I've been eying up Gary Loomis's NFC blanks for a while. I just came across this article about NFC/Edge rods resisting PE take over and darn it that's reason enough to support the company alone besides their rods/blanks being top of the line and made in USA.
A $100 "Golden Ticket" helps NFC grow and gets you one of any blank in their line-up. If you build rods or are thinking about it this seems like a deal too good to pass up to me.
https://www.currentflowstate.com/north-fork-composites-fights-back-against-private-equity/
Posted by twinpac
3 Comments
Gary Loomis makes great rods and has for a long time.
But the cold hard truth with fly rods is also the same as it has been for a long time — in the words of Rick Pope, founder of TFO: “it’s not the arrow, it’s the Indian.”
If you want to make longer more accurate casts the best rod you can buy is a freaking Wal Mart or Cabelas bubble pack rod that you can leave strung by your back door with some yarn on it. **Practice** makes a better caster, not the rod.
I taught myself to cast on a high level decades ago. I did what I described above, until I could consistently throw a five weight over 100’ with accuracy. My personal record was a measured 113’ with an $85 St Croix Pro Graphite 5/6 starter rod.
*It isn’t the rod* that makes the cast. It’s you. In all my distance casting practicing and experimenting the greatest equipment variable wasn’t the rod at all – it was the **line**. High end fly lines with quality coatings and sophisticated tapers do change outcomes by double digit percentages. Rods are usually less than 5% if that.
If you want an awesome fly rod, just get a flagship model from 5-10 years ago on eBay. Then practice with it.
also it takes a really long time for them to go out so make sre you don’t need them for a few months. You might try calling brfor yo order and find out what the wait time is for that particular rod.
Curious how much the blanks industry can really front load their cash balance to offset issues. That being said, god I really connected with the first half trashing private equity. Seems like the last 10 years have just been every beloved industry being swallowed up by PE and value mined to a shadow of its former self.