Local auction house held its on-line auction today. One of the auctions was for 1.5 million flies running from .05 to .30/fly for western trout fishing types of flies. A distributor closed up shop. I don’t know if it was a creditor sale but I think it was. All, I mean all, kinds of flies for different species. I went in on purchases with my fishing buddies. I got to the warehouse to inspect them yesterday. Everything was in lots. Most everything was boxed so I didn’t get to see the majority of them. But the flies I saw were well (professionally) tied. The lots literally consisted of dozens of flies. We’re talking 12 dozen of one fly, 20 dozen of another, different sizes, etc. Sometimes you’d get 150 dozen in one lot. It was overwhelming, especially as I got there late and didn’t have the time to really examine the flies closely.
We were focusing on Rocky Mountain flies. My fishing partner who participated in the auction indicated it was competitive. They should’ve held this auction 20 years ago when I hadn’t already gone hog wild with fly purchases. Without these new flies, I already have more flies than I’ll ever use. I will probably try to sell extra dozens of each either here or on eBay. Otherwise I’ll be happily giving away flies to strangers I meet on the river. Hey, I’ll give you some flies if I can fish in this spot!
do you know what city the shop was in or which one it was?
My friend owns a fly shop. I am always dumbfounded when he tells me his “order of flies” arrived. They are imports and he orders in the hundreds of dozens and he is in an area where he is not a high volume seller. Can just imagine some of the shops out West…
Wow, 125,000 dozen. Seems like a lot of inventory. Maybe too much and if it represented how the overall inventory was managed, it could be why the distributor had to close up shop.
I stop in Reading’s every time that I am near there. It’s pretty out of the way from where I live, but I sometimes do some work in that area. Charlie is a great guy with a lot of knowledge. Great fly shop, too! Has everything you need, some stuff you don’t, and even stuff you didn’t know you needed.