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