The End

Our 14th season came to a close tonight.  Thank you all for the wonderful ride.

I cherish the friends we have made along the way and hopefully we’ll get to stay in touch.  Take care and we’ll see you around.  Maybe even on the river once in a while!  The Situk River Fly Shop is now an official part of history.  Another memory for the museum.  Goodnight.

-Bob and Teen

Our very last customer

The clock strikes 6pm. It’s over.

A quiet-lonely shop

The map – on our way upstairs, reflecting on all the friends we have met and where you all are right now…

Close-up of a pin cluster, each one represents a group of you who have been a part of our lives for so many years

And our European friends, who were locked out of the US this past year. We weren’t able to say goodbye to you…

Introducing the “Poodle-Llama”

I’m brilliant!  Just ask me!

We have been out of black and white Dolly Llamas since spring.  It takes 5 months between placing a fly order and actually receiving the flies,  so zero chance of getting these flies this season.  We’re trying to sell down our inventory before closing anyway and still have just about every other fly imaginable for silver season.  Lots of “other” Dolly Llamas,  just not the famous and sought-after black and white “skunk” color.  I do have a LOT of all-white ones…  Hey,  if I get some black fabric dye,  I can dip one of the bunny fur strips in it and voila!  Black and White!  See?  Brilliant!

I had my wonderful mother-in-law send me some Rit Dye by expensive express mail,  that came in last night.  I broke out a pack of white Dolly’s and…  all the other Dolly’s have two strips of straight-cut bunny hide.  The whites…  Just one.  So much for my “brilliance”.  Should have thought about actually looking at a fly before making my big plans…

So… dipped the trailing hook and bunny strip in the boiling black slime anyway and created what I can only really call an ugly Poodle.  We now EXCLUSIVELY carry the new – inventive – wonderful – unique – spectacular – never been fished “Poodle-Llama”!  Get ’em while supplies last!

Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory!

August Update…

This has been a pretty quiet summer around the shop!  I think a lot of people think we’re already closed…  Nope.  We’ll be open through the end of the season.  Lots of coho flies to move,  even if we are out of waders and jackets.

We just had a really intense storm pass through a couple days ago.  We had a passenger flight to deal with right in the middle of the worst of it.  Howling winds and driving rain.  Fear not,  we won’t stay dry for long…  Another big storm system is barreling toward us as I type.  Here is the weather service warning for the next 48 hours…

Special Weather Statement
National Weather Service Juneau AK
928 AM AKDT Tue Aug 10 2021

AKZ017-110500-
Cape Fairweather to Cape Suckling Coastal Area-
Including the city of Yakutat
928 AM AKDT Tue Aug 10 2021

...HEAVY RAIN WEDNESDAY AND THURSDAY...

Heavy rain with an atmospheric river arrives Wednesday morning
and continues through Thursday. 48 hour rainfall totals are
expected to be 5 to 7 inches in Yakutat with greater amounts
possible in the mountains.

Decreasing precipitation Tuesday evening will allow area rivers
to slow or subside. However, back to back rainfall events has the
ground already saturated and rivers will respond quicker. Please
be alert to sharp rises in water levels with some streams nearing
bankfull and possible flooding of low lying or poor drainage
areas. Along with flooding potential, isolated landslides are also
a concern.

Uncertainty remains in timing of when heavy rain shifts away SE.
Stay up to date on the latest forecasts through the week as this
event evolves.

You read that right…  5 to 7 inches coming.  The river didn’t totally blow out on the last storm because the ground was so dry.  Just soaked in mostly.  Flows topped out at 466 CFS after about 3 inches of rain,  but we’ll definitely be blowing out tomorrow!

Fishing has been really good this season,  with the Situk blowing past the escapement goals for both sockeye and kings.  This makes 3 out of 5 years where the king totals have exceeded 1,000 fish.  Sockeye exceeded 100,000 fish as well.  Now,  we have the humpy invasion,  but early silvers are in the river as well.

Lots of spare time here,  with the gym equipment missing yet another barge.  They are promising to make the next one,  but they promised that last month too…  Just hoping to have something to do when the world ends…

Take care and hopefully we’ll see you soon!  Come take some of these flies off my hands at 40% off!  We’ll be open 10am to 6pm every day except Sundays and our anniversary (Sept 15th) through the end of the coho season.

How to Make Contact…

Just want to make sure everyone understands why I may not respond to a phone call…  I’m not being rude,  but I have a LOT on my plate.

I do not carry a cell phone and I refuse to be chained to a device.  I have one because I have to have one now to sign into a bank account,  but it sits on my desk on silent.  I will never answer it.  If you want to talk to me,  call the business line at (907)784-3087.  I answer it as “Yakutat Aviation Services,  this is Bob”.  Don’t hang up if you think you mis-dialed…  It is still the fly shop.  I just answer as the business that actually makes me money.  If you leave a message,  I will call you back.  BUT…  Since my long distance is not included on my cell phone package,  I use a good ol’ fashioned calling card,  which only allows 4 rings and then it disconnects.  If your voice mail is set to more than 4 rings,  I can’t leave a message.  So if I can’t get through to talk to you directly and I can’t leave a message,  I don’t have time to try back multiple times.

Please feel free to call me back after a day if you don’t receive a call-back.  Also,  if you e-mail,  understand that I get hundreds of e-mails a day.  I cull the spam and jokes,  then try to respond to each question I get.  Some days are pretty hectic between aircraft fueling and construction and the fly shop,  so sometimes your message can disappear up the inbox list of messages really fast and I don’t have time to go back through to find it a thousand messages up the list…  So if I don’t respond in a day or so,  please re-email and I’ll see it again and answer.  Unless it is another hectic day and I miss it again…

I’m here to answer any questions you may have and help make your trip a good one.  That has been a joy over the past couple decades of my guide business and fly shop.  But…  In the future,  you’ll need to start transitioning over to your lodge,  or whatever service provider you use in town.  With the fly shop closing,  I won’t be talking to fishermen every day to glean an understanding of what is happening on the river like I do now.  I won’t be in the loop.

As for the shop…  we have a big supply of flies,  beads and souvenir shirts.  We have an odd selection of uncommon colors of fly tying materials (which was kind of always our specialty…  weird colors),  still a lot of hooks and every possible color of Glo Bug yarn.  Especially the ones no one ever stocks…  But we are nearly out of anything with the Simms logo…  I’ll post what we have left at some point,  but we are NOT mailing anything out.  We started off doing that,  but since I’m losing money on everything as it is,  I can’t afford to eat the cost of an item that the USPS loses.  So far this spring,  we have lost a couple expensive items we mailed.  Insuring a shipment doesn’t mean the USPS will reimburse me for the cost of the product.  A missing item means I’m screwed…  We’re not going there again…  You can prepay for something and I’ll save it,  but you have to show up to get it.

OK,  I’ll get a fishing report posted next.  Just wanted to clear a few things up,  as our fly shop life winds down this season…

It’s Raining…

The snow turned to rain yesterday (after between 6-12 more inches fell).  Water flows are rising and have hit 150 this morning.  Temperature is still very cold,  so not expecting much from the next couple days,  but our weather is supposed to be sunny and 50+ degrees this weekend.

Looking better!  As though spring may actually rear its ugly head soon…  In the meantime,  the State DOT hauled the airport snow pile away last week,  only to have the new snow pile starting to be rebuilt…

Pretty slow in the shop,  although we’ve seen more people through in early April than usual because of the sale.  Even had a couple locals come by yesterday and we almost never see locals…  I just had a couple guys we usually see later in the spring from down in Washington – what a year to decide to come two weeks early…  OOPS!

One of them was rifling through the fly drawers and grabbed a couple of the big foam poppers.  His buddy started mocking him (and I joined in) as though he was going to drag a pink bass popper across the surface and catch a steelhead…  Ha,  ha…  No,  he was just stocking up on his silver flies for later in summer.  Plopped them down on the counter as I was chatting about how many times people have reported steelies taking their Thing-a-ma-bobbers and that they should add a hook to the bobber…  Then it dawned on me…

Use the popper as your bobber and drift your bead/yarn ball under it!  If anyone out there pulls off a Situk Steelhead on your thing-a-ma-popper,  you’ll have a special place in the Situk River Fly Shop hall-of-fame!  Anyone who does it,  send me a picture and I promise to give you 40% off any fishing gear in the store!!!  Oh,  wait…  🙂

Slow Start to 2021 Steelhead

And we’re off!  We have steelhead,  we have steelheaders and we have very cold,  low,  clear water.  Woo,  hoo!  Reports have been that there are maybe 250 total fish in the river right now,  holding in only a handful of spots.

The gage froze on Tuesday/Wednesday,  showing 32 degrees and a messed up height.  The height went crazy,  but showed 150 CFS briefly,  but is back down into the 80’s.  We did get a little cold drizzle for a couple days,  but not enough.  Still very low water.  In yesterday’s bright sun,  the temp peaked at around 38,  but dropped right back down to under 33F at night.

I wouldn’t exactly say it isn’t worth coming yet,  but conditions aren’t great and fishing will be a struggle.  I have seen three groups pass through the shop in three days (one group twice).  Run timing is definitely running behind schedule.  We won’t be seeing the lake fish for weeks,  so just whatever spring steelhead trickle in each day.  Slow now,  but will be building a little bit each day.

Hang in there.  They are coming.

And for fly shop news…  Just a heads up…  we are well stocked on all flies EXCEPT black and white Dolly Llamas.  A have a handful of 3/0’s,  but none left in #4 and #6.  LOTS of everything else though.  May I recommend the all-white DL and a Sharpie?  Also running pretty low on the waders.  Just a smattering of odd sizes,  but if you are in need of a new pair of XXXLS,  we got ya covered.  MK,  LL,  etc…  No regular larges or mediums left.  I even have a 4XL Guide Jacket…  Today anyway…  If you want to buy a new set of waders,  or a jacket,  I’m still happy to order you in a pair if you want to support us instead of Cabelas,  but they wouldn’t be the sale price.  Just e-mail,  or give me a call.  We are not shipping sale-priced items,  since I’m already losing money on them and everything will be gone to people actually visiting the shop anyway.  I can always drop-ship to you directly from Simms and Sage anytime.  Oh,  also we are out of 11 and 12 wading boots in any style,  so if you need those sizes,  call me and we can get one.

Fly Shop Opens April 1st

Situk River Fly Shop will be opening April 1st,  10am to 6pm except Sundays.

This will be the last season for Situk River Fly Shop.  It has been a wonderful run,  but the travel restrictions imposed by our heavy-handed government has killed us.  We’ll be selling down our existing merchandise and not reordering.  Although this is looking like the end…  I’m always hopeful we can come back if the world pulls its head out of it’s butt,  therefore I will be following the dealer requirements for Simms and Sage…

They require that any currently available stock from the company can not be discounted.  For the most part,  our inventory is older stock and not bound by this restriction.  We didn’t order replacement inventory last year,  since we could see the writing on the wall and tried unsuccessfully to weather this as best we could…  So…

Almost everything in the shop will be at 40% off.  40% is the mark-up both Simms and Sage allow for their products,  so we’ll only lose the shipping cost.  And the 5% credit card processing cost.  And all operating expenses.  And I won’t be getting any salary.  And…  I think you get the idea.  There are just a couple items that we can’t discount,  like lip balm and shoe laces…  but pretty much everything else is in the bargain rack.  Inventory for the steelhead run should be pretty good,  especially for flies,  but as the year progresses,  we’ll be looking more and more like our first season when we sold out of just about everything by May 1st.

If there is something specific you need for the coming season,  I can still special order most Simms and Sage products if you give me a couple weeks notice,  but anything special ordered will have to be at SRP.  Which would be the price anywhere else,  or our price if I wasn’t going under…

In April,  we’ll still have a LOT of snow around the hangar.  Tanis has been good at keeping a path along the front of the building,  but not the entire parking lot.  Plenty of room to drive and park in front of the shop,  right along the building wall.  There also should be enough room for you to turn around.  Not at the moment,  but we still have a couple weeks.  Here is the driveway from the second floor…

Thank you everyone for your many years of support.  Teen and I appreciate you and your friendships.  This is a tough time,  but we’ll get through it.  We are continuing to work on the hangar and don’t have any immediate plans to escape Yakutat anytime soon.  Maybe I’ll even get to see you on the river once in a while…

What it Took to Get Here – Part 4

OK,  Happy New Year!  We have already survived 4 big storms this year,  but now we get to remember back to the first ones in the hangar…  For starters,  it was a heavy snow year that made it very difficult to get in and out of our new public entrance.

It wasn’t the snow that was the problem.  It was the warming spell that followed…

The hangar apparently had some leaks!  First,  the snow pushed up against the side of the building blocked any drainage of the rain and melt,  flowing in through the doorway.  We have had to keep a drain trail shoveled all winter ever since.  Then…  we had all sorts of leaking problems from the 3rd floor roof drainage system.  Water poured down through the second floor and then completely soaked all out drying trim wood.  We had to cart all of it back out into the hangar bay,  so we could soak up and dry the room out.  Ceiling sheetrock damaged all over the place.  What a great start to the new year.

Then  everything froze solid and we had some beautiful sunny days,  but bitterly cold.  The roof drains are all plugged with ice.  We sheeted the 3rd floor with plastic and stuffed it down the wall hoping any leaks would drain off and down the outside wall.

Problem kind-of solved,  time to start tiling the floor.  We are down to 3 months and one week before our grand-opening date of April 1st…

Oh wait!  Did I forget to mention there is no water at the airport and it is in single digits?  I made sure we had a couple fish totes filled with water ahead of time for the water supply to mix the mastic and grout.  Ya…  about that…  By this time,  they were completely solid ice.  We had to fill buckets with snow each day and have the jet-heater blast them all night so we could have a little water to work with the next day.

The grouting went well.  Now had to spend several days buffing the surface after it dried for three days.

Then the real fun happened…  Prior to Cascade Air taking over the lease on the hangar,  the city leased it.  The city owned the power plant,  so didn’t care how much power the hangar consumed.  There were electric pipe heaters throughout the roof drains.  Apparently Cascade was a bit shocked to see a $5,000 power bill in the winter,  so they disconnected all the pipe heaters.  And left for the season…

More damaged sheetrock,  more flooding,  more plastic sheeting and cutting out a quarter of the drain pipe to redirect it out a window after the PVC pipes burst.

More and more buffing,  polishing with wax,  then bringing the trim wood back inside to dry again.  T minus 5 weeks and counting…

Creating trim from raw green wood…  I bought a little DeWalt planer that was OK for planing 1″x4″ trim.  Not so great for planing 20 foot long 2″x12″s.

Now what to do for a sales counter?  We have this platform along the back wall,  what to do with it?  This is March 15th.  Two weeks to go…

Counter still needs to be clear coated and needs glass,  but pretty happy with how it turned out,  without a plan…  Now we need more displays.  Carried the rest of the wood back into the hangar – again – cleaned up all the dust and started to think about what else to build…

I think things are coming together OK,  winging it as I go along.  Teen is absolutely freaking out!  This is what the shop looks like on March 28th,  four days before we open:

T minus 4 days and counting… fast!

Who’s ready for a humiliating opening day?  “Grand”?

My good friend and silent business partner Mark arrives today to help get the rest of the stuff built and ready,  along with the big shipment of glass for the counter,  computer equipment and all the IKEA stuff to help get us by.

Peeling tree trunks and putting the tables together green…  Would have been nice to have the branches dry a little slower,  but they were cut same day,  peeled of bark,  cut to length and assembled all at once,  so the big cracks remain.  Not perfect,  but close enough with three days left.

OK,  last full day before we open.  Actually most of the fear is gone.  Just need to finish up a few things,  clean up and pull out the inventory.  Little things like doors…

Alaska Air called and said our glass was ready to be picked up.  The igloo was out on the ramp waiting for us to come and get it.  The crate the glass was shipped in collapsed inside the igloo.  We open tomorrow.  If the glass is broken,  we have no sales counter.

Nothing was broken!!!  Thank you God!  Meanwhile,  as Mark and I finished up the building and creating,  Teen had help from Hae Sook,  a local friend who was kind enough to come out and help wash windows.

We are out of time at this point,  but we’re still building displays.  I had ordered a rod display rack from Sage,  but it never came.  Still hasn’t…  So better build something.  Display for the rod cases,  but my brand new 1/2″ DeWalt drill broke!  That was really the last thing to go wrong.  One final clean and out comes the little bit of merchandise we had.

It is now 4am April 1st.  Time to go home and hope for a little sleep before being back at the hangar in 4 hours…

Day one,  we had about two dozen locals come out for a visit.  We sold a hat…  The next day,  we had about a half dozen locals and sold a hat and a shirt.  Then…  it was a LONG two weeks before we saw another customer.  What the %$#@ did I get ourselves into?!?!

Our first sale…

Our first payment…

A couple weeks later,  the floodgates opened.  Our meager supply of merchandise was gone before the end of the month.  It would take more than a month for our emergency orders to arrive,  long after the steelhead season was over.  By May,  “potential” customers came in and expressed that we had a nice shop,  or WOULD HAVE if we had some merchandise to sell…

And the rest is history.  Sort of.  It was an incredible ride and I’m trying to hold myself together right now after going back through these memories.  You guys made this shop what it is and I thank you for your support,  your friendship and for the knowledge you shared with a moron who thought he could start a fly shop in a tiny village having never stepped foot in a fly shop before.  You all made this possible.  Thank you.

I don’t want all this work and everything we all built to go away.  I would love to see someone carry this on into the future,  but if that doesn’t happen,  maybe someday we can start again and bring this back again.  Maybe a little hope for the future.  We’re not going anywhere.  In the meantime,  we’ll sell down the remaining stock this coming year and then…  maybe…  you may even see me on the river again once in a while.  Stranger things have happened.

What it Took to Get Here – Part 3

OK,  I figured this would be just a single post,  but here we are…

Starting to come together,  inside and out!

Back to the river for my guide season…  Trying to juggle two existing businesses while starting a third…

Yes,  Teen’s last season helping in the kitchen and on rare occasion guiding with me.  Fun times.  Back in town in October,  we concreted in the new fence posts,  then had some time to kill while it set for a week.

Needed a few days to let the concrete set,  so…  Took the kids to Cannon Beach and started the arduous process of winter hangar storage.

Had large electrical vaults in the shop floor that had to be filled,  so after getting the hall and offices electrical done,  we insulated and sheetrocked those.  Then filled the vaults and holes with sand and concrete.

Now to move the fence…  This was a VERY LONG day!  Had to have the airport secure before we could leave for the day.

The fence is now gone!  Hall and office mudded,  taped and painted.

We planned to use locally milled Sitka Spruce for all the trim in the shop,  so time to bring all of that inside to dry.  The floor was in really bad shape in this room.  The worst floor in the entire building!  Fortunately we planned for big 16″ tile that could span a lot of the “imperfections”…

Making progress… Can almost see some light at the end of the tunnel…

Getting closer!  And almost Christmas!  In December,  we planned to have a two-day open-house to show the community what we had been up to and what we planned for the future.  Still had a LOT of clean-up before it would be presentable though.  We had our initial order of shirts and hats,  a handful of supplies we acquired from a fly shop that went under in Utah and two sheet cakes.

OK,  a few people came out to see what we were up to,  but not many.  We had a lot of cake to eat by ourselves and a lot of Pinochle to play with my mom and Teen’s mom and dad with us.  A thousand aces,  800 kings,  a double run,  a run with aces round and my mom’s double pinochle…  We played a LOT of cards.

As 2007 came to a close,  we were riding high.  Excited about the future and ready for anything that could come.  What could possibly go wrong?  The new year didn’t start the way we expected.  It was a train wreck that will be in part 4…

What it Took to Get Here – Part 2

OK,  where were we…  Back from our shopping trip…

Quick! Look! They’re getting along!!!

We’re back.  Adding the vapor barrier to the walls and building he box around the asbestos pipe across the ceiling…  Box it in and it is protected from damage.  If you ever wondered why the dumb soffit runs full-length across the ceiling of the fly shop,  now you know.

Taking a break from math class

Every day is recess for Eden…

Measure once…

Cut twice…

We took a time-out to build birdhouses with the kids…

I have no idea why I started mudding the walls before I sheetrocked the ceiling,  but whatever…  Starting to look pretty good though!

Time to open up the ramp wall from the outside…  Took down three full-sized sheets of siding and three 1/2 sheets along the bottom of the entry door.  We put the 1/2 sheets back up below the new windows on the ramp though.  You have no idea what a 10′ x 3′ sheet of 1/2″ corrugated concrete/asbestos siding weighs!  I didn’t truly understand till we started removing it from the 2nd floor…

And then the shipping container arrived!  Yay!

The rest of the windows,  ceiling sheetrock,  electrical conduit,  more insulation and another load of junk from my mom’s garage from when we moved back to Yakutat…

…and working lights!!!  Followed by insulation and sheetrock.

Doesn’t this look inviting? Complete with chain-link fence to keep everyone out! I love how bad the second floor looks.

Look how clean the hangar bay is!!! Nice work Cascade Air! This is their other DC-3, which was sold to Desert Air in Anchorage and is still flying up there.

OK,  I admit it!  I cheated.  While I was out commercial fishing on the Akwe,  I hired some guys from the fish plant to come out and finish the mudding and paint the primer.  I had to redo about a third of it though.

Ahh…  Life on the river before being tied down in the fly shop…  These were wonderful days that I definitely miss.  Our last summer together out there.  From here on,  one of us had to be in town,  so if I was out fishing,  Teen was in the shop.  During the guide season,  I was out fishing,  Teen was in the shop.  We’d close the first week of October to have a little family time on the river in the initial years.

N272R looks beautiful in the empty – clean hangar. I need to get her that clean again!

OK,  August break between the commercial fishing season and the fall guide season at Italio River Adventures…  Time to split this into part 3…