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In the midst of his pee jokes, Uber suggested I try the alcohol method too, though the question about them not being real Gore-Tex did come up. I will try it out and see if it works... worth a shot. Borrowing a leaf blower is my backup plan (who needs a leaf blower in Lethbridge... the leaves all end up in Coaldale eventually anyway).

Think it's just a nature of the Bow..this year seems particularly nasty for wading

Thought I'd drop some of these here. I mostly do landscapes and fish alone, so no fish pics. This is a view of the Elbow in Kananaskis. Pretty amazing how much damage that one little river caused. And a couple of fishing-related pics.

"Frenchy's". Frenchy's and Barotto's. Moved down to 58th then became the original Wholesale. I remember going to the fire sale with my dad when I was a kid. Ribtor was pretty awesome too. For cheap stuff.

Pure speculation on my part, but I think they were/are likely carrying a lot of debt from UFAs actions in recent years and that it likely played a large part in the closing of the chain. UFA bought Wholesale in 2008 and later that same year they bought 15 Sportsman's Warehouse locations in the US and rebranded them as Wholesale Sports. Sportsman's Warehouse was strapped for cash at the time and the remaining stores were forced to apply for chapter 11 in 2009. UFA closed their first US store in 2011 and they ended up selling the remaining locations by 2013. At the same time, they were expanding in Canada, opening locations in Edmonton, Lethbridge, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Kamloops, Prince George and West Kelowna. Excluding Edmonton and Winnipeg, the rest of the cities they opened stores in only have a combined population of about 650,000 people. Kamloops, for example, only has about 90,000 people and they already had a specialized flyshop as well as a general outdoors competitor in Surplus Herbies. My point is, they likely lost money on the US deal and even if they did grab a lot of the market share in those smaller cities in Canada it would still likely take quite a bit of time to generate enough revenue to pay off the setup costs. A lot of this expansion was done when the price of oil was high and the Alberta economy seemed invincible. I'd guess that UFA management likely expected their "flagship stores" in Alberta to grow and to be able to shoulder a lot of burden with respect to servicing this hypothetical debt. Unfortunately, when the price of oil fell and the Alberta economy took a hit... Closing the entire chain rather than trying to sell it or restructure seems like too drastic a move, considering they opened their last store in 2014 and the media reported that they saw a 9% reduction of sales in 2016 when compared to 2015, unless they were already close to the brink. Again, this is 100% speculation so take it with more than a grain of salt. It is a shame and I wish the employees well, but hopefully this will create an opportunity for someone other than the big box stores to step in and fill the void.

I'm sad to see all those employees losing their jobs in a already tough economic climate. I used to frequent wholesale forall my flyfishing purchases for many many years, but the last couple years I have been taking my wallet else where as it seemed like every time I went there for tying materials or a new line or leaders they were always out of stock. It seemed as if they always had more empty spaces on the walls than product. After so many wasted trips to find empty shelves I've turned to other shops and online shopping. I think whoever was in charge of their inventory and product selection has done a huge disservice to the success of the store.

my preference is always FishTales, however for the large box stores, wholesale was far better for fly fishing than Bass pro or Cabelas unfortunate that those folks have to work in the store closing morale until December and then look for jobs in a still tough economy.

I always supported WSS and the Fishin Hole. I avoided buying stuff from Cabelas, as they were too pricey and too far from my home. When I started fly-fishing in 2002, I made trips to WSS North Side what seemed like every few days. Mike was always helpful. When the SS store opened up I started going there and got to know Rob C. Hope those hundreds of people can quickly find other work. With the new BPS opening soon, it surely would of taken another bite out of WSS sales. Looks like I'll be doing all of my shopping at the Hole

Yes you are correct. Jumping to the "deals" end of things is a little callous, so apologies for my part in that. The impact will be significant on those who have been loyal employs for a number of years... some great guys & gals at our local store. It really leaves a gap in the consumer market too, especially in places like Lethbridge where we have no other option for tying materials & fly gear locally. Will have to drive the 2+ hours to Calgary, or 1.5 to the Pass, unless something moves in to fill the void.

CPs has flies at 50% off right now, and they're not wholesale "quality"..

Or dipshits who argue against Fire Smart programs. http://www.aema.alberta.ca/documents/FireSmart-AEMA-Presentation.pdf Don

I shoot Nikon full frame DSLR and Fuji mirrorless. The pictures in my first post in this thread are probably a mix of D600, D750, and D800. I'd say out of the three that the D750 is my favourite and the other two bodies will soon find their way to kijiji. In my post from earlier today the two pics of Lundbreck were shot on the D750 and the other three were on a Fuji X-T1. The Fuji kit is so lightweight while keeping incredible image quality that it's become my walkaround kit while I only shoot the D750 when I'm working out of the truck. If you're looking for a good camera kit, best thing to do is head over to the Camera Store and look around, tell them your price range and what types of things you'll be shooting and they'll point you in the right direction. I've always had awesome service from them and never got "upsold" to anything I didn't need. Here's some other randoms from the past few months. Mix of Fuji and Nikon, but I'll bet you that unless I tell you which is which you can't tell the difference.

U-fa's head office micromanaged WS into the toilet, after Dec 28th they can then concentrate their efforts and do the same for the farm stores

While you may get some "deals", 545 people are losing their jobs.. Mike