Hey fly tying crowd! I don't know if you are like me, but I like to get my eyes and hands on fly tying materials before ringing them up. This new fly shop in Grapevine has some of the more abstract brands of fly tying materials, like Semperfli and Sight Cast. I am already into the Sight Cast brand, but it was good to see what Semperfli looks like - up close and personal. This shop should show up on Google Maps now, but is not opening until next Saturday Feb. 13. I'll be running a longer - more thorough story - sometime this week on my website. If you subscribe to the website, you'll get a notification (nothing more, just notifications!).


Grapevine Fly-Fishing Owner - Michael Tulowitzki

Sight Cast fly tying products

Semperfli fly tying products

Pretty cool. Any relation to Troy Tulowitzki?

That's really cool. Very nice that they are carrying Sight Cast stuff, I use that a lot in my salt water flies. A shop that supports local folks will get my business. Grapevine is kinda of a haul for me; hopefully they will have an online side of the business too.

I kind of know the Killeen / Fort Hood area ... so what is the closest shop to your location? Fort Worth I guess? It seems like any and every fly shop needs an "online presence" to have a shot these days. What I wonder is: Has this pandemic changed us so much that online buying is here to stay - more than going to a real fly shop? I doubt it because I think I/we still like to see the materials up close, squeeze those bucktails out and check their density ... more like a habit than a necessity sometimes. ALSO, are we more comfortable buying finished flies online than we are the ingredients for making those flies?

Living Waters down in Roundrock is the closest one to me. I do agree about going into a shop but I hate urban areas so much so that it is a very rare occasion that I'll go. Just a smidge of PTSD from my time in the sandbox; so the pandemic has not changed much for me its how I've been living since 2010. I haven't bought a finished fly online in over twenty years and if I were to do so again it would be just to dissect it so I could replicate it on my own. It's still nice having some shops in the area though, despite not going in very often I do like to spend my money local rather than some warehouse far away. I also tend to try and build rapport either over the phone, through email, or swapping flies back and forth and am always willing to meet people on the water to exchange ideas.