Rainey's Flies is now making the Airheads and Pole Dancers for Charlie Bisharat now.

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Rainey makes real high quality salt water flies and poppers.

https://www.rainysflies.com/_assets/...ys_New2022.pdf

Their prices are more competitive too.

[Darian]

The original "Charlies Airhead" pattern, is re-named: Bisharat's Airhead. All of his fly patterns (Pole Dancer, etc.) have been similarly re-named. The Bisharat's Airhead (brown/white, olive/white) were my hands down choice for Roosters in Baja.

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Thanks Darian.......

I know that you have had many, many trips to Baja so this is good news for Charlie Bisharat fans.


Charlie is still designing flies......constantly. He sends them to Steve Potter and I here in FL to field test for him.


Leo Gutterres sends us top water poppers to fish too.


Then Steve ties all the other flies we use here in Florida.


______________________________

All of Florida is totally under rated for it's amazing fishing.......


We have the best and most LMB fishing in America. Winter and Spring are good.

Our inshore fishing is along the entire shore line, the Indian River Lagoon, Atlantic and the Gulf.

Florida's Offshore angling is fantastic too.

Some serious FL anglers will have more than one boat to be able to do it all.


Our town is a famous fishing town because:

We have one of the top river in Florida, the Sebastian river.

Our Sebastian Inlet is very famous for fishing and is one of the only 5 opening in the 150 mile long intercoastal waterway.

We are on the Indian River Lagoon, a shallow brackish water fishery that is 150 miles long.


Many anglers come for a week, some come for a month and other just move here.


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Jim Christensen, passed employee of Kiene's, is pretty low key but he has traveled the World more than most people I know.

When I was traveling more I would always have Jim help me with getting setup for a good trip.

Jim is one of the top people in our industry at cutting edge rigging for series trips too.


When I went to La Paz on one of Jay Murakoshi's group trips Jim Christensen was along.

At dinner in La Paz the first night Jim was checking up on me as it was my first trip for Roosters.

I told him those Roosters did not like anything I threw at them so he gave me a Charlie's Airhead in brown over white.

I caught fish on it every day and was retying it regularly so I did no lose it.

At the end of the trip I cut off the fly and it still looked like New?????


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When I went to Brazil's amazing Amazon jungle for Peacock Bass Andy Guibord gave us some Charlie's Airheads.

Andy is pretty low key but traveled the World extensively with our groups while he worked for me so he has done it all.

We used 9 weight outfits with floating line that entire trip with only Charlie's Airheads in yellow over white.

This trip is on my top ten list of the best places to go in your lifetime.


We used "River Plate Outfitters" because they can move their floating camp, depending on the rain fall.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkgVN0pxLOk


Today if you want to go with one of the top guys in Peacock Bass fishing (plus other good stuff) I would go with Rob Anderson.

https://bucketlistflyfishing.com/


Years ago Rob got us, Kiene's Fly Shop, going through "River Plate Outfitters" for Peacock bass in Brazil.

[Sonoman]

I didn't see prices on Rainey's website; the search-bar came up with nothing when I searched for "Airhead" or "Bisharat’s Airhead". Carl Blackledge ties a nearly indestructible Airhead that worked great for us on Roosters in Loreto. He doesn't use flash (he will you want it), saying the Roosters don't like the flash.

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Red's Fly Shop has the new Bisharat 'Airheads' by Rainy's for $7.95 usd

https://redsflyfishing.com/products/...41313675935943

[aaron]

The original "Charlies Airhead" pattern, is re-named: Bisharat's Airhead. All of his fly patterns (Pole Dancer, etc.) have been similarly re-named. The Bisharat's Airhead (brown/white, olive/white) were my hands down choice for Roosters in Baja.

Umpqua is a pretty interesting company, hopefully this relieves some headaches for Charlie. Nice to see they're a reasonable price as well.

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

I think Umpqua might still be the largest fly company.

Rainey's is more suited to Charlie's style of "bugs".

[aaron]

I think Umpqua might still be the largest fly company.

Rainey's is more suited to Charlie's style of "bugs".

Solitude was eating their lunch in a lot of territories. Umpqua’s pricing got out of control and their treatment of signature patterns, Tyler’s, and custom programs turned off a lot of independent dealers and the whole Idylwilde thing still left a bad taste. With big box I’m sure they’re still number one, in specialty it’s probably a toss up with RIO in the game.

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Thanks Aaron for some good info......


Our fly fishing industry is going through some interesting changes right now.

I am sure COVID had some effect on every part of it.

Then hundreds of people who built all the major companies have already or soon will be retiring.

New people are coming in to run these companies now, probably with new ideas, good and bad?

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20 years ago there were ~60 fly shops that were Sage/Simms dealers in California. Today, around a dozen?

Before 1970 there were only a couple of "fly fishing only shops" in all of California.

Then it exploded in the 1970s with a new fly shop every month and a new guide every month. LOL

You can not believe how many new fly shops opened up and closed in about a year.

Today a new trend is that the big companies are selling directly to the consumers, which really hurts the fly shops.

Big powerful, high tech online businesses have hurt the fly shops as well.

Most don't know it or don't care that there is a "war on all small business" now too.

I think that the destination shops will survive better than the big city shops now.

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I think Spey/Two-handed casting/fishing has been good for our sport. It put a big dent in indicator sales. LOL

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We have seen a fall off of International fly fishing travel with the lose of the Great Generation, and now the Baby Boomers.

We are guessing that most of these new younger men today won't be able to have the money to travel BIG.

The safety of International travel is questionable as well.

Possibly these younger generations of men won't be able to tell their wife that they are spending $5,000 to go for a week?

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The huge decline of the World's fisheries is having a big effect on our sport too.

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On a positive note, the removal of so many dams is making me very happy at this time in my life.

Along with lots of stream and river restorations.

All this will hopefully save our wild anadromous fisheries.

______________________________________________

About 40 years ago 4 of my good customers who were all very wealthy professionals and thinking of opening their own fly shop.

Being very smart and educated they hired a big consulting firm to analyze the economic feasibility of it all.

After they got their report and had a meeting with the business consultants they changed their minds.

All 4 came in together and told me that the report said that they would not really make any return on their investment.

They said they now had an all new respect for me because I was actually surviving and doing well.....




Today to have a safe small business you need to first marry a nurse or school teacher, for the benefits alone.

[kevins]

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