Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Unicorn sightings and lessons in business


Who says the upper sucks right now anyway? Oh, that would be me. Kind of feel like that kid we all stared at in middle school that had to wear a helmet anytime he played indoors. Yeah, it sucked today too, but it was fun and nice to have a ripping wind to give our excuses more credibility. Worms, worms, worms. Wire worms and rubber worms…super technical.
What else? I am starting to embrace the practicality of using tippet rings for nymph fishing…never thought I would get there. I am an amazing oarsmen when it comes to drift bow control. I think I saw a unicorn today in the middle of a herd of domestic sheep in between Norris and Warm Springs…I'm not kidding. Happy people are good people.
Funniest thing I saw today was a woman trying to pee while squatting on a boulder. Although she was out of sight for the boats she was with, she was in plain view of the rest of the river. She looked embarrassed.
I have seen the sunrise enough for awhile, don't care for it anymore.
I have something on my chest…it's been there for a few years. It turned me into a little too sensitive of a person for the last 18 months. I was nervous about upsetting the "powers that be" at Simms, so I had attempted to be something that I'm not in regards to this blog and my general industry comments. Honestly, we (Fins & Feathers) got royally screwed by the senior sales and marketing management at Simms in late 2015.
I'll break it all down in the coming weeks for those that are interested and if you don't care, don't read what I have to say.
The long and the short is that we have wanted to support Simms for years in our retail store, but they have consistently refused to do business with us at a meaningful level. We have actively pursued a dealership off and on, several times in the last 15 years through their various sales reps. We started to get some traction a couple of years ago to the point that we went through the entire process of credit app, line showings, and pre-seaon orders for fall of 2015/spring 2016. We even placed a rather large opening order (for our store).
The reasons for pursuing Simms are really quite simple. They are our neighbors and fly fishing should be and is fun. Time after time, customer come in the store and don't understand why we don't like Simms or want to tell us why they don't like Simms as they think we don't like Simms. We actually do like Simms, they are a great employer for members of our community and make some great waders. With the Rivers Edge West right down the road and having every thing that Simms sells, it seemed to make sense to have a limited selection of some Simms stuff to give the folks that want to do business with us a choice, while supporting our neighbors at Simms and not stepping on the toes of REW by trying to carry a massive selection of Simms.
We are all about making it easy to do business with us, while hopefully having fun and learning a thing or two about fly-fishing. We don't care what you buy, as long as you like it, it makes sense for you, and it helps you have more fun on the water.
So, we were given the word that everything was a go yet nobody from Simms even bothered to let us know that they wouldn't be doing business with us until early August of this year…10 months after our initial ship date was supposed to arrive. And I had to hound them for 8 months to let me know what was going on. They could have told me no in April 2015, like they did in 2000, 2005, and 2010 (approximately) and we would have moved on.
Anyway, it's been on my chest and I have been way too quiet about it. I'll continue the tale in the next few days, right now though…you know what time it is.

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