VOLANT, Pa. – Route 208 through Volant, Pa., boasts antique shops, Amish furniture stores, wineries and distilleries and establishments selling jewelry and decor.

But tucked off the main drag, along Neshannock Creek, sits a business that caters to a different type of shopper. The waterway makes it an ideal location for Neshannock Creek Fly Shop. 

Owner Kris Matus bought the 30-year-old business last January after working there for several years.

“We are a fully outfitted fly-fishing pro shop,” he says. “We are just fly-fishing gear. So we don’t necessarily cover the conventional stuff for the bait side of things.”

Approximately 3 miles of Neshannock Creek is designated most of the year for catch and release fishing with artificial lures. It’s open to members of the public who have Pennsylvania fishing licenses with a stamp allowing trout fishing.

“It’s a kind of a destination for either folks coming up from Pittsburgh or a lot of folks coming over from Ohio,” Matus explains. “Spring is kind of the primetime trout season, but we’re unique in that, as long as conditions permit, we’re fishable just about year-round.”

Only a handful of fisheries have sections designated catch and release, and it keeps the fish numbers up and provides anglers the opportunity to make a day of getting on the water, the shop owner explains.  

Matus started as a shop customer. He grew up fishing, but his roommate at Slippery Rock University introduced him to fly fishing. The two traveled to Erie to fish for steelhead and started shopping at the Neshannock Creek store.

In 2019, the owner sold the store but continued to come around. The new owner hired Matus to handle the books and manage inventory. He learned from both the original owner and the one who hired him and when the second owner retired, he sold the shop to Matus. 

Matus enjoys all types of fishing but views fly fishing as an infinite learning process. 

“There’s new anglers to older, experienced anglers,” he adds. “People are in here, and it’s kind of a unique situation that folks are learning from each other.”

Another thing that distinguishes fly fishing from other forms of the sport is its mechanics. In fly fishing, you’re using the weight of the line to propel the fly. In conventional fishing, it’s the weight of the lure.

“So the involvement in the casting and managing the line, it’s a little bit more involved on the water,” Matus says. 

And with conventional fishing, people build lures and add their own finishes. With fly fishing, many anglers also tie their own flies. 

As a pro shop, Neshannock Creek is an authorized dealer of major brands in the fly-fishing industry, including Orvis, Fishpond, Simms, Scott, Sage, Echo and Lamson.

But a large part of the shop’s business is facilitating the fly-tying portion of fly fishing, the owner says. When the weather turns cold, many focus on fly tying to prepare for spring. The shop stocks required tools including natural and synthetic materials, beads and hooks. It also offers classes to help people learn the sport, which is gaining in popularity among women, Matus says.

Fly fishing has social media influencers too who tout a new product or technique.

“It’s neat to see, then customers come in looking for those products and it’s kind of up to me to be ahead of the ball,” Matus says. 

One recent trend popularized on social media is the Diamondback Rod Co. that specializes in nymphing rods. Nymphing is a fly-fishing technique in which an angler uses weighted artificial flies that dip below the surface and mirror aquatic life.

Customers were coming to the shop, looking for the Diamondback nymphing rod.

“There aren’t a lot of dealers in the area that have them so that was one that we brought them in,” Matus says. “And frankly, as we brought them in, we sold through what we had.”

He believes his store offers an advantage over larger chain stores because he and store employees can answer customers’ questions and offer suggestions from experience. 

“One of my favorite things to do in here is to have the newbie, for lack of a better terms, come walking through the door, because fly fishing as a whole can be kind of overwhelming and intimidating,” he says. 

All the gear on pegs and reels in cases may not make sense. 

“And if you walk into this setting, and you’re not greeted when you walk through the door, and it isn’t addressed – ‘Hey, what did you come in for? Do you need any help?’ – It can be a barrier to entry for people,” he says.

Pictured at top: Kris Matus owns Neshannock Creek Fly Shop in Volant, Pa.