What makes a name brand (orvis, loomis, etc.) fly rod so expensive?

A couple of things. Smaller market, so any R&D must be spread out among a smaller number of rods. In many cases, there's a also bit higher level of technical innovation than, say, with Berkley, Garcia, etc. And.. most fly rod manufacturers have fair trade price policies which prohibit discounting.

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Sean,
I would guess the cost reflects advertising, new product research, and last but not least, the cost of the "Lifetime Warrinty" (paying for customers' clumsiness)

rw

Do they provide a product that is as much superior to others as their price indicates? I understand Lifetime Warranty.

No, yes, sort of. We've arrived at a point where real technical innovation, particular with regard to materials, has slowed considerably. This was not the case in the mid to late 1980's and early 1990's.

I think it's more than fair to say that most $700 fly rods do not offer twice the performance of most $300 to $350 fly rods. In fact, they may not offer any appreciable performance difference to most anglers at this point.


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Would you say that is true even in their own product lines?

Somewhat, yes. In fact some of the rod companies have had trouble justifying the cost difference between their mid-price and premium priced models. They normally try to use a higher grade of components on their higher price models as a way to justify at least some of the price difference.

We've reached the same point in rod blanks. Go back 10 or 15 years and a $35 fly rod blank was not very good, particularly when compared to the $100+ blanks. Now we've got $35 fly rod blanks that perform quite nicely even compared to the $100 models. The performance gap has closed by a considerable degree.

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Thanks

Luckily, I stumbled into rod building right when the "cheap, but excellent" blanks were coming out. I've yet to pay more than $75 for a fly blank, despite the fact that the "name brand blanks" go for $200-400. In fact, I spend most of my time building on $20-50 blanks, looking for absolute gems. Almost all the rods I build on these blanks are highly functional fly rods that most fisherman wouldn't be able to tell from the $$$ blanks. But, some are just phenomenal, and I would guess, compare favorably to the truly high $$$ blanks.

I am a newbe and would like to know what brand names to look for and where to find good but inexpensive rod blanks. I want to learn with the inexpensive stuff and then who knows?

Batson's Forecast Imports The 2004 models

Thanks Bill, I am looking there and yes they are very reasonably priced. Any other suggestions from anyone? Your input is appreciated. Thanks

St Croix SCII. American made, great warranty, great performance and very little $$$. I won't buy foreign blanks when I can get as good or better for less coin.