Big Y: Because the Deschutes River is vital to this Fly Shop
Hood River light industrial fly shop: Big Y nestled in its warehouse space in Hood River.
Big Y Founder is Maupin Local
Once you’re past the frustration of not sleeping as well as everyone else, insomnia can lead to daring acts of entrepreneurial creativity. Case in point: Big Y Fly company was started by Maupin resident Cameron Larsen. Larsen lives in Maupin so he can get to fishing on the Deschutes faster than most everyone else. But past legal fishing light, he doesn’t rest like a regular human. He’s never been much of a sleeper. A while back, he was wiling away the restless hours looking at fishing-related videos on the world wide web. Trout flies, he discovered there, are being tied by some enterprising Kenyans. He bought some. They looked pretty good. He bought some more. Then he bought enought to resell. A business model was born. It grew quickly enough that he soon needed a store manager, then a retail space. That was eight years ago, when Larsen hired Andrew Perrault to run his operation—Big Y Fly Company.
Larsen turned the keys to his burgeoning kingdom over to Perrault, who presides over the Big Y’s operations, one door down from Full Sail Brewing in downtown Hood River. While Big Y started with just flies, it’s now a full-service operation. “We sell waders, boots, rods, packs, rods and reels and flies, lines and leaders for trout, steelhead, and more exotic fish like peacock bass—even some flies for fish I’ve never heard of,” says store Manager Perrault.
Some anglers are skeptical of flies tied overseas. “If I sell you a $5 fly, tied here in the U.S.A., and it goes in the water, the standard line is “Oh, what a bummer, must have been a bad tie, I guess that happens some times. But if I sell you one of our two dollar flies, and it comes apart, people come in and question our whole business model.”
Perrault himself has been in the river fun business for 20 years, having guided in Alaska, Idaho, and Wyoming. He knows how precarious making a living from fly-fishing can be. He was living in Driggs, Idaho during the big housing crash in 2008. His boss called all his guides in, and summarily let all the young single guys go. The dismissal was doubly painful, because housing was provided with the job. “It’s not much fun to live out of your car,” recalls Perrault.
His dilligence in keeping employees near and far happily occupied has helped Big Y grow. And judging by the steady stream of customers on a chilly January Friday morning, the formula seems to be working.
The African fly-tying operation, Perrault notes, is a jovial sort of work place. “We regularly interface with our tiers, especially if there’s a translation issue. But when we see them, they’re all smiles, they’ve got music going in the background, and they’re all around a table tying together. That’s maybe different from here, where a guy is tying by himself, complaining there’s nothing to watch on Netflix while he works. In any case it’s not a sweatshop, which people are always relieved to hear.”
Deschutes is key to Big Y Success
“Without the Deschutes River”, says Perrault, “we’re just another mail order fly shop. Times are tough when the river’s bad and the fishing’s closed, we feel it. We do a lot of international shipping. A lot of people will ask where we are, and I’ll say ‘not far from the Deschutes.’ People all over the place know the name, and even those from a long way off will say, ‘that’s a river I’d like to come fish some day’. And every once in a while, one of those people will show up in our shop, buying flies and supplies on the way to the river.”
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