Not sure what the medical reason is that prompted them selling their company. But I hope when it happen’s it all goes smooth for them and we who enjoy their service…
wish them all the best in the coming future…
As do we…
I have not had the chance to visit them for some time. They are my favorite fly shop. Makes me sick to think they may not be around. They carry tons of hard to find tying materials and are some of the friendliest folks on earth. I am confident that someone will purchase the business and continue to operate the store. Hille’s is smack in the middle of some of the best fly fishing waters in the nation. I know at one time they were a sponsor here at FAOL and fell on some hard times due to new local competition. They survived that. I pray for them in their time of need.
WOW!!..I never even entertained the thought of Hille’s selling. The place is an INSTITUTION!
I wish them the best & hope it is sold to someone who will maintain the tradition that has been established there.
Mike
I thought they just sold the place and had a new owner? I was just in there last week to pick up some rod building components.
I hope this is not the end of another local fly shop. They really had a lot of great stuff and a tradition of quality materials for tying, building, and angling.
Was this a recent decision?
Just noticed a couple days ago that, They have posted on this sites forsale board of the shops being forsale…So It’s not sold yet…
If I could only hit the lottery…
Yeah, the first thing I did was click my “favorite” buttom and click on Hille - there it was! I forward the info to another rod builder. We got started at Hille’s building rods and for the most part were always friendly and helpful when you went in to visit and purchase something.
I too wish I had the bucks. I wonder what a place like that will go for? Actually, the location right now isn’t great and I think when they moved it hurt them. But for a fly shop, none better or helpful over the years. I really like the components and blanks they sold.
Hal James was a master rod builder when he worked there. He was a perfectionist and it showed in the quality of rod he put out.
Let’s hope someone with a great vision to build it up buys it.
I’ve still got one of their catalogs from 1976. By then, I had probably been going there to buy fly tying supplies for about 10 years. I still have a half dozen of their top graded necks in my desk that I bought during that era, and never used them much, if at all.
As I recall, their necks at the time were kept in drawers that stretched along one wall behind a counter. It seemed like there were a lot of those drawers. If you wanted to buy a grizzly for example, either you or the shop’s clerk would open the appropriate drawer and it would be filled with grizzly necks that you could sort through like a kid in a candy store until you found one that’d suit you.
Those are some of my fond memories of that bygone era that I rekindle from time to time by reading through that old Hille catalog.
John