Welcome to 2021... In the early months of 2020 – the calm and happy days before the world shut down – Yellow Dog was coming off our busiest travel year ever, kicking off a celebration of twenty years in business and enjoying our position at the top of the industry after two decades of hard work, perseverance and delivering great customer service. And then? … Boom. The world shut down, travel imploded, and everything changed in an instant. Of course, we’re all painfully aware just how difficult this past year has been for so many people, and we certainly don’t need another business marketing or messaging with terms that include “unprecedented,” “in this together” and “uncertain times.” We all get it. The pandemic has brutalized the economy, cost countless lives, and delivered more damage than any of us could have predicted. How has Covid specifically impacted the fishing industry and the sport of fly fishing in general? We all agree on the fact that 2020 is better off in the rearview mirror, and the negative effects are largely obvious – even in the small and often-times isolated world of fly fishing. But there are positives that have transpired from this “unprecedented” situation, and there are certainly future benefits from an angler’s perspective. On the destructive side of things, the travel industry and destination angling as a whole were absolutely crushed when the world shut down. People stayed home, lodges closed, and airlines stopped flying. Small business loans and programs designed to keep people employed provided some assistance here in America; however international lodges, guides, outfitters and support businesses were largely left to survive on their own. Many of the guides
4
we’ve fished with and come to know over the years were dealt a serious financial blow, as there was literally no work and no income for most of the year. Some guides were forced to sell their boats. Lodges terminated large numbers of staff, and many in the fly fishing community left the fishing world all together. Every international operation (along with many domestic operations) was hurt by the shut-downs, widespread cancellations and the lack of sales, and it will likely take years to fully recover. What about the positives and the good news for fly fishing after this year of global upheaval? The first and most obvious positive is the environmental benefit that comes from literally shutting the world down for months on end. Satellite images from space show pollution levels pre-shutdown versus those taken six or eight months into the pandemic. It’s amazing how nature can heal and recover when we reduce our footprint and let the planet do its thing – even for relatively short period of time. For anglers, the effect of this “global rest” has been evident and abundantly obvious in the quality of the fishing and the behavior of fish that we witnessed – across the planet – in the latter part of 2020. As destinations gradually reopened and anglers slowly returned to waters in Alaska, Belize, the Yucatan, Costa Rica, the Bahamas, and numerous other destinations, they were routinely met with off-the-charts fishing and numbers that had not been seen in years. Here in the U.S., numerous guides, outfitters and fly shops enjoyed a record summer season, as people were forced to cancel ambitious vacation plans and instead road-trip and explore by car. As a 30-year resident of Montana, I can honestly say that our rivers, boat ramps, campgrounds and parks have never been more crowded or used than they were this past summer – something
