If you have never fished the lower Fly Fishing Only stretch on the Little Lehigh Creek in Allentown, Pennsylvania you may not know of this tiny fly shop, located in a old limestone spring house in a beautiful city park. The Little Lehigh Creek “Heritage” stretch has its legion of fans and detractors and the Little Lehigh Fly Shop and its owner, Rod Rohrbach share in the number of strong opinions.
The Little Lehigh Fly Shop is more of a “convenience” store than a fully stocked fly shop. You wouldn’t necessarily go shopping there for a new fly rod or reel, but how many trout streams can boast a stream-side place to walk to and quickly buy a spool of tippet material, some strike indicators, split shot or a few flies when you run out? It was also a place where a cup of coffee and some heat was available on a cold winter’s day, as well as being a respite for a frustrated angler looking for a tip or real time hatch information.
From this tiny shop Rod also offered fly tying and fly fishing classes, as well as seminars that brought the famous and infamous to the banks of the Little Lehigh. He survived many floodings of the creek, a few in recent years which crested halfway up the building. While I admit I am not a regular at the creek or the shop, I liked knowing that Rod was there on those cold winter days when I typically fish the Little Lehigh.
I have no knowledge of the reasons behind the closing but if you know the shop, you can imagine there could be more than a few besides the usual. I am sure Heritage Angler knows the full scoop and hopefully will chime in. But in the mean time, I think I’ll take a ride out there and buy something for a change while I have the chance. The Little Lehigh Creek won’t be the same for me without the shop or Rod.
Always sorry to see another member of the fly fishing community close their doors.
We’re on the verge of loosing one of the west’s iconic shops. The Reno Fly Shop will be closing at years end. Dave Stanley and his crew served Northern Nevada and the eastern sierra for decades. In addition, it wasn’t all that long ago that Dave started up and subsequently closed a second fly shop in Truckee, California.
I have never been to this fly shop or even fished the Little Lehigh but the news deeply saddens me all the same. We have lost both of our fly shops in Greenville, South Carolina. I guess time marches on but with one less meeting place, one less place with a warm friendly greeting and one less place where fly fishing is spoken. Very sad! 8T
I also have never fished the Little Lehigh or visited the shop. But, as always, I’m saddened when such a fine refuge from a stream is dissolved…for whatever reason.
Time passes, and in most cases to the detriment of those whose memories of a comforting place are lost.
I found the graphic below that shows the income for shops in the SE that sell fishing tackle. You can see a lot of them make less than $100,000 a year and that supports, at least in part, several people in most cases. Staying in business is tough for a small shop, if you keep the margin down where you are competitive and still make enough to pay the overhead, including salaries and take a little home to live off of.
is this the shop in leihgh ut, it to bad they seemed to be good peple had talked with them durin DOING MY JOB AT THE POWWER COMPANY DURING OUTAGES TO BAD SEEM THAT A LOT GOING ON HOPE THE BEST FOR TH AND THERES
