I like it. First time on it and had no problems with it at all. If you need a blank then its easy enough to find it. Everyone is against change but in a week you will never look back and this will be the new norm. There is no way that Mudhole is going to go back to their old page as they have invested too much money into this one. Get over it and move forward.

I like it.

Rolly Beenen
Rovic Custom Rods

bill boettcher Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I don't know how fast you will have all the
> products specks up Just for instance the shrink
> tube for handles has the OD but not how long it is
> There is probably a lot more products without full
> descriptions ????
>
> Maybe you should have left good enough alone

Hi Bill

Thanks again for your feedback. Not sure what what shrink tubing you were looking for, but these two have decriptions.

[www.mudhole.com]
[www.mudhole.com]

We'll go back and try to make sure all of our products have descriptions.

Don Lukehart Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What happened to the guide spacing chart, the CCS
> ratings and the winding check size for your MHX
> blanks??

Hi Don

The guide spacing charts and manuals are in the Resources area - here is the direct link-

[www.mudhole.com]

We will create a tab on the rod blank product pages that will include these links - the tab will be called "Resources" and this task should be completed next week.

Thanks for your feedback.

bill boettcher Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I just read a new post and usually go to mudholes
> site to take a look at what is around ????
>
> Just looking for a Fuji Tip Top was and IS a Pain
>
> Seems the more I use your NEW SITE THE MORE I
> DON"T LIKE IT Not user friendly
>
> Go back to the old site Easer to use

Hi Bill

Thanks again for your feedback. We are always looking for suggestions on making the new website more user friendly.

For example, if you are looking for a tip-top guide from fuji - from the main menu go to Rod Building > Rod Guides > Tip Top Guides

[www.mudhole.com]

Once in that category you will see 170 tip tops. If you use the facets on the left - under "Brand" if you choose Fuji - it narrows the results down to 47 products

You can then browse all 47 Fuji tip tops - or further narrow your search by Color, Material, Guide Ring Material, Guide Size, and Tube Size.

Since everyone has different shopping preferences, the goal with using the facets on the new website is to allow the shopper to either browse everything, or to narrow down to exactly what they want.

Hope this helps - thanks again.

David Baylor Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm not surprised by the responses dealing with
> finding a rod blank.
>
> I suppose I can understand the need to display
> each blank individually in order to facilitate a
> filtered search feature, but the filtered search
> itself needs some tweaking.
>
> IMO, the logical and much more user friendly way
> the search should function would be to have a "go"
> button on it that the user would click after each
> parameter of the filtered search has been
> selected.

Hi David

Thanks for taking the time to provide your feedback on our new website. We are looking at all the feedback coming in recently, and we will try to continue to make the new website as easy to use as possible.

Although a really good idea, the current platform does not support selecting the facets and clicking "Go" when done. That said, we are in the process of tweaking the facets, and hopefully making them easier to use to find products.

Norman Miller Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I noticed when you find a blank you are interested
> in buying (or comparing) and look at the details
> for that blank no information is given concerning
> butt diameter or tip size. This something that
> definitively needs to be fixed! I still like
> looking at charts it is so much easier to compare
> blanks from a given manufacturer. Been playing
> around with the website for the past few days and
> it still seems more complex cumbersome than it
> needs to be to find certain items; blanks and
> guides are prime examples of this.

Hi Norman

Thanks for your feedback - it will help us make the new website better. I do the online marketing for Mud Hole and also was on the design team for the new website.

Wanted to let you know on the rod blanks, we are thinking of ways to improve selections on how we display them.

With respect to the rod guides, I was wondering if you could help me understand a little better how we could improve how they are displayed. What did not work for you - was it the way they are categorized, or the need to use facets.

For example, we break out the rod guide categories pretty well I think under Rod Building > Rod Guides - and the facets seem to do an excellent job of narrowing your selection by brand, color, material, ring material and size.

Would it be more helpful - as an idea -to have more specific categories under Brands?

Greg, first of all thank you for taking the time to read all of the comments in order to try to improve the mudhole website. You specifically asked me about my problems with the guide section. Here goes, for example when I select spinning guides from the menu I get 209 choices, when I narrow by choosing an application such as inshore I get one choice and that is the microwave 30 system, there should more than that. OK I then choose light saltwater, or surf fishing I still get one choice the same microwave 30 system for both. Where are the other guides for these applications? Next I went to casting guides and got 248 choices, if I try to narrow by application I get the choices for casting, fly fishing, ice fishing and spinning. Makes no sense! So i choice casting and get 234 choices 14 fewer than i got when first choosing casting. There are no casting applications for things like boat rods, surf fishing, inshore fishing, etc. Also, for both spinning and casting guides one can not narrow by choosing single or double foot. These are just I few things I found within 10 minutes of using the guide section, I am sure there are more. If you know what you are looking for no problems but if you are looking for some alternatives for specific applications there are problems. Hope this helps.
Norm

Hi Norman

Yup - the application facet is not populating like it should - we will look into that.
Also, excellent input - maybe a more useful facet like "Type" would be more useful for guides than "Application" (that would include your suggestion for single/double foot, etc..)


Norman Miller Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Greg, first of all thank you for taking the time
> to read all of the comments in order to try to
> improve the mudhole website. You specifically
> asked me about my problems with the guide section.
> Here goes, for example when I select spinning
> guides from the menu I get 209 choices, when I
> narrow by choosing an application such as inshore
> I get one choice and that is the microwave 30
> system, there should more than that. OK I then
> choose light saltwater, or surf fishing I still
> get one choice the same microwave 30 system for
> both. Where are the other guides for these
> applications? Next I went to casting guides and
> got 248 choices, if I try to narrow by
> application I get the choices for casting, fly
> fishing, ice fishing and spinning. Makes no sense!
> So i choice casting and get 234 choices 14 fewer
> than i got when first choosing casting. There are
> no casting applications for things like boat rods,
> surf fishing, inshore fishing, etc. Also, for both
> spinning and casting guides one can not narrow by
> choosing single or double foot. These are just I
> few things I found within 10 minutes of using the
> guide section, I am sure there are more. If you
> know what you are looking for no problems but if
> you are looking for some alternatives for specific
> applications there are problems. Hope this helps.
> Norm

On the guides I was looking for wire guides Didn't see them and the heavy boat guides and tops

Bill - willierods.com

The Pacific Bay chrome stainless guides are not on the website or at least I couldn't find them. But my order history is back now!

Jerry Driggers
Drift Brothers Custom Rods

When searching for an item using the menu driven application we first have to take a guess at what application MH has categeroized that tiem in. For example, we think maybe a blank has been slid under "Freshwater". There's no way to know but to look, often times unsuccessfully. Since some things don't categorize well, for example a heavy freshwater/light saltwater blank, why not just give the option to search by brand right from the start? If I want to look at Pac Bay, for example, just pull up every last item you carry for Pac Bay and let us start apply filters as needed/wanted. We need the ability to look at all options a manufacturer is offering, and the search function isn't getting it done.

Gregg, thank you for taking the time to respond to my earlier post. Your responding to individual posts not only shows Mud Hole's commitment to their customers, but your commitment as well. Again, thank you.

I have to say I'm sorry to hear the new format won't support a "fill in the blanks" and hit go type of filtering. With that said, I've been playing with the filters a little more, and while it isn't optimum IMO, I am finding some ways of using it that have made it less objectionable than my initial impressions of it.

I have to agree with Jason's comment above concerning Mud Hole's blank classifications. Part of what makes rod building so unique, is using blanks for purposes other than what you'd think they'd be used for. Spinning blanks used to build casting rods. Saltwater blanks used to build heavy freshwater rods, and so forth.

For instance, if I wanted to look for a Pac Bay blank, I click the freshwater blank heading, and it pulls up 71 blanks from Pac Bay. But I'm interested in blanks to build a bass rod, so under the application filter I click bass. It now shows 17 blanks. That's fine right? Not really, because by clicking bass under the application, it eliminates blanks that are clearly blanks used to build bass rods. Clicking "bass" removes all of the spin jig blanks from Pac Bay's Quickline series, which are outstanding blanks for building spinning rods for bass.

Please understand that I am not condemning the entire thing. I'm merely pointing out things that need sorted out. I understand that it's going to be a process, and that some of the suggestions you're getting are not things that would necessarily be apparent right off the bat.

Believe me I know what it's like dealing with things that are not apparent to the person that designed something, but are apparent to those that use it, or in my case, build it. I work for a company that builds custom air handling units for commercial applications, Hospitals, universities, and the like ........ the prints we get from engineering are (and this is not a slight towards you or anyone involved with the new web site) quite comical at times.

Thanks again for your response and the hard work I know you and others are putting in to make the site better, each and every day.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/03/2015 08:17AM by David Baylor.

Gregg, I also agree with Jason & David. Put 'brands' as the first option under the 'blanks' heading, rather than 'view all'. Or if you keep the 'view all' button then have a 'brands' option at the top of the page after you push 'view all'. I think this will make more people happier with the website, and it should not distract from anything currently in place. It will give the user the option of looking at all the blanks offered by given brand away from any type of filter. By the way, yesterday there was a new post concerning the availability of Gator glass blanks. I knew you sold them so I searched using 'Gator glass' or 'Gator blanks', or 'CRB gator' and got 0 results. If I searched using 'gator' only I found them. So I also think you search engine needs some tweaking. I think we all appreciate your attention to these website issues and thank you for your time and effort. Hope this helps.
Norm



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/03/2015 10:14AM by Norman Miller.

Hi Jerry

Yup - order history has been fixed. So let me know if anyone has an issue moving forward.

Jerry Driggers Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The Pacific Bay chrome stainless guides are not on
> the website or at least I couldn't find them. But
> my order history is back now!

Thanks again for everyone's input.

On the topic of putting brands under the rod blanks area - keep in mind the rod blanks are already listed by brand and series using the main menu selection BRAND. We just moved it next to ROD BUILDING in case it was not easily seen before.

So if you know what brand or series you want to look at, I would use that instead of the general rod blanks category. Some examples:

MHX [www.mudhole.com]
St. Croix [www.mudhole.com]
Sage [www.mudhole.com]

That said, we have been working on some ideas to make it easier to view brands while in the general rod blank category.
We are also taking a closer look at the Application facet.

More to come - but we are working on things.

Thanks Norman - agreed - search is not where we would like it to be yet. Alot better than it used to be - but we'll keep tweaking the filters. Thx.

Norman Miller Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Gregg, I also agree with Jason & David. Put
> 'brands' as the first option under the 'blanks'
> heading, rather than 'view all'. Or if you keep
> the 'view all' button then have a 'brands' option
> at the top of the page after you push 'view all'.
> I think this will make more people happier with
> the website, and it should not distract from
> anything currently in place. It will give the user
> the option of looking at all the blanks offered by
> given brand away from any type of filter. By the
> way, yesterday there was a new post concerning the
> availability of Gator glass blanks. I knew you
> sold them so I searched using 'Gator glass' or
> 'Gator blanks', or 'CRB gator' and got 0 results.
> If I searched using 'gator' only I found them. So
> I also think you search engine needs some
> tweaking. I think we all appreciate your attention
> to these website issues and thank you for your
> time and effort. Hope this helps.
> Norm

I like it except for the rod blank selection piece of the puzzle. It seems to be a lot faster than the old site. Kudos.

my only suggestion would be to add the ability to select a series within each manufacturer. I went to look for a particular St Croix stick, and wanted to just see the SCIV line. I did not see a way to make that selection.

Gary -- There is a blue border area on the home page that has - Brands - listed. When you choose to go under the heading , Brands, St. Croix and all of the brands we carry will come up. Then when you choose St. Croix, there will be links for all of their various offerings, by SCV, SCIV, SCIII, etc.

Bob McKamey
Mud Hole Custom Tackle
bobm@mudhole.com

Gary -- There is a blue border area on the home page that has - Brands - listed. When you choose to go under the heading , Brands, St. Croix and all of the brands we carry will come up. Then when you choose St. Croix, there will be links for all of their various offerings, by SCV, SCIV, SCIII, etc.

Bob McKamey
Mud Hole Custom Tackle
bobm@mudhole.com

Bob McKamey Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Gary -- There is a blue border area on the home
> page that has - Brands - listed. When you choose
> to go under the heading , Brands, St. Croix and
> all of the brands we carry will come up. Then
> when you choose St. Croix, there will be links for
> all of their various offerings, by SCV, SCIV,
> SCIII, etc.

Yes Bob you are right. However when {comparing rod blanks}, lets say I choose St Croix and I click on SCV They are all listed {INDIVIDUALLY}????? If I want to compare them I have to jot down spec's do my comparison then choose and add to cart. {We want a Chart with spec's in line that are easy to read and easy to compare the various models in that line-up.} Look at your catalog under rod blanks, You will have comparison charts Plain and Simple, Like every one else use's. Right Now your catalog is way easier to work out of-----Then your web-site. Jaa