okanogan, and Wenatchee Rivers.

Our Great Falls fly shop is also doing well. KK has been holding the fort down since Cornfed left for college again, and has been teaching a new employee named Matt Hagel the ropes. KK is leading 10 of us down to Guanaja, Honduras in November in search of Bonefish, Permit, and Beaches. While Calvin will be leading a group down to Baja, Mexico on a mixed bag trip the last week of May next year. KK has been fishing the area hard all summer, as well as guiding quite a bit on the Missouri. The other guys have been fishing some different stuff this year due to the new fly shops such as Pend Oreille, the Clark Fork, Rhoda Lake (Little Belts) and of course many more.

So as I was sitting there pretty much in silence, I couldn't believe how far we have come compared to 5 years ago or so when we really started this project because when we are working on it every day sometimes it seems like it takes forever to get anything done. However, about 5 years ago I was standing in a basement of this lady's house making the first North 40 Fly Shop buy: a bunch of randomly boxed odds and ends from an old Orvis shop gone out of business, which we then took and hung up in the aisles of our farm store. 

We thought then that we had everything you could ever need for fly fishing. Now after two days at the fly tackle dealer show, we realize we will again need to update our selections, become more creative, and implement new ideas in to our North 40 Fly Shops.

We get plenty of backlashes (fishing term) for being a fly shop in a farm store, and I remember Erik and I pushing hard to get a standalone building or a separate area for the fly shop. Today that has completely changed, we get the opportunity to get people that may have never considered fly fishing to consider it. We may lack in the amount of art and elegance of other amazing Montana fly shops, but we are a different animal. Our original plan was to create a fly shop that complements our farm store business that is not intimidating to any skill level, have a strong fly tying section, and offer enthusiastic fly fishing employees to help service our customers. Today, I would have to say that we have accomplished that through some pretty amazing employees, some even more amazing customers, and a passion for fly fishing.