RAPID CITY - With only days before the opening of the Rapid City Cabela's, store workers are busy making the final preparations.

Some workers, like Garrett Clapp of the Fly fisher's Shop, are just anxious to get to work with people.

"(I anticipate) seeing how the people react to the store, and be able to do what I like to do the most: seeing people learn how to fish with a fly rod and have people come back knowing that the information they got helped them catch more fish," Clapp said.

Clapp operates a shop-within-a-shop at Cabela's, which opens at 5 p.m. Thursday at its location southeast of the intersection of E. Mall Drive and Dyess Avenue.

"It's a full service fly shop," said Clapp, a flyfisherman for more than 35 years. "It caters to any spectrum."

Fly fishing itself led to Cabela's creation, a fact not lost on the staff.

According to Cabela's, the idea for the store was born in 1961 when Dick Cabela thought of a plan to sell fishing flies that he bought while at a furniture show in Chicago. When he returned home to Chappell, Neb., he ran a classified ad in the Casper, Wyo., newspaper, stating "12 hand-tied flies for $1." It generated one response. Undaunted, Cabela came up with a new plan, rewriting the ad to read "FREE introductory offer! 5 hand tied flies … $.25 Postage … Handling" and placing it in national outdoors magazines. It did not take long for orders to arrive from throughout the country.

Forty-five years later, Cabela's is still headquartered in Sidney, Neb., and has stores in 19 states.

"I did not know the story until six months ago," Clapp said. "It's kind of a nostalgic thing. Fly fishing goes back to Egyptian times. On tombs, there was a history of flies and angling. It's pretty awesome to me to know that's where Cabela's got its start. I'm pretty proud to be here."

As far as the fly shop itself, Cabela's has a wide assortment of rods, that range anywhere from $49 to a top-end Sage or G. Loomis rod for about $675. Cabela's price lines include LST, PT, FT, Three Forks, Genesis and Traditional series. The fly shop also has higher-end Sage, TFO, St. Croix (made in Wisc.), G. Loomis and Redington rods.

As far as reel, there's a bunch. Cabela's offers its own brands - Cabela's SLA and Cabela's RLS - as well as the Prestige Series, Three Forks and Cahill. Pflueger reels - from Medalist to the Trion Series as well as Ross, Lamson and G. Loomis reels are in stock. Cabela's has about 408 different patterns, styles and sizes of flies, Garrett said. Fishermen can get one style in as many as four sizes. There are also 117 different lengths, pound test and special application leaders, which include some for bonefish, bass, salmon and Tarpon salt water Leaders, 10-pound test, 16-pound test, all the way down to 6x trout tapers.

Fly fishing is more than rods, reels, flies and accessories. Cabela's has an assortment of fly boxes, chest packs, nets, a full selection of many different kinds of strike indicators and fly tying tools and materials.

"I can't think of anything that is missing but a stream with some trout in it," Clapp said.

The shop also has float tubes that can fit in a backpack. "It's another way to get to solitude that all fly fishers seek," Clapp said.

Cabela's even has a kit for beginning fishermen for around $150. Fishermen will get a rod, reel, case, chest pack, two retractors, split shot, two tapered leaders, trout assortment of flies in a box, nippers, forceps, strike indicators and a dry fly floatant, which keeps flies from absorbing water.

Clapp is looking forward to the opening Thursday, and the family night on Monday. His wife, Debbi, will get a chance to walk through the store and find out what all the long hours were about during the store set up.

"We have all worked very hard putting this store together and Rapid City. I believe (Rapid City) will be as proud of it as we are."

"We're just kind of in that final stretch," Clapp said.