I'm kinda steaming about this incident last week, and wondered if anyone else has noticed it, has experience with it as a local fly shop owner, or otherwise has an opinion. Denny gave me a whole earful of what he thought about it when we were talking about hackle at the Idaho Fish-In this year, but it did not sink in for me until I experienced it personally!

Ken and myself and my Dad had great success dry fly fishing the Lochsa with Yellow Sallies, a really cool and easy-to-tie October Caddis imitation that rides butt-down in the water with a bright red egg case tag at the hook bend. We tied some in the Rumpus Room one night, and lots of folks got to see the fly. The crucial ingredient for this fly is undersized, extremely high quality yellow-dyed hackle to make the front of the fly float while letting the back of it sink a bit. We use the Whiting #18 pre-sized packs for our #8-12 Yellow Sallies since it's great quality and easy to use, no digging through a cape trying to find the exact right feather.

So I hit my two favorite local fly shops last week, and neither of them had anything in yellow, not even white or cream, and they didn't have much selection for other colors either. I asked when they would get it back in, and the response was, to paraphrase, "I have no idea. Every time I order hackle, no matter which company its from, I usually receive maybe 20% of my order at best."

So I made the drive out to the local big box Sportsman's Warehouse, and guess what -- they had multiple items of every color and size of Whiting hackle, from capes down to one-size packs, plus the same in 2 other hackle brands. Of course I bought it there, and my local fly shops missed out on the sale--and it was not their fault!

What gives? Is there a general hackle shortage now, and the big box stores simply stocked up in advance? Or do they get preferential treatment from the hackle manufacturers while local fly shop owners are left in the lurch? (Denny and Stan excepted, of course -- they don't do the 'big box' thing, and I think that's great!) Anyone who has read my past opinions here about supporting your local fly shops knows that it really ticked me off that the big box boys were the only place to get what I needed, while a year ago all the local shops had it.

DANBOB

PS -- I did, of course, refer these local fly shop owners to Denny. Hopefully they can make a deal!