We opened our doors officially on the 4th of July 1996 and we were 1/3 owners with Bob and JT for the first 8 years, 50/50 with Bob for next two and 50/50 with John for these past three. Contrary to what many believe might happen with friends in a partnership, all three of these guys have always been the best of friends and to this day we've never had anything short of a great relationship!

Now, all that being said, we simply don't exist without you and I want to personally thank each and every one of you who has supported BBT in any way, no matter how large or small, (Every little swivel counts, trust me!) over the past 13 years. THANK YOU SOOOOO MUCH FOR MAKING OUR DREAMS COME TRUE and for your continuing support thru these tougher times...

I've said this before and I'll say it again, small fly and/or tackle shops are and have been going down the tubes left and right these days with most everyone out looking for a "bargain" on the internet or shopping the big box stores, but we are fortunate enough to not only be a destination location, but also to have gained many of you as loyal & trusting customers thru the service at the shop and the added bonus value that some of you find in our reports or local knowledge. These are the only real "bargains" we can offer you with our limited buying power and overhead, but we do try to keep our prices reasonable if not competitive to the extent that we can...

In closing (On this subject anyway) we did just add Alex (from the BBT forum) to our shop staff and want to welcome him as what we are sure will be a great addition to the team both in knowledge and service. That brings our in store staff to Jay, (Who has been with me since day 1 back in 1996 here at BBT and for a while together at another shop before that.) my son Brandon, Jory, my wife Karen and Alex pretty much full time. (John and I are in and out of the shop at irregular intervals spending most of our time on and in the river!)

We've just had a "team meeting" so to speak and have driven home the fact that each and every one of us owes our jobs to you and we look forward to serving you the best that we can over the next 13 years and beyond! Our un-happy customer incidents have been very few and far between over the past 13 years "all things considered", but if you ever do have a problem, please don't hesitate to contact John, Karen or I about it and we'll do our best to resolve...

Not much time left for "the fishing report" here, but it's pretty simple. It's tough to say if the hexes will pick back up again in a big way at all as we did have some MAJOR blanket hatches last week. It wasn't very good at all for us on Sunday, Monday or Tuesday nights, but then again, rainy, drizzly, cold evenings where you can see your breath and have to put a fleece on isn't exactly hex weather.

It's supposed to start getting warmer again today so we'll just have to see if it kicks off again, but we did roll a lot of fish and pricked some hogs last night mousing and personally, I'm going to stick with that for at least the next two nights trips. Fishing during the day is hit and miss weather dependent, but I still can't think of a better place to spend a day or night regardless!

I've had too many clients out since last report to go over each day obviously, (One night since I fished with a regular client and one night I fished with friends.) but I did pick up a fair number of new/novice anglers and that, to me, is encouraging! Being new or novice makes driving up your "fish tally" a little tougher, but on those days I did come away with the most satisfying thing of all when it comes to guiding. The knowledge that the angler gained knowledge he can use forever and therefore, had immense value in the trip...

Our open days between now and next Friday are:

Steve - Sunday the 5th, Tuesday the 7th and Thursday the 9th

John - Sunday, Monday, Tuesday the 5th, 6th, 7th and Thursday the 9th.

Below are some random shots I have to share, a huge thanks to all my clients and I'll be sending out all the other photos to you very soon! (Didn't have time to post even half and if I did, the web would explode! ;^)

Tight lines and all that stuff guys, got to go!!!
Steve

We did have a couple of cancellations for Alaska so we now have a few spots in each week for this summer’s trip (2 in the first week of August 1 – 8 and three in the second week of August 8- 15). The package price per person is $1,795.00 and includes:

• Six full days guided fishing
• All your lodging and meals
• Lodge boats that are available around the clock for personal use
• Transportation to and from the Airport in King Salmon, AK

We still have several openings for our annual Argentina trip as well (January 16 – 23, 2010). The package price per person based on double occupancy is US $2,995.00 and includes:

• Six full days guided fishing (with expert, local bilingual (Spanish-English) fly-fishing guide)
• All your lodging, meals and beverages.
• Transportation to and from the Airport in Bariloche

Please contact the shop to sign up for either (or both) of these exceptional trips!