I just had a look at the Orvis website, first time for years. Their Helios rods START at £929 :shock:
Seriously, how on earth can a plastic tube with a bit or cork and some bent wire cost so much? I can understand hand made split cane rods being that pricey but a carbon and resin tube wrapped on a mandrel? No wonder their shops are closing down.
https://www.orvis.co.uk/helios-3d-fly-rods
Plenty rods now at £900+ and reels £500+. Insofar as I am aware, there has been no really significant technical improvement. It does seem that fools and their money are indeed easily parted.
In one sense I really don't get this Fred.
A few years back we had the chief materials expert from Sage on Lewis and he came and gave a little talk to us. It was really interesting and there is no question that he was looking at really advanced and cutting edge materials mostly sourced from the aircraft industry. He was explaining that where Sage are based also happens to be a centre for aircraft manufacture and that he has a good working relationship with the materials people in the aircraft industry - they'd often send him samples to test and they'd also benefit the feedback from Sage on these materials. So I have no question at all that Sage are doing "stuff" that costs a lot of money and that this has to get passed on to the customer.
However, as most will be aware, I tend to fish with leeda rods and I love them, the current ones cost just over £60 each. Now I do own two Sage rods, admittedly they are older rods these days, and while they might be "different" to my Leeda rods I honestly can't say that they are better as machines to use for fishing. I'm not much interested in gear and gadgets, I just like to go fishing.
The other side to this is that while I appreciate the work Sage put into their rods I don't need the value it adds but many people enjoy having a "nice" rod and having the latest tech is all part of the ownership experience and for many people that is worth paying for. It is also the case that the Sage tech must trickle down to the cheaper rods over time. So, I guess what I'm saying is that I understand why some companies have to charge a lot for their rods as there is some value in that money for the end user it just happens that I'm not one of the people who gets value from it. When I open a fishing catalogue or web site now there is almost nothing at all in terms of rods that I'd want to buy or fish. I know I'm old fashioned but I want an 11 foot 7 weight at reasonable money and those almost don't exist any more.
I'm admittedly a tackle tart but I will say Orvis gear is a good buy at the end of its product run as they usually offer them at half price. With a 25 year warranty it's a pretty sweet deal. I'm not under any illusion that my nice reels and rods will make me a better fisherman but they do make the task more enjoyable and after 20 odd years of fishing I feel a the likes of a nice Sage, Stickman or Scott in my hands is a better tool than a similar configuration Greys or Shakey etc. Whether that's the light weight or the thought put into the taper I don't know, I just know I enjoy them more. They're not multiple times better though as the prices might suggest.
Watercraft and casting skills are definitely more important, expensive gear is wasted on those that haven't got the fundamentals right. The waters I fish will punish you unless you're stealthy and your presentation is spot on.
There's also the fact I like supporting companies that support their staff, I saw a job advert recently for a machine operator at Mayfly Group who manufacture Abel and Ross and have just acquired Airflo. The job paid a fair wage ($20 odd an hour) with dental and medical care included. The people making the rods in the Far East won't be getting that care. Add into that a bulletproof lifetime warranty and the cost doesn't seem so bad. Quality is remembered long after the price is forgotten.
There is a certain pleasure in using quality products, be they cars, cameras, fishing gear whatever. I have a few Sage rods and one Scott, which are great rods and a delight to cast. However what I can't say is how much of this is placebo and how much is real. I just know I love the rods. Same with my Voseller reels. Good solid kit.
All that said I still cannot understand how and why a carbon rod should cost north of £900. When I spent £2000 on a lens I know exactly what I'm paying for and what I am getting. Cheap lenses and cameras don't cut it.
Incidentally all my Rolls Royce fly rods were bought second hand. All pristine and not one of them cost more than £250 :lol:
I'm with Sean on this, and I have spent stupid amounts of money on rods over the years but strangely I have a lower limit on reels. I have handled Abels and the like and while I respect the craftmanship they just don't talk to me as an original Helios 3-weight did in the Orvis shop; no way was I leaving without it. The same applies to Sage Click reels to such an extent I have 8 of them in different sizes :?
Perhaps perversely, my cheapest rod - a Hardy Demon Smuggler - is by far my most used rod and my by far most expensive rod is my least used.
Fishing tackle is an art not a science!
PS. Just to embarrass myself further, I recently sorted through my 29 #3/4/5 floating lines from SA, Rio, Cortland, Orvis, Wulff, Teeny etc. Trying them with my various rods there was a clear winner that suited me best both for distance and presentation - and it was the most expensive!
Still, no pockets in shrouds as they say!
PPS. Don't try and have this discussion on another FF forum. There you are slaughtered for suggesting there is any other option than spending less than £20 on a reel from Maxcatch. The limit for a fly line is about £5. But really, it's whatever makes you happy :D
Most of the high end rods nowadays seem to be £700 plus...or at least the flagship rods of each company do. Don't think i would pay that to be honest.
If i was buying anything second hand it would have to be in mint condition, as i like to look after all my stuff and any obvious imperfections would just bug me.
I bought a new loop and helios over the winter, deals i got with a good bit off and just ordered a stickman a week ago too. The stickman was the dearest, being made to order you have to pay full whack on them, but it was still a good bit cheaper than some of the other rods i was looking at from the US, time you took postage and import tax into consideration. Think that will do me with rods for a good while now :lol:
There was an old bloke who used to come over skate fishing with us. He was one of the original distance casters and was a Century consultant. He also had big Danny over with him (world record caster), also a Century man.
In summary, Century also had close links to the aero/military carbon technology (so does Hardy).
But Century beach casters, although using a lot more of the same cutting edge carbon and resin technology, cost a fraction per foot of rod than fly rods do.
Further summary....you are all "being had" and getting fleeced so "high end" tackle manufacturers can lead a good life.
There is a reason a lot of salmon anglers head across the N Sea to Scandinavia for their rods. For the most part, you get better rods than from the USA and at a lot less cost. Maybe trout anglers should have a look at what is on offer there.
Reel wise, I just got a couple of Danielssons. They cost a lot less than the popular brands, and will see me out.
I ghillied a few years ago for a bloke that set up the Leeda company. He was first in to China for rods/rod blanks. When he got bored and sold up and retired, he suddenly became very popular with all the bigger names like Sage, who wanted to use him as a middle man so they could get their tackle made in China (and fleece us all even more).
Fishing rods are an extremely simple round shape made from overlaid fibre sheet windings onto a tapered mandrel. There is nothing expensive or cutting edge about the fittings which are also extremely simple. The action of the rod is very simple indeed, it just flexes quite gently in a curve and the forces applied are not at all severe nor sudden compared to other sports goods.
Two other sports use very similar materials for their racquets, tennis and badminton. I have played a great deal of badminton over the years and at a reasonable standard, playing over many years in several county league teams and in national finals. A badminton racquet you might think is a simple thing but it is a hollow shaft with a one-piece joined on egg shaped head also hollow. The head is not round in cross-section but grooved to hold in the outer string, so quite a tricky cross-section and the carbon fibre wrap shaping for the highly stressed torques between handle and head are very considerable. Folks go oooh aaah if a tennis ball is hit at 120mph but badminton shots are at 150mph+. The head is drilled through to take the stringing and I have 72 through holes for the strings so here are 144 holes in the head frame and the stringing on my racquets is usually done at 24lbs tension setting on each string on 36 strings. The frames have been using titaniun fine strands and nano particle resins for many years and so-called thoosie poond fly rods are now starting to do the same. The strings are multifibre also with titanium micro strands and the whole show is tuned to what you want in weight balance head-light through neutral to head-heavy. All that is a bit relative as the entire strung racquet comes in at 86grammes. For a world class top of the range from the Japanese Yonex I would pay £150 .... one hundred and fifty ! I would never expect it to get "tired" and if it goes it will be because of a collision .... then .... bang ! In comparison to what is being asked for a fly rod it makes a fly rod at £XXXX a joke.
Turning to tennis, you will all have seen slow-mo videos of Rapha Nadal battering the living hell out of a quite heavy tennis ball. You would have seen the elastic distortion and the string bed repulsion and frame bending of that power transfer. He plays with a Babolat with a 68 grommet pattern and 136 holes in the frame. He hits that ball likes he does actually want to smash and destroy the ball and his opponent. Every year Babolat bring out a "new model" and the fans can check that out because they can see the new paint job for this new model when they tune in on the telly. His racquets are hammered for hours in matches and for hours and hours of unrelenting practice. The racquets he uses are mostly 8 years old ..... really ???
He prefers the earlier models and has stuck with the model from close to 10 years back beacuse he prefers it and every year Babolat clean down and respray his racquets in the "new model" colour scheme and lots of folk have to have one because they might be able to play like Rapha if they have one. The price for this piece of fabulous ball smashing carbon fibre power technology that makes a fly rod look like a drinking straw ..... £200 buys you that racquet.
Conclusion, anglers are taken to the cleaners. That said I have gathered a few rods over the years, quite a few Scandinavian as Laxdale will be pleased to hear.
Worth noting in relation to these carbon fibre racquets that your price is for the frame strung to your spec of string (many types and prices!) and tension pattern longs and crosses. You are not buying the plain frame at those prices so it is akin to a rod also coming with a matching fly line of your preference.
A quick google suggests the Babolats are made in China along with most top rackets, the Yonex you mentioned were specifically highlighted for some being built in Japan but most in China with Head making some in Eastern Europe. I reckon the Babolats would be more than double the price with a lifetime warranty (rather than one or two years) and having to pay western wages, pension, A/L etc. There's more to the price of a rod than the raw ingredients.
Akos who owns Stickman and designs the tapers, a guy who is very straight to the point and honest when it comes to fly rods and the industry as a whole, told me that if he was to market his rods through brick and mortar stores and have EU, US, NZ distribution etc, his rods would likely double in price and become unaffordable. Obviously these guys want to make a good living and yeah the prices are climbing to levels that are even making me, a devout tackle tart question them but the fact you can still send back that 20 year old Sage, Scott, Orvis or whatever for repair after years of service and memories is awesome. I also like how these companies will support local and even international fisheries and lobby against destructive mining practices etc. It's a far more personal purchase than a throw away rod from Maxcatch or similar brands.
Just to add, Sage have never produced rods in China, they're all made on Bainbridge Island in Washington state, just like Scott are from Montrose, Colorado, T&T from Greenfield, Massachusetts, Winston for the most part produce rods in Twin Bridges Montana but some of the cheaper series like the passport were made in China. Orvis have and still do produce rods in China but the top end rods are made in Manchester, Vermont.
I think it's a pity there aren't tackle companies here in the U.K. the yanks have a lot of pride in fishing home grown brands that produce 100% US made products. Doesn't seem to be any of that same pride here, maybe theres a gap in the market but it would have to be a brilliant product to beat the American and Korean tackle on quality and at a price to tempt people away from Chinese products.
I am comparing the shape and carbon fibre construction technicalities of making a teardrop shaped hollow tennis racquet with a hollow cross bridge and tuned aerodynamics and with 136 exactly drilled holes in it, then baked and painted up and strung with complex multi micro fibre stringing by hand at the specified user's tension patterns (from the best player in the world who will absolutely hammer that racquet day in and day out) with a rod blank which is just a simple tapering tube using far far less materials. There is hardly any technical comparison between them except that the more complicated job by far is £200 all in and the other is £1,000.
The difference is really all marketing. The warranty is advertising comfort as the margin allows a few build stock to be retained. Repairs to a broken rod blank are essentially unknown, you get sent a spare section. Staff in tackle shops would be able to tell you just how frequent it is that a new rod breaks whilst being tried out on site by a customer. It has happened to me twice.
Interestingly the largest racquet supplier in Europe is Central Sports in Coventry and they are often able to carry out carbon fibre repairs to broken racquet heads, which they have done for me. I thought it would have been very difficult to do.
Sage still have the mandrels and carbon cloth they used for each generation of fly rod. If you snap an old LL, SLT or RPL etc they will roll you a brand new section using the original materials. They provide excellent customer service from my experience. I've seen carbon repairs done but they never look right unless painted. Like Koenigsegg and Ferrari with their exposed carbon fibre wheels, they can be repaired when they've been kerbed but they look pants, albeit a replacement is in the tens of thousands!
I do think the prices look insane now that some rods are creeping into four figures but with inflation taken into account they haven't climbed by as much as people think, it's the fact that wages haven't risen in line with inflation in most industries. I also buy most of my gear new but have rarely paid RRP, I always look for 10-20% off.
I'm generally with Fred on this. Unless you are an absolute casting champion and can make difficult casts in tricky places with accuracy 99% of the time, I really cannot see that the 'return' you will get on a £900 plus rod over a £300 rod is going to be significant compared to what you will achieve by practicing your casting more regularly. And maybe getting some lessons.
That said, I remember 10 years back or so and people on here and elsewhere were raving about cheap-as-chips Fladen rods. I was after something short for jungle warfare so weighed out £20 on (I think) a 7' 4#. The sodding guides didn't line up even within the individual sections. :lol: :lol: So that was one lesson learned. And since then I've generally gone for Greys Streamflex for my trout rods.
With one exception - I bought a Marryat Tactical pro Nymph Special 9' 6" at 3/4# a couple of years back. I 'know someone' so didn't pay full whack for it but I think it did set me back £400. I bought it because I'd had a couple of lengthy sessions trying it out and it's been absolute mustard. For years I've been trying to find something that will cast a dry fly accurately at short and long range, will also happily fish spiders and cope with Czech nymph and (more recently) French leader style fishing - all in the one rod. I'd hit a compromise with a Daiwa 9' 3/4# that had a 1' section you could add, but to be honest it was a bit of a pain. It didn't cast brilliantly as dry fly rod and having to add the section was a bit of a faff (not to mention trying to avoid snapping the section when it's stored in your bag and you stack it down the bank :lol: :lol:).
I think the Marrayats are now going at something like £550 - and I wouldn't pay that for a dry fly rod, or a wet fly rod or a nymphing rod, but for a rod that does all of those things and does them very well? Absolutely.
(ps - I have no connection with Marryat - if they knew me, they'd doubtless disown me. :D)