East vs. West Fly Shops

It's easy to compare the East and West from a customer view point of fly shops. The West has much more to offer, Headhunter tippet, leaders and a wide varity of other leader material. Craig, MT is home to "3" fly shops, The Orvis shop is typical of the company, rods made in American and everything else made in China, one word shooty. Headhunters is a new comer to the scene but their web site is wonderful, filled with a very candid snapshot of current fishing conditions, they speak the truth. The coffee is always on as is the Yeti cooler on the front porch filled with beer, nice touch. This shop has girls in the store and they can fish, not here in the East. The Trout Shop also in Craig is large it has almost everyting that you could want or need, Patagonia, Simms, Headhunter, Rio to name a few. The Trout Shop also has a small deli that serves a wonderful selection of made on the spot sandwiches, try the "cuban" (had 3 of them in the 10 days), they offer Starbucks coffee- who knew. Moving up the river to Wolf Creek you'll find MRO, a full service shop with motel and cabin rentals, Tim is still there and will go out of his way to help. All of these shops give good solid advice but never oversell the river or the trout and they never insult customers with boasting of their skills?
  We did the 5 shops in Bozeman and found they offered the same type of laid back underselling of the resource, each shop had it's nitch but they all got along, a far cry from the shops in our area who seem to enjoy bickering about one another, to the point of vengence.
  Stopped in Ennis at the shop and found the same wide selection and wonderful service. West Yellowstone offers 3 shops Arrick's know for matedrials, Montana River Outfitter had a great guy in the shop, Chris Daniels the brother of TCO manager George Daniels, Chris has some of the best photography that I have ever seen, innovation seems to run in the family. Stopped in at Blue Ribbon a wonderful shop, just to stand in front of the deer and elk hair bins and pick the perfect piece for your tying needs is wonderful.
  The last shop was George Andersen's in Livingston, same wonderful service and wide selection, makes we want to stay in the West.
  Our local shops have limited selections and seem to want to tell everyone about how well the do and not give a shit about their potential customer, out West the set the customerrs expectitations lower and deliver far more in the end. If you want to tell everyone how great you are don't do it to customers and don't oversell the resource.
  When was the last time you saw the wide product offering in our area, we do have the anglers but not the single store to serve them

Montana October 2012

Time for my annual trip to Montana in October in hopes of a strong Baetis hatch on the Missouri, well that did not happen the first two days, normal Pesudo's- those little devils! On the Missouri the fish will take a bigger imitation if you present it well on the first float, they did. I fished with Arti Newman from Sunbury who now lives in Craig, MT "Trout Town USA", we used a drift boat and really could not get in position to work the pods of rising fish, still did well. Had reservations on two spring creeks, took off for Bozeman. A good friend of mine from FL and I tried Milesnick's Benhardt Spring Creek (3 miles of heaven) in Belgrade, MT, 406-388-7001 but the first day we had winds of 45 MPH not good for casting or for that matter getting out of a portapotty! We took off South and fished Three Dollar Bridge and Slide in area of the Madison and did very well- still not the Missouri.rainbows. We tried Milesnick's the next day arriving with Mary saying "You two are certainly determined" go ahead and try it and come back and pay if it's ok. We did well but with the winds at only 30 MPH we could not stand it more that an hour, we'll be back in the future. Wed. I had reservations for Nelson's Spring Creek, Paradise Valley, MT 406-222-6560, arrived at 9:00 AM,walked the entire 1.5 miles of the stream and took a few browns before a truly wonderful Pesudo hatch took place, the entire stream was alive with rising trout from 10 to 20+", just what we wanted! We noticed when signing the guest book no one was there since mid Sept., we had steady rising trout till 5:00 PM, truly heaven. Give either of these spring creeks a try at least once in your life, the video below is from Nelson's.

  Back to the Missouri, fished 2 more days in the drift boat and could not get any steady rising fish due to the winds gusts, this was the week for WIND! Took fish but I really do not like indicator or streamer fishing from a boat. Saturday came and I was determined to wade fish the old way. Drove to one of my favorite spots and just watched the river, saw fish working the tail out off a gravel bar, they never broke the surface but were eating. Used the same rig that has worked well the last 20 years in the fall, a #16 soft hackle wet, biot body, fur collar and med dun soft hackle. They ate it but I had a heck of a time keeping them on, hook ups only lasted 15-30 seconds, finally I had a break off and tied another one on using 4X, same crap happened but this time I looked at my hook- the gap had opened. Did not take long to determine that Tiemco 2487's we not the answer, quickly knotted on a 2457 #16 and landed 16 big rainbows, still had the typical MO break offs, at take and run and break off. A truly wonderful morning, gos to show you if some thing worked before don't be stupid do it again till the fish tell you otherwise. The picture is of one of the 16 that morning, 20+" , heavy with no marks in her mouth.