Or post to this site on a device that more than likely, if it's not completely made overseas, has components that are made overseas.

I think this is kind of like the Olympics. If you're an American, you wave the American flag and pull for any American competing in an event. But if someone from another country is better, you have to recognize the superior athlete. Not doing so is, to say the least, disingenuous.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/22/2022 08:34PM by David Baylor.

Good analogy.

Phil, I believe in your example, the importers, re-sellers and advertisers are all American! So the dollars stay in the USA That is what commerce is all about. Commerce today is international, the USA is the largest overseas seller, is that wrong?

I have no problem with people who buy foreign made blanks and rod components - I often do so myself. I do object to American middlemen and retailers who buy foreign blanks and components and give them all-American names and packaging.
Then they advertise and sell them at spectacular mark-ups, aided by secrecy of origin. It costs next-to-nothing to put a tiny "Made in the U.S.A." notice on native products or their packaging. I can't think of one good reason not to - can you?

david taylor:

Until recently Ross, Scientific Angler, Rio and Orvis fly lines were made [somewhere] by 3M corporation, but 3M has sold its fly line business. Who is making these lines now, and where? Are there truly any U.S. fly line manufacturers left besides Cortland, and if so, who?

3M sold Scientific Anglers in 2013 to Orvis, so not recently. SA produces its lines in Midland, Michigan. It produces the Orivis fly lines. Rio fly lines are produced in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Rio was started in Idaho in1990 by Jim Vincent and was purchased in 2005 by Far Bank Enterprises, the parent company of Sage, Redington and Rio. Cortland lines are produced in Cortland, N.Y. , by the Cortland Line Company, where they have been produced for more than 100 years. I believe that all 3 companies have and/or continue to produce lines for other fly fishing companies.

3M was the owner of SA for many years prior to 2013, and also had purchased Ross Reels. Ross was sold to Orivs in 2013 along with SA, but shortly thereafter Orvis sold Ross to Mayfly Outdoors 3M did not produce Rio or Cortland lines, nor own those companies.

Monic fly lines are based in Boulder, Colorado, and produced In the U.S. Airflo fly lines are produced in the U.K. Airflo was purchased in 2018 by Mayfly Outdoors, which is based in Montrose, Colorado, and owns Ross, Abel and Airflo.

Large Chinese companyies that produce brands like Maxcatch make all kinds of fly lines in China under different brand names and/or for different companies, most of them sold at costs far less than the above mentioned companies. I do not put their quality in the same league as the above companies.

SA, Orivis, Rio, Cortland, Monic and Airflo lines are not made in China nor by 3M. They are owned by U.S. companies that, other than Airflo, produce their lines in the U.S.

Any car you buy in the U.S. (other than Tesla) has parts or systems produced in foreign countries, including Ford or GM. I do not believe than any TVs are currently produced in the U.S., as is the case with many consumer categories.

Redington, TFO and Douglas are Amercian companies that, at minimum, produce rods from blanks produced in South Korea, or have their entire rod produced in Korea. Are you calling them overpriced and run by duplicitous middle men?

If you want to make a point, fine, you should try and rely on accruate information or facts, not simple opinion or assumption.

The most iconic, costly and treasured fly rods in the U.S., I'm talking bamboo, hand-crafted by true artisans both old and new, are of course produced from blanks made of Chinese cane. Always have been. If you pay thousands for a Hoagy Carmichael, H.L. Leonard and E. F. Payne fly rod are you a Chinese or communist sympathiser? Hmmm. Commerce is a global thing.

I am well acquainted with Cortland fly lines and where they are manufactured - Cortland - in upstate New York. I would like to know where Scientific Anglers fly lines (A.K.A. "Orvis fly lines") are manufactured. If I happen to be in the area I would like to stop by and compare the Scientific/Orvis manufacturing process to Cortland's process. Where is the Scientific Anglers/Orvis fly line plant located?

Phil:

Hi. As indicated in my post, SA is in Midland, Michigan. Not sure if they offer tours or anything like that.

Here is an article by a guy who visited the facility in 2015: [www.jeffcurrier.com]

Phil,

North Fork Composites - are proudly USA Made, by American workers.

Further, what makes NFC different, special, is that we are a factory that makes performance blanks, in America, and sell them direct to the rod builder.

We don't advertise "fake technology" (insert any nano-graphene marketing here).

From my perspective, this goes for the custom rod builders that try to justify that their rods are "USA Made" while using an imported blank. It's not, sorry. Assembling a rod in the USA, with all imported components does not make it a USA made product. If you are telling this to your customers - you are also being deceptive. The blank is the soul of the rod.

You don't have to take my word for it, Ugly Stick helped with this years ago when they exported blanks out of the USA and assemble them as rods in China - and claimed that they were a USA made rod. The Commerce Department/Customs were pretty clear in their opinion (its a long read, but can be found here: [www.customsmobile.com] in the last paragraph) that the country of origin for fishing rods follows the blank.

"Based upon the information provided, as the rod blank is the essence of the finished fishing rod, it is our opinion that it is not substantially transformed as a result of the assembly operations performed in China. Therefore, as the rod blank is of U.S. origin, the country of origin of the finished fishing rod will be the U.S., and, therefore, the finished fishing rod will not required to be marked with a country of origin pursuant to 19 CFR 134.32(m)."

The same exact logic works for a rod blank made in China and imported into the US, even if its assembled here, its a Made in China rod.

I know that all of the importers will disagree with me - but that's irrelevant - this is not just "my opinion" because I own a US rod blank factory, it is also the opinion of the US government.

Support your US factory, its not easy to make blanks/grips, its even harder when they are true performance blanks.

Gary wrote an awesome 80th Birthday post, its on the forum.

I also know that for a lot of the folks on this forum, they do buy American made blanks / grips - and for that THANK YOU, I know the above is a bit of preaching to the choir.

Aleks

Where can the Gary Loomis 80th birthday post be found?

And thanks for the great made in USA blanks!

[www.rodbuilding.org]

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From the desk for Gary Loomis:

As I write this message – it is Memorial Day. It also happens that I am 80 years old today. I am privileged to have made it this far, many of my friends have not. I cherish their memories and miss them dearly. I look back at my 45 years of rod building and realize that I would not have been able to accomplish anything without great mentors like Milton Shedd and Chuck Yeager – there have been many. Today millions of products bearing my name are sold all over the world. Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness – these are the unalienable rights that make me a proud American, those that my countrymen have fought hard to protect and defend are the same reasons why I love our industry. Within it, and reflecting on them, I feel alive, free, and happy.

A little over 30 years ago, I sold G.Loomis because I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer and given 18 months to live. Some time after a decision was made to stop selling blanks to rod builders and OEMs. As a rod builder, I was upset, by that time we had manufactured blanks for 32 major rod companies, and tens of thousands of rod builders, but I was told that the founder of a company is someone who “started the company, built the company, sold the company, and had no say in how the company was run.”

In 2010 with the encouragement of my friends, I started North Fork Composites (Edge Rods was started a little later) the market had changed, but what didn’t change was that we were going to manufacture blanks and rods in America, and they were going to be the finest that we could make. I am a designer, but you also need to know materials and a little bit of engineering, and I am again thankful that while in the US Navy I was a machinist – that job prepared me for a lifetime of adventure.

It takes a little more than understanding rod design or material science to re-create a rod company. My close friends know that I have a favorite quote – “I would rather be lucky than good” and after a number of years of trying to scale, I met an ex Amazon nerd, who was working for Microsoft as a Lead in their Retail/Operations segment and convinced him to partner with me. For the last seven years, Alex has been my CEO, business partner, and my apprentice.

Today, we manufacture hundreds of thousands of tubular composites annually, we make parts for our military, aerospace, commercial, and of course rod builders and OEMs. We are proud that in a world where going overseas to purchase blanks, mark them up and re-sell them is the norm and easy - we choose a more difficult path. Our business model of direct to consumer enables us to deliver a high quality product at a fair price while outperforming imports that rely on deceptive marketing tactics like “graphene” or “nano-technology” to promote sales. They will soon join the ranks of Kevlar (or pick your other latest exotic buzz word in composites) of never to be heard of again in this industry. The re-sellers that promote them don’t know any better (despite their techno-babble claims) and manufacturers that take advantage of their ignorance – should be ashamed.

The USA blank industry is very intertwined with the steel, chemical, plastic industries. Factories in towns all over this great Country that employ American workers and feed local economies. Those that put “Made in the USA” on a rod manufactured with an imported blank need to reflect on the meaning of those words. The blank is the soul of the rod – in ours it is Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. To quote Isaac Newton: “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants” Our blanks encompass the knowledge of the American blank builders that we have learned from, and their innovation will live on in us.

God Bless America, God Bless this industry.

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Thanks!