Local business does a Fabio job for fly fisherman

The next time the seduction of the Internet tries to lure you away from buying outdoor gear locally, consider this story of home-grown customer service beyond the call of duty.

The recent incident involves a local fly fisherman with a cool-sounding name – one worthy of being a trademark. However, since he prefers to remain anonymous, I’ll refer to him as Fabio Gonzalez.

The event unfolded at Silver Bow Fly Shop in Spokane Valley, where owner Sean Visintainer and co-worker Jon Allan were having a routine day until a new face came through the door.

“He wanted to know where would be the best place to sell some fly rods,” Visintainer said. “You can’t judge a person quickly because legitimate people do sell their rods now and then.”

Visintainer told the man the shop didn’t deal in used rods and that he’d probably have to go to a pawn shop or sell them through classified ads.

“But we were curious and we asked him what he had and he started listing them off,” Visintainer said. “He said he had a couple of Sage rods, St. Croix and a real nice Fabio Gonzalez rod.”

That’s when the alarms went off simultaneously in the shopkeepers’ minds.

The visitor apparently was bright enough to know that many top-quality rod makers use their names as trademarks on their products.

But his luck ran out when he tried to pawn off the very fine Fabio Gonzalez rod to reputable dealers.

“Jon and I were both thinking, wait, there’s no rod maker named (Fabio Gonzalez). But we have a customer by that name.”

Visintainer played along while Allan pretended to take out the garbage so he could copy the man’s vehicle license number.

When the man left, the Silver Bow staff contacted Fabio Gonzalez and let him know that a man with one of his rods, inscribed with his name by a local custom rod maker, had shown up in their shop.

“He didn’t even know yet that the rods had been stolen,” Visintainer said.

But equipped with the vehicle license number and the man’s description, police were able to troll through the backwaters of Spokane, net the thief and recover thousands of dollars of fly fishing gear that had been bagged in one quick heist.

Fabio Gonzalez is grateful for the service from Silver Bow, as well as being thankful that his name is not something more common like R.L. Winston or Gary Loomis.

Snooze and lose: Summer vacation is over for people with an active interest in the outdoors. A wide range of government planning efforts is under way with important public meetings or comment periods in September.

More details will be coming in the next few weeks in Sunday Outdoors coverage. But note these efforts:

•Washington hunting seasons and rules proposals are being fine-tuned, with a public open house meeting scheduled at Mirabeau Park Hotel in Spokane Valley on Wednesday.

Incidentally, a new online survey based on the latest refined proposals was posted on the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Web site two weeks ago and about 1,000 people have already logged on and filled it out.

If you’re not one of them, then somebody else is being heard and you are not.

Info: wdfw.wa.gov.

•Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area is beginning scoping on a new shoreline management plan that will deal with issues such as camping, sanitation, public and private access. Meetings are set for 6 p.m. on Sept. 10 at Lincoln county Public Works in Davenport and on Sept. 11 at the Spokane Airport Ramada Inn.

Info: www.parkplanning. nps.gov/laro.

•Colville National Forest management planning has begun sorting out what portions of the 1.1-million-acre forest should be recommended for wilderness designation. The first public meetings are Sept. 6 in Colville and Sept. 12 in Spokane Valley.

Info: www.fs.fed.us/r6/ Wenatchee/ forest-plan.

Alaska letdown: Alaskans voted down an initiative on Tuesday that sought to prevent large-scale mining from polluting salmon-bearing streams.

The measure was spawned by the gigantic Pebble Mine (copper and gold) proposal, which threatens Bristol Bay watersheds and some of the biggest and most important salmon runs in the state.

Years ago, industry smartly found a link to the hearts of Alaska voters by padding their wallets. State citizens pay nearly no state taxes. They even get a dividend check from the oil industry.

The voters are bought off just like their Sen. Stevens. They’re not to be trusted with natural resources that belong to everybody. Remember that when arctic drilling proposals raise their ugly head.

Turning their backs on salmon – the Bristol Bay runs alone provide 12,000 jobs and contribute more than $250 million annually to Alaska’s economy – is just about the dumbest, most cowardly and short-sighted things big, tough Alaskans could do.