Kinda a cold 51 degrees this morning in here Shangra La South.  But it's 29 on the big lake and that reminds me why I am in South Carolina and not New Hampshire.  Or for that matter Maryland.

                                                  THE OUTFITTERS

My introduction to what is called, by natives of New Hampshire, as the “Big Lake” began with a requisite stop in Wolfeboro, NH. There was any number of reasons to stop in this beautiful lakeside town. The first and foremost was to find out if the fish were biting. The rest of the reasons then developed from there. We had to obtain fishing licenses and buy bait. All of these “Reasons” were fulfilled at a place along the side of the lake called the “Lake Regions Sports Shop”. A stop there was not necessary, it was mandatory! As the years moved on this sporting good store was the place where one bought a license to fish, flies to tie on the long leaders also purchased, sinking or lead core lines, and any type of fascinating flies that the owner himself tied. The other reasons of supplies developed over the years as the necessity of purchasing food and adult beverages became important.

 

 

The Lake Regions Sport Shop is no longer in Wolfeboro, having been push out by a growing wine sipping, arts, and crafts crowd that have made the rents impossible. But the place in it’s time was as classic as a Norman Rockwell cover. It was owned by one Jim Warner who kept up on what the fish were doing. He would tell us who was catching what on what, he ran the shop, tied the flies, and was an all around nice guy.

Jim created a great number of the flies still used today as the lure of choice for old Salmo Salar. He is credited with inventing more than one of the flies which are supposed to imitate the smelt. Smelts are the small bait fish in the lake which provide most of the forage for the larger finny predators such as the bass, lake trout, large perch, and land lock salmon. In fact, the famed fly “Winnipesauke Smelt”, tied with tandem hooks is one of his inventions.

The latest part of April and first days of May are generally the time one wants to be on the lake to fish for salmon, and as the years past I think the arrival of the guys from New Jersey was always fun for Jim. When one asked for a license, he would say something like “Two of the other guys had already arrived”.

This was a pop shop of “Mom and Pop” fame, and Jim ran it as though you were his long lost brother. If you had gained a few pounds since the previous year, he would always say…..”Been eating well I see.” He must have remembered every one of his customers and was loved by most of the serious sport fishermen in the region. In April of 2002, Jim tied a memorial fly for his friend and fishing companion Vincent David Rodgers, Jr. This was the kind of guy he was, and so created the”Ghost Smelt” in Rodgers’ honor.

Jim was probably the last of the proprietors at the shop who would know first hand the straight story about the current fishing conditions. When it was salmon time in the spring, Jim would be out on the lake before the shop opened trying his luck. He often could be found on spots considered a favorite by local fishing guide and friend Glenn Morrill, who he called the “Dean of Winnipesauke”. They fished such spots as Moose and Ship Islands, Rattlesnake, and of course Wolfeboro Harbor where the store could be found.

Sadly in recent years the shop in Wolfeboro was sold, resold, and moved out of town. After Jim retired, the old shop had just lost a lot of charm. Yes, the equipment, flies, live smelt, night crawlers, and hellgrammites could still be purchased. But it just wasn’t the same. And the town was changing. No longer was it the lazy old town of the lake front home of the private school up the hill. But rather it is a tourist town which had been “Found”.

Jim still ties some flies to sell there and they are still as good as forty years ago, but you cannot find one with the old double trailer hooks. However, I do in fact, still have a couple of those old “Grey and Red Grey Ghosts” I bought on the first trip in
1958, and they still work!  His flies were then intended to lure the small mouth bass out of the depths, because on this trip north, salmon were not on our plate.