878 | How Fly Rods Are Really Designed: Inside St. Croix with Zack Dalton

878 Zack Dalton 00:00:00 Dave: Zac Dalton works at Saint Croix Rods, one of the largest rod manufacturers in the country. And today you’re going to hear how fly rods really get designed, what makes the cut, what doesn’t, and why. Some rods last decades while others don’t. This is the Wet Fly Swing podcast, where I show you the best places to travel to for fly fishing, how to find the best resources and tools to prepare for that big trip, and what you can do to give back to the fish species we all love. We’ve got Zac Dalton on the podcast today from Saint Croix, and you’re going to discover why not every rod should be fast. We’re going to get into some different actions. They’ve had some for many years. We’re going to find out what durability really means for anglers who fish hard. And also about rod action, how that affects fishing and some casting. And then we’re going to get into a little bit on the conventional as well today towards the end. So stay tuned on this one. We’re going to get a nice update from Saint Croix here. All the good stuff we have going. Plus, Zac breaks down how they choose the right rod for the perfect fishing situation. We’re going to talk about corks, cork handles and actions and I hope you enjoy this one. Let’s get into it. Here he is Zach Dalton. You can find him at Saint Croix Rods. Com how’s it going Zach? 00:01:13 Zack : I’m doing well Dave. Thanks for having me on the show. 00:01:15 Dave: Yeah, yeah I’m excited to talk about this one. I, I didn’t even look back in the Cadillac. I know we had Saint Croix at least one episode in the past out there. We’ll put a link in the show notes to that one. Um, I always love telling the story because, you know, when back in the day, the old shop we used to carry Saint Croix, and I think for a lot of it, they were blanks because my dad was a big custom rod maker, and we used to make and I to this day, I’ve got one right sitting here next to me. I got a Saint Croix rod that I made, you know, in my, my, I wasn’t as good as my dad, but I love it because Saint Croix was a cool brand. They were out there and you guys are still out there. So I think we’re going to get updated on what’s new with Saint Croix and all that. But yeah, maybe first just take us back to your background. I know you worked with far Bank before. What’s your first memory in fly fishing? 00:01:56 Zack : Oh, Dave, I’m a lifer in this business. Um, so far, uh, so I started at, uh, Rio in nineteen ninety seven, when that brand was really in its infancy, um, and was part of the team that put together, uh, the fly line manufacturing equipment and helped get it off the ground. Um, believe it or not, I actually, uh, predate Simon in that business. 00:02:20 Dave: So was that before? Because we had Mark Bill on? I can’t remember now with the dates, but was that before far Bank came to be? 00:02:26 Zack : Oh, yeah. Yep. Um, so, uh, far Bank purchased Rio in two thousand and five, two thousand and five. 00:02:33 Dave: Okay. Yeah. Gotcha. So, yeah. So eight years before that happens, you’re in there. So yeah. So you’re in Rio doing just, uh, what was your role there? 00:02:42 Zack : Well, you know, it was. The business is so small. I think I was employee number eleven. So you got to wear a lot of different hats, you know, with a company that size. So, you know, doing everything from manufacturing fly lines, uh, mixing plastic to, you know, for fly line coding, customer service, you name it. Um, as the business grew, it kind of got a little bit more, you know, specific on what job duties and roles were and inevitably ended up in sales. 00:03:11 Dave: Okay. And, uh, and then you were there for like twenty years. So up until seventeen, is that the correct, uh, twenty seventeen? 00:03:19 Zack : Uh, no, I think it was twenty, twenty one. Uh. 00:03:22 Dave: Okay. 00:03:23 Zack : Yeah. Uh, and then I left, uh, far Bank that year took a year off. Um, and then kind of reengaged in the space with, uh, Saint Croix. 00:03:31 Dave: Yeah, with Saint Croix. So you’re back on. What’s it like now being with Saint Croix? And I don’t know the whole story, but does it feel different as far? I’m not sure the size of the company. I mean, Saint Croix has a pretty good strong background to in the conventional, uh, arena. 00:03:43 Zack : Yeah, yeah. No, uh, Saint Croix is a sneaky large manufacturing company, uh, predominantly in the conventional space. So they’re the largest USA, uh, rod manufacturer. Um, by a pretty. 00:03:57 Dave: No kidding. 00:03:58 Zack : Uh, sizable. Um, yeah. Percentage. Absolutely. 00:04:01 Dave: Oh, wow. So you’re talking all the the bass and the, you know, and all the conventional, you name it, uh, even even, I mean, all the species. Right. So Saint Croix is the biggest aw out there. 00:04:11 Zack : Yep. True statement. 00:04:12 Dave: Yeah. So the fly. 00:04:13 Zack : Yes. You know, there’s probably larger, you know, conglomerates coming out of, uh, Asia that have sizable volume. But for domestic production, it’s Saint Croix. 00:04:22 Dave: Yeah. And Saint Croix has always had, you know, a connection in the fly. So what is what is that like now there? Is it, uh, you with a small staff, large staff on the fly side. What does that look like? 00:04:33 Zack : Uh, well, you know, if it was, if I was given the amount of staff based off the percentage of business, I think it would still be me. Um, so I’m doing a lot of kind of the brass tacks, uh, of the category for the brand, but do have a great support staff with the marketing team, the engineering team, uh, and everybody else in Admin. Um, but. Yeah. No, it’s, uh, it’s just a like I said, the fly, uh, portion is a small percentage of the business. And, uh, the CEO of Saint Croix, uh, man named Scott Forstall was an individual that I worked with, uh, at Sage and Fairbank, uh, prior to coming, uh, to Saint Croix. Um, so we have some history there. And, you know, he liked what I was doing in the space and my time, uh, with my previous employer, um, and was excited to get me on board. 00:05:21 Dave: Yeah. And what do you do? What’s your daily like at Saint Croix these days? 00:05:25 Zack : Uh, maybe not too dissimilar from, uh, Rio in its infancy. You know, with, uh, it being a smaller category, I get to wear a lot of hats. Um, you know, those hats include managing the sales team, uh, product development. Um, yeah. Doing trade shows. So, you know, I think that a lot of these fly fishing businesses that are, you know, pretty small, you know, you’re always working with a smaller staff, with crews that are doing quite a bit of different, uh, you know, tasks throughout the brand. 00:05:57 Dave: Right. Yeah. It seems like with the rods out there, there’s so many, you know, small, medium, big size rods and and all sorts of in between. Right. And specialties too. So, you know, I’m not sure like with Saint Croix do you guys look when you think of development, are you thinking these are the categories, you know, whether it’s euro nymphing or steelhead or something like that that you’re focusing on or do you try to kind of cover it all or what does that look like for Saint Croix? 00:06:19 Zack : Well, uh, I think I think it’s hard for a brand like Saint Croix to have, you know, be everything to everybody. So we’re really focused on having, uh, a good, better, best story. That’s pretty, you know, robust as far as our assortment is concerned. And being able to give people the option, you know, based off of feature set, uh, carbon fiber technology to really get them into the space so they can, you know, start with our connect rod at two hundred and ninety five dollars and, you know, go from there to, uh, our Imperial rod that’s at a three hundred and ninety five dollars, and the Imperial rod is probably the longest continually produced fly rod under that namesake in the market. So it’s been in production. The Imperial has in one way, shape or form since nineteen forty eight. 00:07:06 Dave: Yeah, that’s right, nineteen forty eight. So how long is Saint Croix been around? What is that history? 00:07:09 Zack : Yeah, right. Right around there. Right around nineteen forty seven, nineteen forty eight. When I came on board, they were just celebrating their seventy fifth anniversary. So. Yeah. So I think they’re probably at the seventy eighth anniversary. And, you know, it’s just an amazing family business, you know, with the, with the Schluter family that what they’ve done to kind of support the community where the rods are manufactured, uh, keep it rooted to the ground and, you know, really kind of keep focus on what makes Saint Croix, um, unique and special. 00:07:39 Dave: So are they manufactured in the US? 00:07:41 Zack : Yep. Uh, our connect series. We also have, uh, a Mexican facility, uh, in Fresno, Mexico, that we own. So it’s a one hundred percent, uh, vertically integrated, uh, manufacturing facility down there. And, you know, a good chunk of the lower price point conventional product is built there, uh, with the rest of it being manufactured in Park Falls, Wisconsin, in Wisconsin. 00:08:07 Dave: Right. So that’s the majority. And I’m looking at the series and you mentioned the Imperial. And I remember again. Yeah, that that one’s been around forever. And I see the yeah, the Evo’s, the Technica, the legend. That one’s been around a while. Right. And then the tannic and the connect. You mentioned the, uh, the the bass. 00:08:23 Zack : Uh, well, yeah, we got the mojo bass, too. Yeah. Uh, which is a fun little rod. Um, so when I walked in, we were kind of well down the line of developing the the evo’s fly rod and evo salt fly rods. And those came to market about two and a half years ago. Um, you know, not far behind that was the Technica rod. Uh, and the Technica rod is a presentation, uh, oriented rod uh, Fun little, uh, series. You know, six rods in the rod family. Kind of covering your three weight to five weight with the dry fly presentations kind of being the focus of that rod series. 00:08:58 Dave: Gotcha. So that’s the technique of the Evos. And then you mentioned the legend, the legends, one that’s been around for a while to write the legend, uh, elite. 00:09:05 Zack : Um, we actually just reintroduced it this year at Icast. So it has it’s a it’s a heritage namesake, and it has been in the assortment several different times. Um, but it had been out for about the last four or five years now, probably five years. Uh, so I had an opportunity to work with the team and re-engineer that one, uh, and bring, you know, the legend elite freshwater and saltwater rods to market. 00:09:29 Dave: Mhm. There you go. And are you spending I know your background. You love the salt. Uh, do you spend a lot of time thinking about the saltwater stuff. Like what percentage wise it must be still. Right. The, the fresh is quite a majority of, of the rod sales. 00:09:42 Zack : Oh yeah. Absolutely. You know I think if you look at any business and fly seventy five percent of it will be made up in freshwater fishing, you know, and if you’re in these other categories, you know, fifteen percent would probably be salt, fifteen percent could be two handed stuff. But that’s kind of the general split for the industry as a whole. 00:10:00 Dave: That’s it okay. And do you guys yeah. You have the two handed stuff too. 00:10:03 Zack : Uh, we do the Imperial switch right now. Um, but we’ve got some stuff that we’ve been working on. Um, that, uh. Yeah. Keep your eye on the space. Um, you know, in another six months, you might be seeing something, uh, cool coming down the pipe. 00:10:17 Dave: Oh, good. So, yeah, I see the Imperial switch, and the switch is a, you know, again, I think there’s been some different names thrown out there, but, I mean, it’s a it’s just a short two handed rod. Right. Or what is your definition of the switch. 00:10:30 Zack : Well, I think, you know, if you asked a bunch of different rod designers or a bunch of tenured individuals in the business, it would be a rod that you could both, you know, Spey cast with and overhead cast with. But you can do that with any rod at the end of the day, whether it’s, you know, a six foot two weight or a, you know, a fourteen foot nine weight, they’re all capable of that. At the end of the day. 00:10:51 Dave: They’re capable of. What I’ve heard is that you the switch should be you should be able to cast single handed all day long without getting tired. Right? 00:10:58 Zack : Yeah. Whoever said that, I’ll agree with them. 00:11:01 Dave: Yeah. So I mean, that makes sense because. Yeah, some of these rods, you know, the big ones might be hard to do, but they’re getting lighter, you know. I mean, do you guys find that have you find the found the the tech and just the rod. Um, you know material that as that’s changed, it’s made it easier. What’s that look like for you from your end? 00:11:18 Zack : Well, you know, I think you look at, uh, rod kind of at its base form and it’s a sheet of carbon, uh, you know, fiber, you find a mandrel, you roll it around it, and I think what goes in or comes out of, uh, that carbon fiber at the end of the day, kind of, you know, drives one kind of the responsiveness and the weight of the blank. And then, of course, you’ve got the component aspect with the handle, the real seat and the guide train that all kind of, you know, drive that overall weight conversation. And I mean, if you look at everything that’s in the market now, everything’s pretty dang light. You know, you’re really at a point in time where you’re splitting the finest of hairs. 00:11:57 Dave: Yep. Yeah. It’s all light and all fast. As fast as you want it to be, right? Do you guys find your with your lineup? We talked about whether it’s the the legend or the different series that you have different actions. Like talk about that a little bit like if somebody was coming in to buy a rod, what would you how would you be telling them, you know where to get started. 00:12:17 Zack : Well, I think of course, you’re going to want to fill that angler out, see what type of rod action that they’re predisposed to to like or have a familiarity with and kind of drive the conversation from there. Um, and with the reintroduction of the legend Elite this year, we deliberately went kind of a moderate fast route. Instead of a fast action route. The Evos and Evos salt they they squarely align with that, you know, fast action definition. And, you know, I think you could probably have a conversation about price point and action. But I don’t know if that’s, you know, the best way to go about it. I think that as a, you know, somebody that’s on the design team and offers input on what actions should look like, I think that we got a market that’s heavily saturated with fast, and that’s one of the reasons that we went down the moderate fast route with the Legend Elite. Just to give a little bit more, you know, definition to specific rod families, you know, a reason to take a look at it, if you will. Um, and then beyond that, I think it kind of turns to a specialty conversation, you know, what’s this rod trying to achieve? A good example of that would be the Technica or, you know, the Nutanix series that we came out with this year, rod actions that are designed to really solve a specific problem or a fishery or, uh, target species. 00:13:39 Dave: And was the the Titanic. Was that specifically for the big the giant predator sort of fish. 00:13:45 Zack : A little bit. You know, we’ve got, uh, two different, um, call it subsets within the Titanic rod family. We’ve got the Titanic bass, and we’ve got the Titanic Muskie Pike and the Muskie Pike. Um, iteration is clearly, you know, predator focused, uh, whereas the Titanic bass. I think that that’s just a little bit more. All warm water, all rounded. And you got to be careful that you don’t, you know, paint yourself into a corner with a product like this because this, this rod would function great. You know, for streamer fishing for trout or saltwater applications as well. But you know, as a, as a brand and a manufacturer, you got to have a marketing story to tell. Um, and, you know, that’s going to be one of the aspects of the Titanic series that it’s, you know, warm water focused, has the ability to cast big flies, great load carrying capacity, very efficient, uh, in its overall functionality. 00:14:36 Dave: Nice. Yeah. And we’re heading up, uh, on a trip up to Scott Lake in northern Saskatchewan for Pike, and that’s going to be the focus. And so I guess if you’re looking at that, what would be the rod that looks like this might be the Titanic, might be the rod to bring up there. 00:14:49 Zack : Oh yeah. Yeah for sure. The Titanic ten ninety would be, you know, ideally suited. I don’t know if you get fish, you know, if you’re starting to creep up into those fifty, sixty inchers up there. 00:14:59 Dave: Yeah, they got some over forty. I’m not sure if they got them up to fifty, but they might. 00:15:02 Zack : Yeah. Um, so yeah, ten weight I think would be, you know, a great, great option for that fishery. 00:15:08 Dave: So a nine foot and these rods are pretty cool because they have a big fighting button. Now is that a fighting butt or is that for casting two handed to both. 00:15:15 Zack : Um, and we’ve seen a lot of that kind of evolve and, you know, mostly musky fisheries, less so in pike fisheries. But the overall size of the fly has gotten huge. So, you know, you need to have mass to carry mass and the size of fly lines that are being used on eleven and twelve weight rods now are, you know, well over their after, you know, I think that you’ve got guys using, you know, five to seven hundred grain lines on an eleven weight and that’s just to get enough mass out of the fly line to propel the fly. 00:15:47 Dave: Wow. Yeah. So the giant flies giant fly line and you got to go bigger with the rod. So but you’re saying the ten foot or the ten weight is good for pike. Like pike. You can go down to the lower end of it. You don’t need a twelve weight. 00:15:57 Zack : No, no, I don’t think so. Not at that. You know, that forty inch mark you’d get away with a, you know, probably even an eight weight. 00:16:05 Dave: Would you like to level up your fly fishing game this year? Head over to Smitty’s Fly Box.com, your one stop shop for top quality flies, tying materials, gear and accessories online. 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You know, I’m pretty fond of, you know, the ocean and the keys. Uh, Oceanside and the Florida Keys. It’s clear water. It’s challenging. You want something that can load quick, deliver a, you know, a nice, subtle presentation and, you know, still have the ability to fight the fish. So, you know, evo salt and a ten weight or an eleven weight would be my go to for that application. 00:17:39 Dave: Okay. Yeah. Evo and what would be the difference between the Evo salt and the, uh, the other one we talked about for the pike? 00:17:46 Zack : Um, yeah. Well, one of the things that you noted was the handle design. Yeah. With the Titanic, uh, you’re going to have a longer fighting, but that’s about four inches long at one to kind of give you that two hand, uh, assist on a casting technique and to do a figure eight, uh, retrieve once your boat side, uh, with the rod. So that’s not something that you would want in a Clearwater tarpon fishing situation. You know, you want something that, um, that inevitably going to retrieve, you know, to the boat side, but you’re not going to get a tarpon? Well, you probably could, but, uh, you know, that wouldn’t be something that you would try. First off, with a figure eight retrieve, you know? Okay. Yeah. In Clearwater. But, uh, and it’s going to be a little bit more robust, too, from, um, just a build standpoint. So, you know, it’s made for efficiency and, uh, load carrying capacity and the Evo salt, you know, that’s going to be made for a little bit more delicacy and giving you, you know, probably a, you know, a finer, more fluid casting stroke versus just trying to yard something big out there, if that makes sense, you know. 00:18:56 Dave: Right. Right, right. And then the evo’s like on the saltwater page here you’ve got the, the legend Elite, you got the Evo’s and the Imperial. Is that just a different price point or what was the difference between those. 00:19:06 Zack : Yeah, they’re going to be different. Uh, carbon fiber technology stories that go into that, there’s going to be higher component, uh, quality that goes into each one of those based off of price point, too. 00:19:17 Dave: Gotcha. Okay. So that would be and then what would be out of those if you’re again bonefish, any one of those three categories, if you’re just going for more of the smaller bonefish just a little less lower weight. 00:19:26 Zack : Uh, yeah. Probably a seven or an eight weight. Um, you know, I prefer pretty fast action rods there. I want some, you know. I want my fly line to move immediately and be able to kind of redirect that immediately. A faster action rod that doesn’t deflect as much when you’re trying to pick line up off the water is more efficient for me as an angler and a caster. So I’m probably going to lend myself to those evo salts, uh, for a majority of my fishing. But, you know, not to kind of downplay, uh, the Imperial Salt or the legend elite salt. You know, there’s some sweetheart rods within those series that, you know, on any given day, whether it’s like a flat, calm day, I might prefer something a little bit more moderate action, just because I know I’m not going to have to be that reactive, uh, in that situation, or I might not have to battle the wind as much so I can do something that’s a little bit, you know, uh, more forgiving on a casting stroke. Doesn’t throw his title loop and his, um, you know, sometimes funner to fight fish on. 00:20:23 Dave: That makes sense. Do you guys I mentioned earlier about the the blanks. Is that something? I don’t know if you remember that time when they were there. Were you? Saint Croix had blanks, but it seems like there were more brands maybe doing that. Do you see that out there? Or brands are still selling blanks for like, custom rods? 00:20:38 Zack : Uh, a little bit, you know, and I would say that that’s kind of been a dying aspect of the specialty space for a couple years now. Saint Croix still sells blanks, but it doesn’t market the blank program to specialty dealers like some of the other competitors in this space do. They’ve got, uh, a brand called Rod Geeks that really caters to the custom rod builder. There’s fly rod blanks with, you know, within the offering there. But, uh, I think more specifically, I think that custom rod builder, you know, is just a it’s, you know, something that’s slowed down in recent years. You don’t have as many rod builders out there. You know, I’ve always appreciated, you know, the space because, you know, oftentimes, you know, those are the guys that get to be really creative on trim wraps or hardware that go on to it. So I think it’s, you know, as equal to, you know, fly tying as far as the creative outlets concerned. 00:21:30 Dave: Yeah, definitely. And even looking at the it’s interesting the cork on the tonic, it’s got the it’s a different cork right. What is that. It’s got kind of the black mixed in there. Is that a different just type or what is that. 00:21:42 Zack : Yeah. No it’s a product called Cactus Cork. It is actually manufactured from uh you know cork but it’s compressed and then it’s flame treated to kind of give it the durability. You know, you kind of look at it maybe like a whiskey barrel. That could be an analogy. Um, where they go in and they flame all those things to make sure that, you know, they don’t rot out or they don’t have, um, whiskey permeate the wood and soak the wood. So this is maybe similar, maybe not exactly. And, uh, but I think that that could be the closest thing I can kind of come up with to describe it. That’s right. But what it does is, you know, gets a really nice in hand fill, makes the grip incredibly durable. And it’s still, you know, feels a lot like cork. And when we were developing the Titanic Rod series and kind of talking to a bunch of different experts within the space, the one thing that they wanted was, you know, the most durable rod out there. Finesse clearly is not part of, you know, that fishery. So, you know, you’re looking for a rod that’s going to be able to get drug across the gunwale of a boat and not break and just beat the holy living crap out of it, frankly. Uh, and if you look at the different handles out there and all the testing that we went through to kind of land on what we thought was going to be the most durable in class, this cactus cork handles, um, what we landed on. 00:23:06 Dave: Nice. And you have you mentioned you’re going to be, uh, you’ve got the show season coming up, right, right around the corner as we’re talking. Actually, when this goes live, it’s probably going to be going, where are you going to be at? You’re going to hit all the shows, a few of them. How does that look? 00:23:16 Zack : Uh, we’ve got four that are on our docket. Um, you know, first off, it’s going to be Edison, the fly fishing show in Edison, new Jersey. Uh, right after that, the fly fishing show in Denver, Colorado. Uh, from there, we’re going to go to one that’s in our backyard in March. That’s the Great Waters Fly Fishing Expo in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Um, and then after that one, we’re going to go to my hometown, uh, Idaho Falls for the East Idaho fly fishing expo. Oh, cool. Yeah. Looking forward to all four of them. 00:23:46 Dave: So that’s your hometown. So you grew up in Idaho Falls? Yep. Nice, nice. And so, yeah. You grew up in Idaho Falls. And then where did you take. Where’d you after that? Where did you head out to? 00:23:54 Zack : Uh, so, yeah, I left Idaho Falls in, uh, I think twenty twelve to move to Bainbridge Island, Washington. So, you know, I’ve, uh, those are the only two places I’ve really ever lived. 00:24:07 Dave: Yeah, those are two places, right? So that was Bainbridge. So you moved to. And that’s when the far bank started or that. 00:24:12 Zack : Uh. Well, yeah, it was shortly, uh, shortly. It was a couple years after, uh, far Bank acquired Ria that I moved to Bainbridge Island. 00:24:18 Dave: Gotcha. Okay. And what was it like growing up in Idaho, in Idaho Falls? 00:24:22 Zack : Well, man, I don’t know if you’ve been out there, but. And you have it’s. 00:24:27 Dave: Been a it’s been a little while. I’ve been through there. Yeah, a few times. 00:24:30 Zack : Well you’re going to get some bias and I don’t know if you’ll share my bias, but I think it’s one of the best trout towns in North America. You know, you got the accessibility of the South Fork and the Henry’s Fork, um, within fifteen minute to forty five minutes away, depending on where you want to go. Fish the river through town can fish really well, too. And you’re right on the edge of Yellowstone National Park and southwest Montana with the Madison. But that all kind of involved leaving fish to find fish, right? So, you know, yeah, I’m like, okay, I’m going to drive past the South Fork to go into, you know, go over to Jackson and fish the snake over there, go, you know, fish another Wyoming, uh, river or, you know, I’m going to drive past the Henry’s Fork to go to the Madison. And, um, not that I didn’t do that. You know, I did that all the time, but I think that, um, you know, just the accessibility, um, the amount of water that’s just within, you know, a short drive from Idaho Falls is pretty tough to beat. 00:25:27 Dave: Yeah, it’s right there. And what was the The Fly shop back then? Who was your local fly shop in Idaho Falls? 00:25:33 Zack : Well, that was Jimmy’s. Jimmy’s an angler. Yeah, owned by Jimmy. And it’s now fly fish food. Jimmy’s, um, owned by the Fly Fish food crew. 00:25:42 Dave: Yeah. That’s right. Yeah. Jimmy’s. We’ve done, uh. I haven’t had Jimmy on yet, but I’m hoping to track him down. I know he’s out there fishing and probably staying busy. 00:25:50 Zack : Uh, he’s a he’s a legend. Um, you know, and again, you might get some bias out of me, but that’s, uh, definitely been one of my favorite, uh, fly shops that I’ve ever been, uh, into. Uh, I’ve been into one hundred and forty, uh, fly shops across the country. Really? One hundred and forty, one hundred and forty and I guess across the globe. And, you know, Jimmy’s is still one that I love to go into. Uh, I’ll be going into it next week to tell the crew. Hi. 00:26:13 Dave: You will? 00:26:14 Zack : Yeah. Yeah. 00:26:14 Dave: Cool. Yeah. I’ve heard I think we talked to Curtis. I think he said they something like, doubled. He was already known as a tying fly tying shop, but they doubled the inventory of. It’s even bigger than it used to be. 00:26:24 Zack : Oh, yeah, I was in there not long ago, like before the Thanksgiving holiday, and went in and said hi to everybody, and they were definitely well stocked on everything that you could possibly want. 00:26:35 Dave: Yeah. And so one hundred and forty shops. How many shops do you know how many fly shops there are in the, in the US? 00:26:41 Zack : Um, yeah. I think it’s kind of a little bit of a guess at this stage. Um, you know, maybe ten or fifteen years ago, we’d have long conversations about, you know, the size of the industry, the number of shops out there right now. I think it’s probably around four hundred, uh, fly shops in the US. 00:26:57 Dave: Oh, that’s it, just four hundred. 00:26:59 Zack : Yeah. I mean, that’s I mean, there’s more outlets that sell fly fishing equipment, right? Yeah, yeah. A true, uh, specialty fly shop. There’s probably about four hundred. 00:27:09 Dave: That’s pretty cool. So I was way off. I was I don’t know where the number came from, but I had like five thousand in my in my head for that. Not even close. So we’re an order of magnitude off of that. 00:27:18 Zack : Probably just ten. x. 00:27:20 Dave: Wow. Okay. Gotcha. Okay. So. Yeah. So there’s not that many. So you’ve probably seen a third of the shops, if not more. More than the shops around. Yeah. And if you think about it by state, just by the US it’s. Yeah I mean the bigger states are going to obviously have more. But um, so yeah, you’ve been around so you’ve traveled a lot through your job, your positions here. 00:27:37 Zack : Oh yeah. Um, I think that might be one of the reasons that folks gravitate towards this industry is to get an opportunity to travel and fish a bunch of different places. Um, sometimes that pans out, sometimes, you know, you’re just traveling in the middle of winter and hope that your flight takes off and gets you home. But, um, so timing is important there. You know, maybe focus your travel, you know, if you’re going to go out and visit shops in May or June, you know, depending on where runoffs happen and some of those areas or, you know, go down to, um, Southeast Florida and visit those guys. Timing’s right in May, you know. 00:28:12 Dave: Right. Right, right. Yeah. There’s a lot of opportunities. And and you guys cover a little bit of everything, it seems like. Right. You have your, like you mentioned the Titanic rods, which are specifically for Pike, although there is some overlap with other species. Where did it? So it sounds like that one came out more recently. How do you decide to go down the pike, Muskie versus say, going down some other route? That must be a decent sized chunk of the market, I’m guessing. 00:28:34 Zack : Well, uh, yeah, for Saint Croix for sure. You know, kind of given where the business is located and, you know, the Northwoods of Wisconsin and being a true warm water state and a lot of the brand equity, you know, is squarely focused in the warm water game. So kind of look at some of the old, yeah, the old advertising that they’ve got hanging on the walls. And, um, Saint Croix, it’s, you know, it’s pretty cool and it’s very muskie centric. Uh, Park Falls, Wisconsin. Prior to being renamed Park Falls was Muskellunge Falls, Wisconsin. 00:29:08 Dave: Oh, no kidding. 00:29:09 Zack : Yeah. 00:29:09 Dave: Oh, wow. So. And Saint Croix, of course, is I mean, we’re talking the Saint Croix. Is that the history there that the Saint Croix River is that kind of where that all came from? 00:29:16 Zack : Well, yeah. Um, kind of, in a nutshell, uh, Saint Croix was on the banks of the Saint Croix River in Minnesota is where it was, uh, you know, originally founded. And then, um, through an ownership change when it, uh, was handed over to the Schluter family. And I don’t have the year. Forgive me on this one, but they relocated the business, uh, straight east to Park Falls, Wisconsin. So now it’s a little bit longer. Hike, uh, to the Saint Croix River. 00:29:43 Dave: It is a little bit longer, but you’re still in the same area. Yeah, it’s. We were up there. I guess it’s been a couple years now. Went through Saint Paul, Minneapolis and it’s a yeah, it’s a it’s a cool area. I mean there’s definitely lots of water up there. Right? I mean that’s the thing. There’s it’s pretty hard to beat all the opportunities. It seems like. 00:29:59 Zack : Oh yeah for sure. I mean from a product development standpoint, um, it’s pretty endless. You’ve got the Flambeau River, the Chippewa River, Eagle River. I mean, there’s a lot of rivers, um, the with just a within a stone’s throw of Saint Croix factory. Uh, it’s, you know, it’s not even five hundred yards from the bank of the Flambeau River. So, you know, if you got something you’ve prototyped and you want to go out and test in the afternoon, you’ve got that ability to do it. 00:30:26 Dave: Right, right. Cool. Well, are you kind of like, as far as the fly rods? Are you a casting nerd? Are you like, a casting instructor? Are you at that higher level? What’s your what’s your experience there? 00:30:36 Zack : Uh, yeah. Nerd might be a better way to describe it, for sure. You know, I’ve had the pleasure of, you know, learning from a lot of the best casters in the space over the course of my career, you know, Gawsworth, Ray Jeffs, um, you know, Jerry SIM, the list goes on. Um. It’s hard, uh, you know, when you spend time with those guys to not become a better caster, you know, you’d have to make a conscious effort to suck at it after that. 00:31:02 Dave: Yeah. After getting a coaching from, uh, from Ray Jeff. Yeah, that’s pretty sweet, but. And so. Yeah. And I guess going back to the rods again, we talk about, you know, different actions and stuff like that. If you think of Rod’s distance, you know, durability, weight, all that stuff, how do you factor that? Because you can’t have, right? You can’t have everything. What goes into your mindset when you’re and are you working pretty closely as you’re developing a new rod with the folks, you know, putting that together? 00:31:28 Zack : Yeah. Um, I do get the final say on the rod action. Um, so you know that that might be a blessing or curse and maybe a lot of responsibility at the end of the day. Um, but, you know, I personally, you know, my mindsets are around functionality, usability and in-hand feel, you know, I think that you want the rod when you flex it to feel like it’s bending pretty uniformly depending on, you know, whatever rod action that is, whether it’s a slow action rod, moderate action rod or fast action rod, you’re kind of looking for, you know, that fluidity and smoothness that you know might be a key indicator that, you know, you got something that’s quality built in your hand. Um, at the end of the day, um, and, you know, aside from that, you know, I look at efficiency is another kind of key attribute in raw design. You know, too many false casts in a lot of situation or can be counterproductive. So the faster that you can get that rod loaded up and smooth out your loop to deliver the fly. Um, you know, that would be the efficiency aspect of it. And you can I mean, you can tune rods infinitely with all the fly lines that are on the market today. So, I mean, you can take some pretty poor rods that are on the market and go through the exercise of tuning it with the fly line. And you can probably, you know, get something that’s pretty fishable at the end of the day. Um, yeah, I think so. Or you can take a premium product and not go through such an exercise because, you know, the functionality in the rod in the design is going to lend itself to, uh, accommodating, you know, more fly lines so well. 00:32:59 Dave: Oh, well. So Premium Rod will actually allow you to put more, uh, different lines on the rod and still cast effectively. 00:33:05 Zack : Yeah, I think that that’s a fair statement. Uh, and, and a lot of that’s going to be, you know, dependent on what, you know, style of fishing you’re doing, how far you’re casting, what size of flies you’re utilizing at the end of the day. But those rods that are, you know, well built, well engineered, well thought through, they’re going to have, you know, a wider range of versatility than, um, some of the off the shelf stuff. 00:33:30 Dave: What about the the price point. It seems like you’ve got these different price points. You know, you got two hundred you know, four hundred, six hundred thousand is that nowadays just a matter of, you know, really how much money you have because they’re all going to perform pretty well. How do you describe that? Somebody coming in here to buy a rod, you know, how do they think about that discussion? Because you’re right. Some people might have more money to spend. 00:33:51 Zack : Well yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think price aversion, you know, if there’s one thing that I’ve heard in the call it the last three years, um, is that, you know, there’s a lot of price sensitivity in the market. And with a lot of manufacturers, ourselves included, you get a little bit of trickle down technology, right? So the stuff that was at the top of the shelf ten years ago is now at the middle of the shelf. Um, and that stuff’s still pretty dang good. Still pretty. 00:34:21 Dave: Good. Yeah. 00:34:21 Zack : Yeah, absolutely. 00:34:23 Dave: Yeah. And we’ve heard that on the podcast. I mean, some of the champion casters out there are using rods from the eighties because the action is right. You know what I mean? It’s not about the brand new fastest thing necessarily. 00:34:34 Zack : Right. No, that’s the true story. So I, you know, and there’s been so many good rods that have been developed over the years. And I and I know why a tournament caster would kind of gravitate to, you know, one of those specific rods for one reason or the other. You know, it’s something that the manufacturer has probably gone away from, and they’ve adapted their casting stroke and their technique to achieve their best performance with it. And you kind of, you know, you stick with something like that for a reason. 00:35:04 Speaker 3: Stonefly nets makes nets with soul, each one handcrafted to stand out and built to last. When you spend time on the water, your gear matters. And these are the kinds of nets you can pass down for generations. I know my stonefly net goes with me everywhere and has seen the abuse, but it seems to get better each day. I’m on the water. Every net is shaped from premium hardwoods balanced by hand and finish to handle a lifetime of use. We all love a big fish story, but it’s the moments around it that Stick stonefly helps turn every one of those into something you’ll remember. Head over to Stonefly Nets right now to see what stories you can create with this beautiful custom landing net. That’s stonefly nets. Com. 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Anything you want to shed light on that we haven’t talked about here today? 00:36:44 Zack : Um, you know, I think just one thing that I would shed some light on is probably the diversity in some of these families that you’re going to see from Saint Croix. Uh, if you look at kind of a competitive set that’s in your specialty fly shop, you know, you’re probably going to find more rod lengths, uh, and weights within, uh, our assortment, um, to kind of, you know, if you’re building a quiver, uh, as an example, and you’ve spent all your money on a nine foot five weight and, and that’s kind of your go to daily driver. Uh, and if you’re looking at a, you know, a smaller rod weight or a larger rod weight as an example, and you don’t want to cough up another one thousand dollars, you’re likely going to be able to find it in one of our other rod families, whether it’s the legend elite, the Imperial, or the connect to kind of make it, uh, more feasible to build out your quiver or rods to, you know, give yourself access to more fisheries that you’re interested in, you know, checking out whether it’s, you know, small brook trout fishing, bluegill fishing or something that’s, uh, on the larger side, you know, big bass or redfish or tarpon or, you know, anything, uh, saltwater related, uh, and, you know, spend more time on the experience than the product. At the end of the day, of course, we’re always going to have a consumer demographic that doesn’t care. And, you know, they always want the best of the best, uh, no matter what it is, But, you know, we’re really here to kind of serve a wider range of, you know, the blue collar market that, um, you know, I think, uh, hopefully resonates and identifies with Saint Croix, that you can get some of the, you know, most advanced, best in class fraud actions in carbon fiber that’s on the market today at a price that’s going to be, you know, hopefully more competitive than what else you’re seeing on the shelf. 00:38:26 Dave: And is that the is the connect the one that’s the lower price point that’s out there. Yeah. 00:38:30 Zack : Yep. That’s two hundred and ninety five dollars. 00:38:32 Dave: Yeah. And that’s the connect. And on that how do you again this is more back just to the these are all four piece are pretty much standard. Is that pretty much what the raw most of your rods are for piece. 00:38:42 Zack : Uh yeah. All in our assortment currently it’s all four piece I actually I take that back. We got a couple of small two way and three way rods in the Imperial family that are, uh, two piece right now. Uh, but everything else is going to be four, four piece. And, you know, I think that that’s largely consumer driven because so many of our guys are breaking rods down and or traveling with them, that a two piece rod just is, is not all that convenient to travel with. Uh, you can build some beautiful product with two piece and three piece rod designs, and they exist from, you know, some of the competitive set out there. Um, but and, you know, they become just a little bit more solving a specific problem, filling a particular niche within the space. But yeah, right now, uh, all of our stuff, for the most part, with the exception of those two Imperials, is for peace. 00:39:32 Dave: For peace. And what about on the cork, you know, and again, going back to the old custom rods you could make choose your cork. How important do you think it is to get the right cork? And I can’t remember the names, but like the full wells versus the different type or what’s your take on that? 00:39:44 Zack : I think that we’ve put a lot of specific thought into handle shape and handle design. Um, and if you’re clicking around the web page, you’re going to find something that speaks specifically to that. Um, and, you know, as a caster, the grip that you use. Uh, I think becomes more important to, you know, improve your overall casting. So if you’ve got a lot of consistency with how you grip the rod, I think that that’s important to, you know, be able to take yourself to the next level. 00:40:14 Dave: Yeah. 00:40:15 Zack : To find and be able to engage different parts of the rod during your casting stroke. If you grip it up a little bit higher, you know, you’re shortening the rod a little bit. You’re not engaging as much of the blank. Uh, the rod’s probably going to become a little bit quicker. You know, you’re able to utilize utilize the rod a little bit more. So off the tip. Um, conversely, you know, you drop your hand down at the bottom of the grip closest to the reel, you’re going to engage, uh, as much of the rod blank as possible. It’s going to bend deeper, uh, give you the ability to carry more line, heavier loads, you know, bigger flies or bigger fly lines. So, yeah, just having a grip that I think accommodates a wide user base of, you know, how they grab the fly rod is just super important at the end of the day. 00:41:00 Dave: Yep. Gotcha. So there’s and you have a few different types of grips. And what on those grips is it? Um, I mean, again, I think do you remember the names of the style, the grip, is that important or is there just a few different styles now of different core candles? 00:41:14 Zack : Oh, yeah. I mean, we’ve got a large convention of named grip designs. You know, we’ve got, uh, the modified Falwells, but modified micro falwells. And that’s just, you know, the overall length of the handle is what kind of separates those two, uh, you know, a modified Falwell’s. That’s something that you would find on a saltwater rod. The micro Falwell’s is just because of its shorter overall length. You’re going to find that on trout sized rods, and you got standard Falwell’s half wells cigar. You know. 00:41:43 Dave: Cigar. Yeah. 00:41:44 Zack : So many rods. You know, back in call it the two thousand. Um, kind of, you know, about when I was first getting into the space, you know, everything had a cigar style grip, but as kind of the you know, rod actions evolved, so did the handle design. And that’s where you started running into, you know, these snubnosed well, scripts or the modified micro flywheels grips because you could kind of engage the rod through, you know, more angler’s grip on the rod with, uh, those styles instead of kind of just having your thumb near the top or your index finger kind of, you know, pointing down the back of the rod during your casting stroke. Um, it just became a more forgiving handle shape to engage, you know, a wider user group with. 00:42:30 Dave: Gotcha. Okay. And and on back to the switch. Are you guys going to be doing was that some of the changes potentially coming up is on the the two handed stuff. 00:42:39 Zack : Yeah. Yeah for sure. Um, yeah. I can’t let too much more, you know out of the bag on that one. But yeah. Um, we’ve got some two handed stuff that’s getting cooked up. 00:42:48 Dave: Nice nice nice. Yeah. Because that’s a big, I think up in your neck. I mean, we’ve definitely had some podcast episodes recently with, with Spey in some areas that you know is not as well known. You know, definitely the big two handed stuff for steelhead and everything. I mean, you’re right there in the Great Lakes, right? Lots of opportunity. 00:43:03 Zack : Oh, yeah. Great Lakes folks over there. You know, it only takes me about two and a half hours to get to the Olympic Peninsula and fish all those famous rivers out there. So, you know, some of that could have been self-serving. You know, get something that I might use this site for this winter steelhead season. Yeah. 00:43:18 Dave: Yeah. That’s right. Yeah. And I think it’s, uh, yeah. The numbers have been, you know, kind of up and down. But from what I’ve heard about the Olympics is that it’s been. Yeah, there’s fishing every year. There’s pretty much, you know, there’s some fish to be caught. I know Trevor Kovic has been outspoken about that. The fact that. Sure. 00:43:33 Zack : Absolutely. 00:43:33 Dave: And he’s obviously one of the best guides out there. So. So, yeah, we’re coming up here, I think later this winter, too, we’re going to be heading up and chasing some op fish because it’s it’s a cool area, right? It’s definitely this time of year can be cold and nasty. But what do you love about that part of the world. 00:43:48 Zack : Warming up after. Yeah, after I’ve been fishing. Uh, I don’t know. I mean, it’s the fish or, you know, second to none. I, I think that if you were looking kind of beyond that, just, you know, being that far west and that far north and the US and having the species is, you know, as amazing as a winter steelhead, uh, as your target, um, it’s, you know, a lot of suffering, to be frank with you. You know, like you said, the weather being cold, you’re not moving a lot, you know, um, while you’re fishing, you know, to cast, take three steps, cast. And that gets a little, you know, you’ll start to get soaked. I don’t care how good your, you know, waterproof stuff is. At the end of the day, that’s going to permeate through you eventually. And once you’re rewarded, though, you know, I think that that makes up for everything. Just getting your eyes on one. If it’s jumping, even if you lose it, or if you’re fortunate enough to actually put your hand on its tail, you know, it’s an amazing fish, an amazing place out there. 00:44:46 Dave: Do you find yourself as you kind of get older? Well, you’ve already got the warm water bug, right? Do you find yourself trying to plan those more of those trips back to the warmer weather? 00:44:55 Zack : Uh, yeah, you know I do. And if I’m ever going to get my wife to kind of tag along, you know, with me, uh, she would very clearly opt for the warmer climates. 00:45:05 Dave: Yep. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Cool. Well, let’s kind of start to take it out of here with our little segment. This is like our gear tips and tools and resources segment. Um, today we’ve been talking obviously fly rods. This is presented by Patagonia and their swift current waders. We’ve been we’ve been doing a lot of gear talk. It’s been fun because um you know everybody there’s a lot of good gear out there and stuff. And Patagonia is obviously doing some great stuff. We’re going to give a shout out to them today. And I want to talk for you. What is some of your other gear? We were talking rods today. Are you kind of a when it comes to fly gear and everything. Kind of a nut about everything. You kind of nerd about all the gear or what do you got going there? 00:45:40 Zack : Oh my gosh. Uh, Dave, I’m kind of a minimalist at heart. Are you? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Um, but, you know, I very much like to have a perfectly balanced setup and, you know, perfectly level backing, you know, perfect knots, you know, so that aspect of it, right. 00:45:56 Dave: You’re a perfectionist when it comes to that stuff. 00:45:59 Zack : I pay a lot of attention to that. But you know, I if I have, you know, more than a puck that I got from the fly shop filled with flies in my vest and a couple spools of tippet, you know, I’m hoping that that’s all of it, unless I’m in a drift boat or something like that. But, you know, if I can get out there and I think that I’ve got odds of being successful with the least amount of gear on my body, and it’s kind of one of my overall goals. 00:46:24 Dave: That’s it. I love that. And yeah. So what is your this is always a good one for me because like the pack, you know, the vest, the sling, what do you it sounds like you’re just to throw it in your pocket. Do you even have a vest or pack? 00:46:35 Zack : Well, I think I’ve had every one from almost every manufacturer, like a majority of anglers have. 00:46:41 Dave: Have you had that? I’m just curious on this one because I don’t have this yet, but I’ve been thinking about get it since we’ve been chatting with Patagonia. But they have this sling. It kind of does a bunch of different things. But have you had one of those types of slings? Do you like the sling? 00:46:53 Zack : For sure, I thought I did, you know, and I’ve purchased five or six of them in my career. And then I find flaw with it, and then it just, you know, it ends up on, you know, getting passed down to somebody else or, you know, whatever becomes of it. I could, you know, before you buy, come take a look in my garage and see if you got. 00:47:12 Dave: You got a bunch of stuff in there. I’ve got the same way. I’m funny with the bags. Like, I will just. I don’t even care if I’ve got the perfect bag. I’ll still buy a new bag. If I see it, I’m like, oh God, I got to try that bag, right? It’s like a pack or something like that. But. So you’ve got a bunch of. So what do you think if you had to pick, are you more a, a sling, a hip, a vest? What’s your style if you had to pick one tomorrow for a new one? 00:47:32 Zack : I think probably a sling if I can get it out of the water, that’s important to me. You know, waterproof specifically in like that, you know, winter steelhead fishing situation. You want it to be waterproof, especially if you wait a little bit deep. Okay. And the smaller the better, you know? Yeah. If you can get that size kind of shrunk down to where it doesn’t, you know, interfere with your casting stroke or you get your fly line, you know, that’s one of the things I can’t same with drift boats. You know, all these things have things to catch, fly line on. And that’s like a known issue. And nobody’s figured that one out yet. 00:48:06 Dave: Yeah, yeah. Well, we’re we’re excited. We’re going to be testing out. I’m not sure if you heard. I could probably announce it now I think is the, uh, Teton Valley Lodge. You probably heard of them right down on the Teton. 00:48:16 Zack : Oh, yeah. 00:48:16 Dave: Yeah, yeah. So they’re coming out with, uh, we had a podcast with them. I didn’t really. I’m a big kind of a boat nerd. I love the drift boats and rafts and the history. We did a whole history of boats and stuff. And so I know with drift boats, but, yeah, they’ve got a boat. They’ve got this cool raft coming out. I guess they got a new they’re kind of a line of and they’ve been doing boats. So we’re going to be getting in that I think testing some things out this next year. 00:48:37 Zack : Super cool. Over in, in in the Teton Valley there. 00:48:40 Dave: Yeah I think we’ll get over there. But I think I might actually get it out on some steelhead water too, just because I’m in the market right now for a new boat. And so I’m kind of looking I’m looking around. I’m kind of, you know what I mean? It’s a good chance to test some stuff out. So there’s so many good boats. So that’s the thing. Just like fly rods, you know, it’s hard to find a bad boat. Just like rods, right? 00:48:58 Zack : For sure. Yeah, absolutely. But you can make some poor decisions. So yeah. Do your research. Absolutely. Do your research. 00:49:04 Dave: You gotta do your research. Well, let’s keep going a couple more on this gear. So now Saint Croix do they. You guys don’t do reels, right? It’s just rods. 00:49:11 Zack : Um, we have a conventional reel brand called seven. Um, and they do. 00:49:15 Dave: Okay. 00:49:16 Zack : There’s spinning reels and conventional reels, but no fly reels. 00:49:20 Dave: Okay, well, tell me about that a little bit. Let’s go down that track because I know I mean, in our audience we got lots of people who are listening who are actually conventional fishermen too. So what is the Saint Croix I mean? Yeah, seven. I don’t even know about this. Do you kind of cover it all in the conventional space? 00:49:33 Zack : Uh, yep. Yeah. Well, you know, from Saint Croix, uh, rod standpoint. Yeah. Everything’s there, you know, whether it’s warm water, uh, offshore, anadromous. You know, they’ve certainly been building a rod for every fish that swims out there. And two or three years ago and started a real brand called seven, um, focusing on the conventional side, like I said, on both bait casters and spinning reels and covering, you know, every size of rod, uh, from small trout stuff all the way up to saltwater applications with, with, uh, their assortment as well. 00:50:08 Dave: Everything. And what is in the, in the conventional world, is there one that just is more you sell more of than, than anything else? One niche out there. 00:50:17 Zack : Um, I would say, you know, like a two thousand series spinning reel is probably like, you know, a five, six equivalent, uh, fly reel. So that’s the one that’s probably gonna do the. Yeah. Uh, not overly big, but, you know, something that’s gonna cover a vast majority, you know, five weight equivalent type stuff. 00:50:36 Dave: That’s right. Have you done a little bit of that? The conventional. Is that something you’ve tested? 00:50:40 Zack : Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I’ve been doing a bunch of that now that, you know, I’ve got all these new coworkers that are experts in that space. So it’s just a, you know, it’s a new discipline to learn. And, you know, as enamored as they are with being a good fly caster, I’m as enamored with of trying to become as good a bait caster, you know, and I would argue that being an efficient angler with a bait caster is as difficult, you know, as angling technique is exists. So I think that the learning curve would be longer to master that. Baitcaster. 00:51:13 Dave: Oh, really? 00:51:13 Zack : Versus, you know, trying to master, you know, a fly rod with. 00:51:17 Dave: No kidding. So so you think it’s harder to learn to master the bait casting stuff versus fly? 00:51:22 Zack : Yeah, absolutely. 00:51:23 Dave: Yeah. Just because there’s a whole thing I mean. Yeah. What is that? Is that just because, I mean, I think some people would fly would probably think the opposite. They think, well, the fly cast is harder, but what is the hard part of the bait casting? Just learning the reel and. 00:51:35 Zack : Managing the reel effectively so you don’t end up with a backlash, you know. So, but if you tune those critters correctly, you know that helps minimize it. But if you have like a missed weighted lure on, uh, you know, and don’t pay as much attention to it, you know, you can just grab that fly rod out of the boat and start waving it, you know, pretty quickly. And you’re not gonna, you know, run into too many problems. That’s a good point. You start doing something erratic like that with the bait caster, and you’re gonna. 00:52:04 Dave: You’re toast. 00:52:05 Zack : Yeah. You’re toast, you’re toast. 00:52:06 Dave: Yeah, I’ve done a little bit of bait. Yeah, I used to the level wine right for steelhead and. Yeah, man, that takes some skill. You can’t just go out there and cast a level wine without knowing what you’re doing. Yeah. Um, the spin reel is a little bit different, right? Because, I mean, you could probably control there too, but the spins kind of for you. Anybody almost can pick up a spin reel and do that pretty quick. 00:52:24 Zack : Yeah. And there’s just some techniques, you know, within that conventional space that are unachievable with fly gear. You know, if you’re gonna try and skip a bait like doc skipping or something like that, which is super effective for, you know, getting bass that live up underneath a boat or whatever, you know, you just can’t reach those fish with the fly cast, you know, so that they, you know, it’s one of the self-limiting aspects of, you know, fly fishing. But you know, where there’s a will, there’s a way somebody will probably figure out how to, you know, skip it effectively eventually. 00:52:54 Dave: Where do you think fly casting does better than the conventional? You know, because there’s a lot of places where, you know, you hear like steelhead seems like better conventional, you know, with the bait and stuff like that. Is there a place where fly casting maybe does better than the conventional. 00:53:06 Zack : Oh, yeah, absolutely. You know, I, um, anything that is rapid presentation oriented and, you know, like a salmon fly hatch on a fast moving river, like the South Fork of the snake or the Madison where you’re trying to present a tight cover, um, you know, every few feet. You just couldn’t do that with conventional gear. You know, you’d have to reel up, reset and cast in there, and you’re never you’re going to miss a ton of water, right? So. Right. You know, that’s one of the efficiency aspects that goes into like the product design or whatever, you know, that, you know, fly casting definitely has a strong upper hand with. 00:53:42 Dave: Yep. Yeah. Definitely does. Nice. Well, let’s take it out of here with just thinking again. Somebody is and you sell most of your rods, right? You’re selling them through. People can buy them through the website. Right? I mean pretty much everybody’s doing that now. Right. The direct to consumer. 00:53:53 Zack : You know, I would as long as I’ve been in this business, you know, the specialty fly shop is what this industry is built on. So, you know, anytime I’ve got an opportunity to speak directly to a consumer, you know, I’m always going to encourage them to go to a specialty, fly shop, engage with their dealer, and they’re going to get the best service they’re going to find. You know what works for them. 00:54:11 Dave: Um, test out the rods. 00:54:13 Zack : Yeah. Test out the rods. You know, it’s impossible to do that via a website or going into, you know, a larger box store that’s not going to have that level of detail. So go to your local fly shop, support those guys all day long. 00:54:26 Dave: So that’s definitely the place to go. If somebody can’t get in there and they’re just looking, you know, and they’re thinking, okay, I’m going to get a rod. What are the couple of tips you’re telling them? You know, if they need to just grab something and they’re, you know, what are the biggest things about before you get a rod. 00:54:38 Zack : Well, maybe identify what’s gonna what a majority of your fishing time is going to be spent doing. Kind of honed in from there. On what size of rod is going to be appropriate for your conditions and species? Uh, I mean, YouTube’s going to be the greatest vault of rabbit hole of all time. 00:54:59 Dave: What do you think about the length? What do you think about the eight and a half? You know, the nine foot five weight, kind of your most common, but do you think there’s a time where a eight and a half foot five weight, nine foot nine and a half foot five. Well, I guess it’s more like ten. 00:55:09 Zack : Sure. Yeah. 00:55:10 Dave: Yeah. 00:55:10 Zack : I mean, each one of those is, you know, in my opinion, kind of directly related to application. Um, you know, the shorter rod is inherently going to be more accurate because it’s closer to your hand and longer Rod’s going to be more efficient at covering more water. Uh, you know, so you can cast it further. So like a lake fishing situation is going to be well suited to those longer length rods. But you wouldn’t want to use that ten footer for dry fly fishing at, you know, forty five feet. 00:55:39 Dave: No, that’s right. But you do have the the Euro stuff, right? The nymphing rod is a whole nother like all these little micro niches, right? Sure. And even even take it out to the more of the, I don’t know, tenkara, right. I mean, I guess, would you even call that more of a fad sort of thing because it’s still out there, right? There’s still some tenkara. I don’t think a lot of the brands got into tenkara, though, right? 00:55:59 Zack : No. Um, but new brands popped up to fill that space. Um, and I think it’s been around as far as angling techniques longer than just about anything. So it’s probably far from a fad, but I think that, you know, it’s just like anybody, whatever you kind of gravitate towards and want to master from a skillset standpoint, you know, more power to them. You know, go have fun with tenkara, go have fun with your own nymphing, you know, so long as you’re passionate about it and you’re working to get better at it, you know you got my support. 00:56:33 Dave: Yep, definitely. And I’m looking at a photo on here I think was was Tom Larimer. Was he there at Saint Croix for a while before? Yeah. 00:56:41 Zack : Yeah, absolutely. 00:56:42 Dave: He was there. Yeah. Because Tom was and we’ve been chatting with him because he was on the podcast way back in the early days, because when we first started, I think he was out kind of out in the Oregon somewhere, or at least out in the northwest out. And he was a big Spae guy. Right? Because I know we talked spae about the Deschutes and he the episode still is one of our most listened to episodes because he broke down like the five tips of how to fish the Deschutes River. You know, something like that, right? It was. Yeah. But now. So he was there a little bit. Did he have some influence on some of the switch stuff that’s there that’s, you know. 00:57:12 Zack : No not currently. Um, but yeah, some of the forthcoming, um, two handed stuff for sure. You know, some of the projects that we’ve mentioned here with the Evos and the Technica and the tank, we worked on those projects together, you know, and ironically enough, he has my old job at far Bank currently. Oh. 00:57:29 Dave: He does. No kidding. Oh, there you go. Wow. 00:57:32 Zack : That could be more a testament to, you know, the size of the industry, right? And maybe the, the lack of, you know, I don’t. 00:57:40 Dave: Know, it’s kind of cool. 00:57:41 Zack : I’m struggling for the right word to use there. 00:57:44 Dave: Well, it’s interesting because for me in most I mean, I’m, I’m talking to everybody, right? A lot of people. So it’s interesting to me and it does seem like it’s big. But then you hear stories like that and you realize it’s not that big compared to especially like you say, the conventional is way bigger, right? Like much bigger. 00:57:58 Zack : Yeah. So yeah, you got to be real careful what you say about people in this space, because more likely than not, you’re going to end up working with them at some point in time. 00:58:07 Dave: Exactly. That is so interesting. Cool. Well, this has been fun, Zach. I think, uh, you know, anything else? I think I feel like we’ve covered your lineup and stuff. Um, any other items you want to touch? Base. We’ve done a good job kind of covering what you have going here. 00:58:21 Zack : No, I think we did. I appreciate the opportunity to be on the show, Dave. And, you know, hopefully somebody will listen to it. 00:58:26 Dave: Yeah, yeah. Well, no, we’ll definitely get some listeners. And, uh, like I said, I always love, uh, kind of getting that history connection. So for me it’s good to see you guys still going strong out there. And and yeah we’ll keep in touch. Thanks for all your time today. 00:58:38 Zack : Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Dave. 00:58:42 Dave: There you go. If you want to check in with Zach, you can head over to Saint Croix Rods Comm and let them know you heard this podcast. If you get a chance. And we’re turning right around tomorrow. If you’re interested in Atlantic salmon, we talked about a little bit Atlantic salmon going back to Newfoundland. And we’re talking brook trout tomorrow. So if you want to hear some good stories about big brook trout tomorrow is the day. Check in with us. Uh, and I think we’re gonna get out of here. It’s getting late tonight, so I hope you’re having a good evening. And, uh, if it’s morning, have a great day or afternoon. Uh, and I hope to see you on that next episode, and we will talk to you very soon.