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Thread: Looks Like Creative Sports is no more

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jan 2012
    Location
    East Bay
    Posts
    380

    Default Looks Like Creative Sports is no more

    I just swung by what used to be Creative Sports in Pleasant Hill today to grab a few tying bits and pieces and its no longer there. No "we have moved to" sign, nothing. Its tough running a fly shop these days. It was the only fly shop along the whole 680 corridor, lots of people and lots of fly anglers....but not enough clearly.
    You can't buy happiness, but you can buy new fly fishing gear and that usually does the trick.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jul 2015
    Location
    Idaho Falls, Id
    Posts
    448

    Default

    That’s a bummer. I used to drive over from Mare Island Naval Station back in the mid 80’s while Andre was still there. Used to love the messy nature of the place back then.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Location
    Sebastian, FL, USA, Earth
    Posts
    23,836

    Default

    In the 1970s Creative Sports was the hottest thing in the fly fishing world on the West Coast.

    When I had the "Fly Hutch" in the 1970s in Sacrament I bought tons of product, wholesale, from Creative Sports.

    Dave, Andy and Sarah made a great team.........they had some top people working for them too.

    You could see old fly fishing celebrities there like Mike Fong, Earnie Schwiebert and Dave Whitlock.

    Before 1970 there were very few "fly fishing only" shops in America.

    Then the fly shops really took off..........there were 60 Sage dealers in California....now there are maybe 12?

    Fly shops had a good 50 year run but small business today is just too hard.


    The new 'One World Order' does not like small business.
    Bill Kiene (Boca Grande)

    567 Barber Street
    Sebastian, Florida 32958

    Fly Fishing Travel Consultant
    Certified FFF Casting Instructor

    Email: billkiene63@gmail.com
    Cell: 530/753-5267
    Web: www.billkiene.com

    Contact me for any reason........
    ______________________________________

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    Vacaville CA
    Posts
    77

    Default

    What a shame. I used to stop in there from time to time. It was the pulse for the east bay. The new world order has nothing for me. I’ll stop there.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Feb 2005
    Location
    the Lost Sierra
    Posts
    750

    Default

    Another one bites the dust. Sad.

    As a grom in the early 70's I'd hang out at Andy's in Walnut Creek. I was too young to drive so he would sometimes run up the hill to pick me up from scuba practice. His place was cluttered, dark, kind of mysterious and smelled of mothballs and pipe tobacco. I couldn't get enough. I was imprinted on how a fly shop "should" be. No neon lights, no Linoleum floors, no Jim Adam's fly bins and soft good racks. All of today's fly shops are simply cookie cutter variants of a same sterile model. Useful, but no hint of polar bear, seal fur or jungle cock hidden in some musty wooden drawer tucked along side a bottle of bourbon. Times change. The fall of CS is simply another reminder of such.
    Last edited by Ralph; 05-28-2022 at 07:43 AM.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    Neither new or improved, but now in Redmond OR
    Posts
    568

    Default

    Spent many an hour in Creative Sports - laughing, learning, and trying to sort the BS from the helpful bits. I loved Andy's no nonsense, pull no punches approach to it all. I loved the impromptu fly tying sessions when someone would plonk their scissors down on the table each time after using them. Andy would threaten to toss the next person out on their ear if he heard a pair of scissors hit the table. (Andy was a proponent of always keeping your scissors nested quietly at the ready in your non-bobbin hand you see). He used to turn cork grips on rods I was building. I'd bug him and bug him and finally he'd relent, tell me to come over around 9pm and he'd get out his cork shirt one evening. We'd dig his old Southbend lathe out from under a mish mash of stuff, search for a sharp bit, wrap on half a roll of masking tape, cut a cardboard box to use as a support for the end of the rod, and turn the grip. The fun part was Andy didn't charge a fee - his price was to bring a bottle of Scotch and join him in a few fingers worth. I could listen to him talk about fly fishing for hours. I miss those days.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Location
    vacaville ca.
    Posts
    629

    Default Creative Sports

    Called Jamie Burman and he confirmed that he did close the shop. Working a job but still guiding the Yuba and Putah.

    Contact is

    creativeflyshop@yahoo.com
    Last edited by Paul B.; 05-30-2022 at 01:10 PM. Reason: Correct email

  8. #8
    Join Date
    May 2022
    Location
    pleasant hill
    Posts
    2

    Default

    Hello everyone, I am a friend of Jamie's and served as the unofficial shop rat for several years. If you want to know what was the death knell for the shop, it was the internet. I can't tell you how many times some guy would come into the shop and want Jamie to put a (internet purchased),line on his (internet purchased ) rod and reel. Top drawer stuff too! Jamie would be endlessly polite and load up the line, while I would fume in the background. And on and on. The plague provided the final nail in the coffin. Rods, reels , waders, all sorts of items were constantly on backorder. Now I know that you guys up in Sacto do ok, and you have the financial wherewithall to do pre season sales etc. But not every shop can do that, and that's not just flyfishing -small bike shops,bookstores, any number of businesses. So now there is one less shop, one less place for fishermen and women, to get initiated into the subtleties of our game.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Location
    Sebastian, FL, USA, Earth
    Posts
    23,836

    Default

    Thanks for the feedback Richard.....


    Kiene's Fly Shop is doing very well now, partly from moving right on Hwy 50 in Sacramento.

    Marilyn and I had no idea how important it is to be on a major freeway in a big town in Nor Cal.



    Small businesses, like small farms, have been failing for decades now.

    COVID eliminated a large amount of small businesses.

    In the 50 years I was in the fishing tackle business in Sacramento it just kept getting harder to have a small business.

    Online stores, YouTube, Google and fly clubs (thank God for them) are now taking the place of the good old fly shops.



    Us Baby Boomers had it so good but now life is getting far less personal.

    People communicate by Texting which reduces human contact.

    We destroyed the Blue Collar jobs by sending them overseas too.

    20 years ago there were 60 Sage dealers in California, now there are only about a dozen.



    As us old Baby Boomers pass away now, so goes many old values and traditions.

    Youngsters today know nothing of the Great Depression or World War II.
    Bill Kiene (Boca Grande)

    567 Barber Street
    Sebastian, Florida 32958

    Fly Fishing Travel Consultant
    Certified FFF Casting Instructor

    Email: billkiene63@gmail.com
    Cell: 530/753-5267
    Web: www.billkiene.com

    Contact me for any reason........
    ______________________________________

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    Somersett Reno, NV
    Posts
    412

    Default

    Bill, every so often I re-read a post you made several years ago on the history of N Cal fly fishing-- just so I keep remembering correctly.


    Link to your post:

    https://www.billkiene.com/forums/sho...ghlight=puyans


    Jim

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