Kelly Galloup's Take on $1000 Fly Rods (are they BS?)

welcome back today is a fireside chat about I don't know a month or two ago I was doing a rod review on the echo Traverse and as a pack rod and I made the comment if you want to know my opinion on thousand dollar rods just ask me well it was kind of an offhanded comment and I had no idea but we got we got inundated with do the thousand dollar rod thing and questions and blah blah blah and so I'm going to and I'm going to walk you through it because personally uh I think a thousand dollar Rod is but I know a lot of people I've got lots of them and and it doesn't mean I think they're bad rods I just think that in today's market that it's kind of hard to justify unless you know it you know abroad is personal it's what you like and I'm gonna kind of walk you through the origin where I think that started and how it got there and part of it is perception that there's just too many rich people out there that want to buy these rods and and that people were buying them but I there's not that's not how it got here I think how it got here is it started with Orvis putting the 25-year warranty back I don't know 25 30 years ago and they showed a puppy eating the handle of the fly rod and it said you know unconditional 25-year warranty well that's the dumbest damn thing that ever happened why the hell should somebody warranty Your Rod because your dog ate it right and so then other companies followed suit everybody and they went up they went above that they went unconditional Lifetime well that was never true either that was it was true for a little while but it really wasn't because there was always a monetary cost to replace in Iran and the old before all these stupid warranties that were just I mean you think about it it's a piece of graphite that is this tiny little thing right there's they're they're not it's it's tiny even the butt section sections of the walls are in the thousands of inches right and so they're gonna break and you break them you know they don't break just by casting no matter what it the ride will break in the first two or three times you cast it fish it or it won't other than that it starts being things that we did it's that you know hook dig in the back of the rod you fell down you hit the water with you slapped the rod tip on the water the Rod's gonna break that was full on you right they're not made to do that it is Tiny graphite but yet there's this warranty and so and then they break you know whatever reason they go back to the company well that starts cutting into the bottom line that's their own fault but they've warrantied it in the beginning and then they had to keep going it's unbelievable how many rods get turned into these companies and now you got to pay for it so it goes from fifteen dollars you know I remember back way back when you know lifetime warranty still cost seven dollars for a Fenwick or whatever it was way back when but now it's getting more and more and more because they're having to justify all this this ridiculous warranty thing but other things than that one is It's Made in the USA right that's the the thousand dollar Rod is made in the USA and so that's that is a good point to me I like USA built stuff and the next thing is and really the big one is no matter how big you think their industry is compared to General tackle it is Tiny it is a tiny industry compared to say just Bass Just bass alone right you know some of those rides will sell a hundred two hundred thousand units a season and that's more than the entire fly fishing industry and so we don't you can't have a rod of high quality and say well I can buy a spinning rod for 150 to 300 yeah but they make a hundred times as many of them so there's more margin there for that you know more ways to spread that out when you see it the other the the last thing about it is when you see the Mom and Pops right like I've got a Berkheimer here and this has a rod that Johnny and I helped design the Berkheimer streamer rod now you're going into custom Builders well you got to imagine how hard it is to make a living going against Korea and the big companies that are corporately owned right and so and you're going to see a difference in those rides because they're hand rolled these are going to be more custom style rods so when you look at a rod like a Berkheimer you know one of the high dollar rods obviously some of the things you're going to see are the componentry I mean the componentry higher dollar Reel Seats you know you can see it's custom handles and things like that that's important I mean you're going to pay for that obviously and you're not going to necessarily see that in the the lower priced rods but it does give you one aspect that justifies paying more for a ride and that and this is more of a mom and pop shop it's you know Carrie Berkheimer is world renowned rod builder I would I hasten to call it a mom and pop because it's a it's a it's a big company but they don't do the numbers that these giant companies you know like Orvis and sage and St Croix and the rest of these companies do they're it's it's more of a mom and pop so of course it's going to cost them more and you're going to pay for it that's a great spot that's that's if you want to put a thousand dollars that's a good company like that I can see that but when you look at the major companies you know they want you to believe they have more technology they want you to believe their designers are better and things like that and in today's market that's really just not true anymore it truly is not the rods are still beautiful and if you like them they're great and it doesn't mean that I'm not saying that the thousand dollar rods aren't good rods I'm not saying that at all I'm just saying that a lot of the two three four hundred dollar rods out there today are just as good as those thousand dollar rides but they're Korean made almost all of those high that that high quality Rod is made in Korea and I and I brought that up because the when I did the the review on the echo Traverse and I said I don't know if you saw it or not but when I was doing it my girlfriend and I were going to go right up in the mountains on the horses and and I couldn't find a Rod Tube to stick my uh I wanted to take a you know a nine foot Rod up with me four piece and I couldn't find one and I'm digging through my house I'm going crazy because I'm in a hurry and I just run over the shop and I grabbed that rod and I took it up and I just wanted you know one that Mel could fish with and so we get up there and I take it apart I mean it's completely in the everything but the box is still there right since the I take it out pull the line and I line I'm lining it up and I go to cast it and I'm just setting it up so she can go fish on the shoreline and I'm like man I really like this rod and I liked it a lot to the point where I fished it the entire year I fished It All season I fished it on the lake I fished it on the river absolutely fell in love with it and it started to and I when I was doing the review I I started to say this is a good starter Rod that seems to be a kind of a catch point we would say it's a starter Rod it's a backup rod well the bottom line was it really is just as good as my other rods and it was a 280 dollar kit rod and so it and that was kind of when I made the comment I could give you my opinion on a thousand dollar ride and so I started looking at these rods and Jeremy is always telling people in the shop you know Rod's what you like it doesn't matter what you pay for it and that's where I was trying to get to with this the 200 300 400 rods if you go back in time and you look at the temple Forks when when Rick came out with temple Fork it was a revolution in this industry I mean they sold so many rods and they were all 200 bucks and the bottom line was they were damn good rides right and then Reddington shows up and then a little higher dollar Douglas shows up they are spectacular rides and so what I'm trying to get to is the fact that it may not be a starter Rod or a backup Rod you go you go cast it if you like the rod and it's 200 300 or 400 dollars you like the rod the warranties are in many cases better with the lower dollar rods with the two three four hundred dollar rods are really they're Korean they stock more parts some of the companies you don't even have to send the rod in you just tell them what section broke you can get the sections replaced so you're no longer paying for the warranty so if you're not paying for the warranty and you're getting just as good or better with the cheaper rod and you like it just as much or better you like it just as much or better so what I'm telling you is that just because you it doesn't mean that the thousand dollar Rod's bad if you like the rod you like the rod but what I'm saying is you might like the 400 or the 300 ride just as much and it's just as good a ride hope you liked it hope it helps you out

Channel: TheSlideinn

Views: 99,092

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Id: OgaK1x1GtT4

Length: 9min 38sec (578 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 23 2023