Company X has just indorsed Joe Longcast to design their rods. Joe is a fishing guide on the flats somewhere. How does he design rods? Does he tell Company X that the last rod that was sent to him needs to be beefed up more in the butt and made with a faster tip? Is that about the extent of his input in designing a rod?

Joe was given a free rod in exchange for a free charter from the CEO of Company X. They caught a lot of fish that day and the boss told Joe they would give him some free advertising for his charter business if he would let them put his signature on the new imports they were getting in from China. Oh I forgot - two free trips next year!

Good guides and tournament bass fishermen are very savy and free rods are the norm for nearly all of them. Design by this group could also be called marketing!

Gas for the boat is too high at present for new deals!

Gon Fishn



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/02/2006 10:45AM by Bill Stevens.

Compnay X says to Joe, we want you to help us design a casting rod for Redfish. What would your perfect Redfish rod be? Joe says I would like a one piece seven footer 10 to 20# rod with a fast tip & lots of power in the butt. Company X takes this info & builds a few prototypes and sends them to Joe for evaluation. Joe gives some feedback (this ones too soft, this ones to stiff, this ones just right). # 3's action is really good however the butt end of the handle could be an inch longer. Company X goes back to the office and incorporates these changes & then sends a few to Joe for testing. Joe says these are perfect!!!! Company X produces them for market.
There you have it.

Regards
Dave

Fishing is Life the rest is just Details

Dave has it dead on....were doing this right now with CTS and several professionals.

Bill on the other hand has me confused as usual....!!!

Ellis...are you looking for an endorsement deal?

Andy Dear
Lamar Fishing

Yes Andy, I am. My specialty will be gravel pit fly rods. But before you get any ideas, I will not indorse any rod until I get a pink colored paddle boat with my name on it.

That's about it. What the companies are looking for is input into length, action, power, handle type and style, etc. The "celebrity" or whoever, may not have any real knowledge of the ins and outs of actual blank design but will likely have some idea of what he and his fishing buddies desire in a rod to go after a particular quarry in a particular way. Once the blank designer has that, he knows what to do.

.........

In Dave's example above - how many free rods does Joe now have. Originals + modifieds. Ellis's original post referred to rods and not blanks. I average two to three requests a month for free rods from guides and bassers. This may be a good deal for a blank manufacturers but give aways to stimulate business can bury a custom builder. This is non confusing, straightforward to me and all business.

Custom builders charge for what you build.

Manufacturers give all custom builders samples!

Gon Fishn

.

I was close to one of the guys on the BassMasters circuit years ago, and it went like this:

Company X : Hey Dale, how would you like us to continue to sponsor you for the upcoming year?
Dale: Sure, you know how expensive it's getting to play this game!
Company X : Let us put your name on a new signature model we're about ready to market, It will be another specialty rod (ex. crankbait specific) ,oh and by the way if you're not interested, we have one of your buddies lined up to come aboard.
Dale: Where do I sign?

He had absolutely no input in the rod design himself and in fact liked another of the manufacturer's rods better for that type of fishing so he just put the decals of the new rod on one of his older more preferred rods since they had the same finish.

All the guides can to is suggest how they mave modified or had a custom rod made for a specific fish and a specific technique that they utilize to catch that fish. Often it is just the basics as Tom laid out. There are few fish that consistantly produce big money like bass so company X has to see a significant need to produce a truely exotic rod, so they make a profit. Thats what they are in biz to do, not desigen the perfect rod, for a specific technique that does not sell.

I have said this before all the Bass guys want is sponcership anf an endless supply of rods to beat on. Often the closest thing to custom MFG production produced weapon is putting a guys name on the rod, But if is wasn't for guys like Hank Parker and Jimmy Houston you mighht not be able to find a rod with a pistol grip on it, short of a custom designed stick and many of us who learned to fish long ago thats all there was and now you can hardly find a good selection of them, Some of the Diawa series of rods are engineered well for specific tasks with quite fancy workmanship and components and they are priced fairly high to be selling to joe recreational consumer at large. Then the customer sees thats waht they are usintg on TV and just has to have one no matter the cost, its x-mas list material

I build a long specialty spin rod , a heavy wt. noodle rod, with a regional grip on it that allows casting from the foregrip (in balance) like a fly rod. but most ppl won't retrain themselves to utilize this casting feature and the whole rod is built around this concept, as special clearance must be made for extra dia. that fingers wrapeed around a grip some 7 inches in front of the spool face produce. There are speciality nitches everywhere some will produce enough income to be worthwhile, lots won't. Centerpin rods are the hot ticket in the Midwest lately, but its like a baitcaster, it takes skills and retraining to operate effectively. Lots of guys want them, but many can't deal with adapting to them and a MFG might latch on to this hot streak, but some customers will bite off more than they can chew, until the next trend comes along and the Mfg is left with yet another speciality rod that does not sell well, but lots of time the to the Mfg its just another blankm in its arsonal of weapons the public has to choose from. This produces alot of overhead costs in production so the price gets jacked up on your bass rod because there is a speciality blank out there designed by a drum/sheephead fisherman... (called "sheep nose" in Tribute to Howard Taylor's vinacular 1978-79 North American Walleye Champion) Sheep head sidebar: When Sheephead die they rot completely away accept for two round white hard plates under there eyes. They are about a 1/16 of an inch thick and have an "L" shaped depression on them. People walk the beaches looking for them they are called "lucky Stones"



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/02/2006 07:30PM by Chris Karp.

Yeah, this is the way I have seen it work, too. Bass fishing has gotten to be big business; too big, in my opinion. I don't know if walleye fishing up north has gotten this bad or not.

I have found a little niche, though, in the "semi-pro" bass fisherman ranks. There are a lot of guys around here that fish the smaller tournaments, but have little or no sponsorships yet. I have sold a bunch of rods to these guys. Even have one of them wearing a shirt with my company name. I did give him a big discount on one rod in exchange for this.

Steve, not to hi-jack the thread but what kind of replacement/repair policy do you offer these guys, because I know from my association with these semi-pros, no one and I mean no one is rougher on their rods than this group. I couldn't believe someone could trash that many rods that quickly until I spent some time on the water with my pro-angling buddy.

Well, I don't want to hijack the thread either, but I will say I don't give any kind of special warranty. Just 1 year on workmanship. I have only had one rod come back, with an insert popped out of the tip. The guy offered to pay for that, but since he had bought several rods, I did it for free.
I'm maybe targeting a group of guys a little bit lower on the totam pole than you have had experience with. These guys fish the local club tournaments. I don't think they have been so spoiled (yet) that they treat their equipment so badly. Maybe I have just been lucky. But, I do talk to my customers a lot about what not to do, like high sticking, etc. Of course, I think most rods are broken in the rod box or by stepping on them. I make it clear that this sort of stuff is not covered by any kind of warranty.

I guess it differs from company to company, but I know several guides in Florida thta have had a very big part in the design blanks for AllStar, SAGE and a few others.



Andy Dear
Lamar Fishing

I'm just curious if Zebco contacted Snoopy about his ideal setup before designing his rod? Sorry, I couldn't resist.

I have done some design work for some major fly rod companys in the past which have resulted in some very minor tweeking of the actions of the blanks. however when it comes to guides, grips, reelseats, and such companies are not going to change no matter how good the idea might be.Compensation for my time and effort has always been free trips to wherever I wanted to go, including 2 trips to Christmas Island for bonefishing, and a half dozen or more trips to the Bahamas bonefishing. That ain't bad for doing something I would have done for free just for the fun of it. Flys are different I get royality checks every 90 days for those

And who exactly did Ron Popeil consult before producing the Pocket Fisherman?!?

(( I thinks maybe he talked to James.......James Beam! ))



Jay

Jay I watched QVC last week for thirty minutes where they sold the Pop Gun Fishing Rod for $ 19.95. This thing shoots a closed cork 35 feet that opens up and drops the hook when it hits the water. In the short time it was available for sale they sold 11,321 of the things. Maybe Bill Dance will get his name on that one too!

Here is one more rod designer to deal with:

Good Charter Captain - Nice Camp - Three to Four Booking A Week - Customers spend the night before trip and have dinner - after dinner out come the Signature Rods @ $ 100 each!

Where did they come from:

American Rodjones IM9 118 M Pro Series Signature Model - Cost $ 24.25 in lots of 100

Do What You Gotta Do!

You would be surprised how many are sold in a year!





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/03/2006 01:08PM by Bill Stevens.