Here is a high tech rod new for 2006
[www.rodbuilding.org]

Bill,

At least it's a custom! :)

Seriously though, I've heard some of the same arguments you guys are making against Orvis applied to custom fishing rods (Bill’s excepted). I tend to agree that Orvis stuff is a bit overpriced, but they've been in business for a long time and I think they really key in on customer satisfaction. What ever it is, they sure seem to have figured something out that works for them.

Mark

What I can not understand is why they put snake guides on. Unless they have found that people like them better then say single foot wire ? If single foot guides make a better performing rod and they talk about all this Performance ?? If they care about Performance.

Snake guides go on fly rods. Period. it doesn't matter waht anyone else says or proves, snake guides go on fly rods. Keep saying it, snake guides go on fly rods. snake guides go on fly rods, snake rods go on fly guides. lol.

snake guides go on fly rods--snake guides go on fly rods -------- I'm going to dream of those tonight ??!!

Whether or not something is overpriced has a lot to do with the value you receive from it. Yesterday I bought a new type of tripod head, no more leavers and twist knobs - it has one adjustment that covers every movement, up, down, side to side, swivel, around, back and forth, etc. It has a simple ball and socket and a squeeze grip similar to that on a bicycle braking system. Great idea. Why didn't somebody think of it before? It cost me almost $200. Probably cost the company $15 to make and market and sell. It has very little material involved, a simple design and not much weight or size to deal with. Is it overpriced? Not for the time it saves me and what it allows me to do. I think it would have been cheap at twice the price.

I have a buddy who bought a fishing kayak a few years ago. We were going with a bunch of other fishing kayakers to a lake where you had to transport your boat down a long hill (1/2 mile or so) and then back up again when you finished. All of us, save this one guy, had spent about $80 or so on some rather nice kayak karts with pneumatic tires. They held the kayaks steadily and rolled nicely even on bad terrain. My buddy said they were overpriced, only had about $10 worth of parts involved in that he would just make one. No way was he going to buy such an overpriced item.

So, on the morning of the trip, his homemade cart breaks down about 1/8th mile down the hill. On the way back out, he had to drag his boat up the rocky hill for 1/2 mile. Our's rolled smoothly and easily both ways. I asked him if he still thought our carts were overpriced. He bought himself one the next day. Suddenly they were pretty darn cheap at just $80.

I can see both sides of the discussion on the Orvis rods. I'd build one of my own rather than buy the Orvis (I know how to build a good rod - if I didn't then I'd buy a factory rod) but I'd bet that most people who buy the Orvis rod will say they like it, that it wasn't overpriced and that they enjoy the rod very much. If the majority of consumers saw the Orvis rods as being overpriced, nobody would buy them. And buy them they do. Why should Orvis sell their rods for less than the market will bear?

So, are Orvis rods overpriced - or are your custom rods underpriced?


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Since you put it that way, mine are way UNder priced. But snake guides ?? Go figure

Bill- yours are underpriced because you are going to saving all that money using snakes guides like Orvis instead of those peformance hampering SIC guides. Pass the savings along to the consumer!

i don't know about those rods but their high dollar waders are made for walking through a park at best.

Orvis uses SIC stripper guides on their Zero Gravity saltwater rods. This is indeed where they are most needed. Do we really need SIC guides on small rods catching fish that never make long runs? I use them, and like them, but even I feel like maybe I'm gilding the lily. Snake guides work fine on light fly rods, which is why nearly every manufacturer uses them. SIC titanium might be a bit nicer, but it's far from necessary.

A company that sells a couple thousands of fly rods every year must not have overpriced their fly rods too much...

Orvis sells tens of thousands of fly rods each year, not a couple thousand. Get up into the 30 or 40 thousand range and you'll be much closer.

Snake guides are used primarily because they do the job and do it for very little money. They are adequate, but far from the best. Still, the bean counters have already figured out that adding better guides to the rod adds a certain additional expense that will not be overcome in increased sales due to those guides being used. I use ceramics on even the lightest fly rods I own - my lines last longer, the rod is quieter, etc., but if I were building commercial rods it might be an expense that I could not overcome if I wished or needed to sell tens of thousands of rods.

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Guess it's not what you say -- but how you say it !!