In this episode, we’re joined by Gary Davis, the founder of San Juan Rodworks. Gary shares his unique journey from the golf course to the world of fly rods. We dive into how his background in golf and a passion for music influence his approach to fly rod design. Whether you’re new to fly fishing or a seasoned angler looking for an upgrade, Gary breaks down the importance of rod action, offers tips for beginners, and explains why quality matters more than price.
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(The full episode transcript is at the bottom of this blogpost) 👇🏻
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Show Notes with Gary Davis on San Juan Rodworks
How Golf Clubs, Guitars, and Fly Rods All Connect
Gary Davis grew up fishing in Oklahoma but really got hooked on fly fishing after moving to Colorado. Before rods, he spent years fitting golf clubs and playing guitar—two things that surprisingly shaped how he thinks about fly rod design. Just like a golf shaft or guitar string, a fly rod needs to “feel” right. Gary believes that a rod’s action matters, but your technique matters more. You don’t need the most expensive gear. Start with something good, practice a little, and you’ll get better. Even three minutes a day can make a difference.
How San Juan Rodworks Was Born
Gary didn’t set out to build a fly rod company. But one broken rod tip on a fishing trip during the pandemic sparked an idea: what if rods came with an extra tip? That simple thought led to San Juan Rodworks. Gary leaned on his background in golf, his love for fly fishing, and years of e-commerce research to build rods designed for real anglers. His lineup includes:
- Gunnison – Fast action, from 2wt to 8wt.
- Fryingpan – Medium-fast, perfect for dry flies.
- Conejos – 10’ Euro nymph rods that double for dries.
The goal? Build reliable rods that perform well and feel right in your hands—even if you’re just getting started.
Best First Rod? Gary Shares His Pick
Not sure where to start with fly rods? Gary keeps it simple. If you’re new, he says go with a 9-foot, 5-weight Fryingpan rod. It’s easier to cast and helps you feel the line load—great for learning.
Gary also thinks about your natural rhythm. Are you fast-paced or slow and steady? That can help match you to the right rod.
Want more reach? Try a 10-foot rod, especially useful from a boat or when Euro nymphing. Gary’s team even made one after hearing from local guides who needed a better option for floating the San Juan.
His tip: Start with a solid all-around rod, then build your quiver based on how and where you fish.
How San Juan Rodworks Puts Anglers First
Gary isn’t just selling rods—he’s building trust. They focus on making great gear and great service. Here’s what sets them apart:
- They listen to guides and shops: Gary talks with folks who fish over 300 days a year to stay ahead of trends.
- 30-Day Risk-Free Trial: Fish the rod for a month. If it’s not the one, send it back—no hassle.
- Affordable, High-Quality Rods: You get a case, free shipping, and two tip sections.
- Lifetime Warranty
San Juan vs. Pecos: Two Very Different Rivers
Gary breaks down the contrast between his two local favorites: the San Juan and the Pecos.
San Juan River: A famous tailwater packed with trout. Most anglers nymph here using small midge patterns. Euro nymphing is effective too, especially during heavy hatches when the water seems to boil with rising fish. Gary says it’s best to hire a guide your first time to really learn the water.
Pecos River: Just an hour from Gary’s home, this mountain stream offers a more laid-back experience. It’s stocked and also has wild browns. Fish are smaller but not picky—perfect for a quick and fun day on the water.
Small Steps, Big Gains: Casting and Gear Tips
Gary knows a thing or two about improvement—whether it’s golf, guitar, or fly fishing. His best advice? Practice a little every day. A few minutes in the yard with a yarn rod can do wonders over time.
He also encourages folks to reach out if they’re thinking about a new rod. Gary still picks up the phone and helps anglers figure out what rod works best for their local water or target species.
Gary’s take is simple: gear should work for you. Whether you’re casting in the backyard or planning a San Juan trip, a little daily effort and the right setup make all the difference.
You can follow San Juan Rodworks on Instagram @sanjuanrodworks.
Facebook at San Juan Rodworks
Visit their website at SanJuanRodworks.com.
Read the Full Podcast Transcript Below
Episode Transcript
Dave (2s):
What do fly rods, guitars, and golf clubs all have in common? Today’s guest draws a surprising connection between these passions and what they reveal about performance practice and personal style. We get into how Rod design has evolved, why action matters more than you think, and how to choose the right setup. By the end of this episode, you’ll have clear, actionable steps to choose your next fly rod. Whether you’re getting started or looking to fine tune your setup this year, 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. Gary Davis, the founder of San Juan Rod Works, shares how a background in golf and a love for music helped shape his approach to fly rod design.
Dave (48s):
Based near the legendary San Juan River, he’s built a reputation for affordable, high quality rods with thoughtful action that provide a focus on service. We find out today which Rod you need for specific techniques and why three minutes per day is all you need to master the craft of fly casting. All right, let’s get into it. Here he is, Gary Davis from San Juan, rod works.com. How you doing, Gary?
Gary (1m 16s):
Doing great, Dave. How are you?
Dave (1m 18s):
Great, great. Yeah, I’m really excited to get into this conversation today because I love talking rods. You have an amazing rod that we’re gonna talk about. I think you do things a little bit differently down there. You’re into this amazing place, you know, part, you know, kind of on the San Juan in that area, you know, near the San Juan River. We’re gonna talk Colorado. Maybe you’re, you’re a homesteader background from your, your family and stuff. But before we get into all that, maybe just take us back to, you know, that kind of how’d you get started in, in fly fishing and, and all that.
Gary (1m 45s):
Yeah. Well, great. Thanks for having me. I’m really happy to be on with you today and looking forward to having a conversation around all this. But, but yeah, I, my fly fishing journey started when I moved to Colorado in around 2004, 2005. But prior to that, I was introduced to fishing, growing up in Oklahoma, and my father was, was big into bass fishing, car catfish, all of that stuff. So as a kid, I got a lot of great memories of, you know, spending time out in little ponds and lakes and stuff like that, and with my little Zco 2 0 2, you know? Yeah. And, and with a worm and a bobber. So that, that’s kind of where it all started, but was always fascinated with the outdoors and loves the mountains and streams and, you know, and all of that stuff.
Gary (2m 31s):
And so when I moved to Colorado, I really took the opportunity to kind of jump into this, what was new for me at the time. New, new way to put a fish in a net, which was fly fishing. And so really fell in love with it at that point. My background is actually in the golf business, and I, I went to college and got a degree in professional golf management at New Mexico State University and ran and operated golf courses and taught golf for a lot, lot of years, and went into club fitting and Wow. And all of that. And so that, you know, really introduced me to, at that I was kind of, I was kind of in the golf business at the time that, you know, there was a transition from, you know, steel shafts and golf clubs to graphite shafts and golf clubs.
Gary (3m 20s):
So I became very familiar with, with graphite, you know, shafts and how they’re manufactured, how they’re made, their performance characteristics and all of that stuff. So one of the things I found really fascinating and, you know, learning to cast a fly rod was how it performed, you know, very similar to a graphite shaft performs in a golf club. And so that was kind of the, you know, that that was something that was very intriguing to me at the time. Didn’t really think much about, you know, turning it into a business or anything like that at that point. But I loved the way I could feel a fly rod load and unload, much like you could, you can feel a shaft load and unload when you’re, you know, swinging a golf club, hitting a golf ball.
Gary (4m 4s):
So, so that was kind of, kind of where the genesis of it all started. But yeah, it just fell in love with fly fishing, love being outdoors, you know, do a lot of stuff outdoors other than fly fish. But yeah, really, really fell in love with it at that point, and then kind of started going down this other path as, as things went along. So
Dave (4m 22s):
That’s amazing. Yeah. I, I love the, I always love the sports analogies and stuff like that, and I think golf, golf is so perfect because you hear a lot about, you know, the analogy of fly fishing to golf and, and other sports, right? And yeah. And, and you just made one that we haven’t talked about, the fact that golf went from steel to graphite. Fly fishing’s gone from, I mean, funny thing is fly fishing did even have steel fly rods at some point, right? But bamboo to fiberglass, to graphite, and then actually kind of back because, and we could talk about this ’cause there’s been a, an interesting evolution of rods and actions of rod and stuff, but I remember hearing, I think it was on a recent episode, somebody was talking about a New York Yankees famous player. I’m, I’m, it’s, it wasn’t Joe DiMaggio one of the other big Yankees, but he, he was a big fly angler, and he said that the three toughest things to do in sports are, he basically said hitting a baseball, hitting a golf ball and casting a fly rod.
Dave (5m 14s):
You know, and I’m not, yeah, I’m not sure if it was in that order, but he was like, those are the three things. And he was one of the greatest hitters of all time. It, I think it was Ted Williams, I think it was Ted Williams. Yeah.
Gary (5m 23s):
Which most people say it was the greatest hitter of all time. The only guy that hit over 400,
Dave (5m 27s):
Did they say Ted was one of the one the greatest? Yeah. So he was a big fly angler, and, and Jack Dennis was on the podcast and Jack was talking about how he was hanging out with, with him and some other folks there. And he told him that one day, he said like, this is it. And so fly fishing is not easy, right? The the funny thing is, is that it is not easy, but it also doesn’t have to be super hard. What’s your take on how fly rods fit into that? Obviously it’s very important, but how do you match that to somebody who says, man, how am I ever gonna learn to fly fish?
Gary (5m 57s):
You know, it’s, it’s a good question. It was interesting in the golf business, there was always this debate. Is it the equipment or is it the person using the equipment? And, and at the end of the day, I always look at it like this, you know, if you’ve got somebody who’s, who’s talented, who has the ability, who’s practiced, who’s worked at it, who’s developed their craft, and their ability to ability to Swing a golf club, you know, you can put virtually any golf club in their hand and they’re gonna figure out how to use it. So there, there’s this element of working at it, developing the skills, developing the technique, but then once you do that, if you can match that to the proper piece of equipment, you know, they’re gonna perform at their best. You know, the other thing I do, I, I’m a, I’m a avid guitar junkie.
Gary (6m 39s):
I love playing guitar. I’m not very good at it, but I love playing guitars. I’m, I’m modestly probably more of a guitar collector than anything else. But, you know, I’ve always, I’ve always kind of thought of it, you know, you could take a cheap hundred dollar guitar and put it in Eric Clapton’s hands, and he’s still gonna sound like Eric Clapton, right? But if you put a $10,000 guitar in my hands, I am not gonna sound like Eric Clapton. I love that. You know? So, you know, it’s the same thing. Same thing in golf. I think it’s the same thing, you know, with, with fly fishing. I mean, it really experienced angler who’s been doing it for a lot of years and has a lot of experience and has developed their, and, you know, and refined their technique over period of time, they’re gonna be able to tell really small differences from one, you know, fly rod to another.
Gary (7m 22s):
But somebody who’s new to the sport, they’re not gonna have the ability to really discern, you know, one fly rod from another, how it performs again, as they, as they gain more experience, yeah, they’re gonna develop that feel and that technique and be able to, you know, start to feel those nuances. But, you know, for the most part, I’ve always believed, and again, this was true in teaching golf and equipment with golf and all that, if you can get a, something that is a quality piece of equipment, it doesn’t have to be the, you know, the most expensive, the highest end, you know, in somebody’s hands, but just something that’s quality, you know, then that’s not going to inhibit them from continuing to improve and get better and, and kind of, you know, develop the techniques, allow them to perform at a high level.
Gary (8m 6s):
And I think it’s the same thing with fly rods or virtually anything. You know, the, the quality of manufacturing has gone up substantially in virtually everything that we do nowadays. And so it’s, it’s almost hard to find really poor quality. I mean, some of it’s still out of there, but, but yeah, for the most part, the, the quality of everything is, is, has gone up. So
Dave (8m 27s):
It has no, I love, and I, I love that we’re into guitars too now, because those are, I, I’m also not a good guitar player, but I have one, and, and I struggle at, you know what I mean? But it’s, it’s amazing. I, I, you know, what I love is, is going to live music and seeing any guitar player up on stage, because I, I look at that and like, wow, that person is, is Eric Clapton pretty much, right?
Gary (8m 46s):
Yeah. It’s a same thing. I, I love live music, you know, I love going and watching bands play of all shapes, sizes, whatever. So, so yeah, it’s, it’s a lot of fun as well. Cool.
Dave (8m 57s):
Well, I think this is an interesting conversation because you’ve got a couple things. You know, you, you mentioned that you’ve got the new person coming in and they’re probably gonna need a different rod than say, the person who is going out for a, for bonefish or out in the Salt Flats, right? That like in and all this stuff. So I, I wanna talk about your lineup a little bit and we’ll, we’ll circle back to some of these sports analogies because we, you know, I love them and, and all that stuff. But what is it about you, what you do? Maybe explain that, because I think you guys have kind of a little bit of a unique take. Not only your name, I think the naming stuff is awesome, but talk about your rides. How do you describe that? What’s your elevator pitch to somebody who’s new to you?
Gary (9m 30s):
I’ll backtrack just a little bit, but, you know, I, I hit again, I’d been in the golf business for years. I’m approaching 30 years and now as a member of the PGA of America and been in the business again in a lot of different, you know, segments of it from running golf courses as a director of golf or general manager to teaching to club, fitting to all of it. But I’d always had this fascination with e-commerce, and I’ve always kind of considered myself a serial entrepreneur. I’ve done a lot of things, you know, outside of the golf business as well. But I became very fascinated with E-commerce. And so I’d spent about four or five years really researching it, you know, trying to understand how it worked, so on and so forth. And, you know, I was, I was constantly kinda looking for what would be a good opportunity to maybe get into that, you know, to that world.
Gary (10m 18s):
And, you know, the genesis of the company was really back in 2020 during the COVID Pandemic. I was actually up in Colorado at my next door neighbor. His brother has a place on the EOS River. And we were up there fishing, and I was literally was out on the water for about 15 minutes, and the tip of my rod broke. And fortunately he had a whole quiver of rods at his cabin there. And so I was able to kinda continue my, continue my fishing for that weekend. But it kind of just sparked something. I mean, I was like, man, it’d be, it, it would’ve been really bad news had I not had another rod available, better access to it. But it was, I was like, man, it’d be really cool if, you know, there was, you know, you had an extra tip section with your, you know, with your rod because it, obviously, if something’s gonna break, that’s most likely going to be the section of the rod that’s gonna break.
Gary (11m 9s):
’cause it’s, you know, just the thinnest, the most fragile. So that really got me to thinking and came back, and unfortunately at that time in New Mexico, which is where I was living at the time, and still live actually, but, you know, everything was shut down. Like you could not go to a fly shop and buy a fly rod. So I was forced to do it online and ended up buying a rod online. And that really, again, got the, got the wheels kind of moving for me, you know, started doing some research into, okay, how would I manufacture my own rods? What would I want those rods to be? You know, how would I want those rods to perform? So start really started down that path, started working with some companies to develop some prototypes.
Gary (11m 55s):
Went through several iterations of different prototypes and, you know, tapers and, and those kinds of things. And, and got those in the hands of some people who I would consider better fly casters than me at this point. And got a lot of feedback there. And we ended up coming up with, initially we came up with two models. One of ’em was called our Gunnison, and one of ’em is called our Frying Pan. Both, both still models we, we sell to this day. We ended up coming up with a third model, which is a, primarily a Euro nimrod, which is called the eos, you know, and then the name of the, you know, the name of the company we developed was San Juan Rod Works. So there was, you know, the, the San Juan is really well known in New Mexico.
Gary (12m 35s):
It’s an unbelievable fishery that any avid fly fisherman, if you’ve got the opportunity to get there, you definitely should. It’s definitely worth the trip. But, you know, trying to tie in kind of the New Mexico Colorado connection, you know, from the time I spent in Colorado, and again, the, the kenos, the frying pan and the Gunnison are just three of my favorite fisheries in Colorado. So that was kind of part of the, the idea and the creativity and naming some of the stuff along with the company. But, but that, that was kind of the genesis of it. You know, the Gunnison, we designed that as a, as a fast action rod. We do that in everything from a six foot, six inch, two weight up to a nine foot eight weight, the frying pan. We do that and everything from a seven foot, six inch, three weight to a, we have also have a nine foot eight weight in that one as well.
Gary (13m 21s):
So, and then the eos, we designed those as a 10 foot two weight and a 10 foot three weight. And those have become really popular again with, with your own nim fing. And they also, they’re, they’re great rods for throwing dry flies too when, when the start rising. So they’re, they’ve kind of become really dual purpose rods. So yeah.
Dave (13m 39s):
Is the frying pan rod, is that a little more, you know, kind of medium action?
Gary (13m 44s):
Yeah, frying pan fits in more of the medium fast category. Frying pan is a great dry fly rot. I love, you know, kind of my, my favorite river to fish that’s close and easy for me to get to when I don’t have a whole lot of time to get up to the San Juan is the Pecos, which is a great, a great stream, you know, up outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico is the headwaters of that. And I love going up there and throwing, you know, little dry flies, you know, on the three weight rod. That’s kind, that’s kind of my favorite go-to Rod right now is, is the, the frying pan three weight. But yeah, it’s a great, great rod for, for throwing dry flies and, you know, really great presentation, so. Okay.
Dave (14m 20s):
Perfect. And, and when we were talking about the action, we’ve talked about this a little bit on the podcast, but we’ve had a few casting instructors on, and, and we’ve had this conversation kind of like we just had about the different actions where the, the action of a a, you know, a more of a medium softer action rod, one that you can feel in the handle is probably better for a beginner because they can feel the line load up a lot more, right? Versus say the fast action stuff because the newbie can’t do it as well. So what would be the rod from your lineup for the beginner? Is there one you have that you say, Hey, this is the best rod?
Gary (14m 51s):
Yeah, generally we point people towards the frying pan if they’re brand new to the sport, you know, and, and the most, like, like everything else, a nine foot five weight, if you’re, if you’re gonna get one rod to start with, a nine foot five weight frying pan is, is perfect. You know, you really can get that in your hands and really start to develop that feel and start to understand how the fly line loads and unloads the rod, you know, as you’re, as you’re learning to cast. One of the things that, that I think is fascinating and I’ve seen carry over from my time teaching golf and in the golf industry is I think a lot of it has to do more with somebody’s kind of natural tempo. You know, we all kind of have this kinda rhythm that we walk with or, you know, we, we do all these different activities with.
Gary (15m 35s):
And, and so I kind of almost, you know, if, if I had the opportunity to, to stand in front of somebody and put two different rods in their hands and, you know, I would kind of watch what their natural tempo is. You know, are they somebody who is, you know, kind of has a, has a quicker pace to life, or somebody who has a slower, you know, maybe smoother pace to life. And, you know, to me that can factor into the equation as well. You know, again, going back to my, my years in the golf business, there were, there are players who have a very fast Swing, fast tempo,
Dave (16m 6s):
Like a, I always go back to like a Tiger Woods. He was the Yeah. Ultimate fast, like hard swinger, right?
Gary (16m 11s):
Yeah. You know, you, you know, this is going way back, but, you know, a Nick Price or
Dave (16m 16s):
Oh yeah, Nick Price,
Gary (16m 16s):
Tom Watson, you know, Nick Price had a very fast, you know, motion to it, right? The same thing Tom Watson did as well. But then you look at a guy like Fred Couples, who I saw actually made a, an eagle on hole number 14 at the Masters yesterday at the age agency.
Dave (16m 29s):
Oh, are you serious?
Gary (16m 30s):
Yeah. He, he hold a, you know, it is a funny thing, these older guys now, which of which I am one now, you know, these, these younger guys are hitting, you know, nine irons into hole number 14 in Augusta. And Fred, I saw Freddy hold it out for, I don’t how far he was, but he was hitting a hybrid, so
Dave (16m 45s):
Oh, he had hybrid.
Gary (16m 45s):
Wow. But, but you know, like, like Fred Couples or Ernie ELs just kind have this slow, smooth syrupy Swing, right?
Dave (16m 52s):
Yeah. What about, I’m interested in Mark o me because he’s a big flight angler. Do you know what, what was his Swing like? ’cause I’m gonna, we talked, he’s gonna be on the podcast hopefully this year, but what’s his Swing like?
Gary (17m 2s):
I would say Mark, you know, was probably kinda more in the middle. You know, he wasn’t super fast like a, like a Nick price or, or something like that. But he certainly didn’t, you know, kinda have that slow syrupy Swing like a, you know, like a Fred Couples or an Elle or something. But, but yeah, so it, I think you can, like, like I say, I, I feel like we all kinda have this natural rhythm or tempo or flow that we have to kind of, how we do everything. You know, I think you can kind of match the fly rod up to that. I mean, obviously, again, as you become a better, more experienced angler, you know, faster rods are generally better in the wind. So, you know, depending on the conditions, you know, if you’re a better angler and this, and again, I think this is where you get to that point of, you know, what’s your experience level, you know, what are you trying to do?
Gary (17m 47s):
You know? And, and I think, you know, and that’s why where people start to get into having, you know, a quiver or numerous rods that they can go to, depending on the conditions or depending on what their, you know, what the species they’re targeting is or what the, you know, what stream or river that they’re fishing or what, you know, what the conditions are. But, but yeah, I would back to your original question. Yeah, I would say, you know, if you started with, for us, you know, the nine foot five weight frying pan is a great place to start. It’s an easy rod to cast. You can develop your technique and you can really grow a lot with that.
Dave (18m 15s):
Yep. Nine foot five weight. Okay. And then, and the 10 foot, and basically if somebody’s looking at, you know, a little bit longer, what does that, you know, gives you more control? Why would a 10 foot do you think versus, say the nine foot five, I guess you, and you have two more, it’s focused on you and I think it sounds like
Gary (18m 30s):
Yeah, so we actually have a couple of 10 foot models now. We, we earlier, well, I guess fall of 2024, we just introduced a 10 foot four weight and a 10 foot five weight in our Gunnison line, which is our fast action rod. And we, we developed that through a lot of partnership and conversations with some local fly shops here in the Albuquerque area, Los Pinos fly shop. And then some of the guides that we have really good relationships with up on the San Juan and the San Juan, you know, a lot of people float that river and you know, a lot of the guys were telling us, man, if we had a 10 foot rod, it’s just so much easier to mend outta the boat. But we like the fast action aspect of, you know, what you’ve got with the gunness in there.
Gary (19m 12s):
So we developed that, launched that last year. So that, that’s one application for the 10 foot rod. And then, you know, really in the more, in the Euro nymphing style, 10 to 11 foot rods have really become commonplace. ’cause they just give you that extra, you know, that extra bit of reach when you’re, you know, you’re tight lining your own nim fing, whatever you wanna call it. So that’s really become kind of the standard in a, you know, in a kind of a dedicated Euro nymphing rod is that 10 to 11 foot, you know, range. And so that’s kind of where we went with those two. You know, one of the big comments we get though on a Ineos rod, and this is true, I think with a lot of, a lot of Euro specific design rods, is it, man, it throws dry flies like so well too.
Gary (19m 56s):
So I, I run Mike and Yales rod, you know, where I can pull my Euro leader off. I usually fish the two weight, you know, I’ve got an a two-way floating line on that and you know, just basically swapping out, if fish start rising, I’ll just swap it out and go, you know, run everything off the two weight, weight forward line and throw dry flies with it. And that’s a blast too. Yeah,
Dave (20m 16s):
I feel like the 10 foot, yeah, I mean, it’s interesting because in trout it’s really cool, it’s kind of getting longer, right? You get the trout space, some of that, which is maybe that’s different. But then with the, the double-handed rods, which is a place we’re in too, that’s gotten shorter, you know, that started out as 15 foot went down to 14. Now 13 is probably the most common, and it’s the opposite with the trout, which is interesting. So I think it’s always evolving. That’s the interesting thing about the fly, you know, fly fishing and probably golf is the same thing. You, you know what I mean? Like, you know, you got the big Bertha, I remember when that came out back in the day, the day, yeah. It’s like this giant, the big Bertha, right? Yeah. But fly fishing’s not much different. In fact, we’ve heard people, you know, some of those instructors talk about this nuclear arms race to a faster and faster fly rod, you know, and to the point that they’re so fast now that they, the lines can’t even keep up with it.
Dave (21m 3s):
Or, or they tried to, and now there’s questions about what weight lines are. Are they two lines heavier or there’s a little bit of confusion. How do you, with your people, you know, somebody’s coming in, they see you online, how do you break through that confusion to let somebody know maybe that’s either new or maybe they, they, they’ve been fly fishing, but they’re a little bit confused on this stuff.
Gary (21m 21s):
It’s really interesting, like you say, how things evolve and like you say, the, the fact that, you know, fly rods have gotten faster and faster and you know, and now as a result, fly line weights have changed, you know? Right. So we introduced a fly line last year that’s essentially a half a weight heavier than standard. And we feel like that works really well with our fast action rod, but it also works really well with our, you know, our medium fast action rod and the frying pan. But yeah, it’s really interesting. The same thing kind of happened, like you mentioned in golf years ago. So everybody wants to hit the golf ball further. And so, yeah.
Dave (21m 56s):
Yeah, John, remember John Daley?
Gary (21m 57s):
Yeah. Oh yeah.
Dave (21m 58s):
He was the ultimate. Right,
Gary (21m 59s):
Exactly. And, but it was a really interesting thing. So there were some manufacturers who started messing with the lofts on the golf club. So say just for example, a pitching wedge traditionally had 44 degrees of loft on it, and a nine iron would have 40 degrees of loft. Well, you know, somebody in the marketing department said, well, what if we take, you know, what if we take the nine iron and just stamp a P on the bottom of it? So now my pitching wedge, now I’m thinking of hitting my pitching wedge as far as my nine iron. Right? Right. So there, there’s always some marketing tricks, you know, up the sleeve somewhere, but obviously it’s a little bit different in the world of fly fishing. But, you know, the thing that I think is very interesting is kind of the resurgence that we’re starting to see with, you know, fiberglass coming back and, you know, I mean, that’s just such a, you know, such a difference from the, you know, kind of where things have gone on the fast action side of the market.
Gary (22m 53s):
But I think people are, you know, are starting to kind embrace that kind of slower, smoother, you know, kinda enjoy that feeling of, you know, a softer rod and really being able to fill that thing, load and unload. And then when you get a fish on it, you know, the way, the way you play a fish with something like that, you know, but there’s, there is, there’s this constant evolution, which I, which I think is great, you know, and really all of these elements. Yeah,
Dave (23m 17s):
Exactly. Well, it sounds like, I’m guessing you can stay a little bit on top of that evolution because you’re talking, which is smart, you’re talking to guides and shop owners. Is that how you stay above when you look ahead, like say next year, five years from now, how you make sure you’re, you’re staying up with whatever the changes are at, you know, how do you think of that? Is that how you do it? Or how do you look ahead? Or do you look ahead that far?
Gary (23m 38s):
One of the things that’s really important to me is how do we stay relevant? How do we provide the absolute best customer service that we possibly can? To me, that’s a huge element of it. That’s something that we really take a lot of pride in and focus on. You know, that’s a big, big deal. You know, working with the fly shops, working with the guides, you know, what’s important with them. You know, these guys are out in the water. Some of these guys are out in the water 300 plus days a year, and working with all different clients, you know, having to manage all different skill sets and abilities and, and all of that. So, you know, really trying to listen to our customers and our partners, whether it’s guides or fly shops, helping us understand what’s important to them, what they see, you know, how changes, you know, and people are using the equipment are, and, and you know, we really try and take that and say, okay, how do we, how do we apply that to what we’re doing?
Gary (24m 29s):
And continue to provide the value that we try to provide for the customer with the, you know, what the products we’re developing and, and all of that. So, yeah. Yeah.
Dave (24m 37s):
Yeah. Exactly. What is the, you know, I mean, I think that the, you hit on it, customer service, I think that’s a big thing because especially like you said, that story of online, you know, you go online, it’s so easy to buy stuff online. Now, first off, how do you stand out? But then how do you make sure people know what they’re buying, they don’t have to worry about? ’cause I think that is something sometimes people worry about. Like, well, I buy this rod and maybe this company’s not gonna be around, you know, in five years. Right? Is that something you’re thinking about? I mean, I think the customer service, maybe talk about that. What is your warranty on the rods if somebody was to buy one from you, you know, tomorrow.
Gary (25m 11s):
Yeah. So that, that was something that was really interesting. Obviously a fly rod is a very personal thing, right? It’s, they all feel a little bit different. We all have a connection to our favorite fly rod and all of that. So, so I realized early on, you know, that there’s a big advantage to walking into a fly shop and be able to put that thing in your hands. And again, a good fly shop’s gonna put a reel on it for you with the, you know, with the appropriate line is you can usually go out and cast it and get a feel for it, right? That’s an element that is, you know, being an online retailer, we don’t have the opportunity to do that. So one of the things I really wanted to do was make sure that people had a comfort level of knowing, Hey, if I make this commitment and I buy a rod from this company, and I get in my hands and I take it out in my water and it’s not the right fit for me, I wanna be able to send it back and not have to worry about it.
Gary (26m 1s):
So from the start, we’ve had our, our 30 day risk-free trial, we call it. And literally I tell people, buy a rod from us online, we’ll ship it to you. We ship everything, priority shipping, shipping’s included, you know, and all of our domestic orders over 75 bucks. But you get, we, when you get that rod, if you literally wanna take it out and fish it for 30 straight days, and then if that’s not the right rod for you, you know, reach out to us. We’ll send you a, a prepaid return shipping label, ship the rod back, and we’ll refund your money. You know, at the end of the day, from a customer service standpoint, for me, if somebody gets one of our rods in their hands and they don’t absolutely love it, I don’t want them to keep it, I want, I want them to buy and own a fly rod that they love and they cherish, and it’s, you know, it’s something that they’re gonna use and pass on for generations.
Gary (26m 48s):
So at the end of the day, to me, that’s way more important than me selling a fly rod to somebody and they don’t absolutely love it and think that it’s the perfect fit for them. And again, launching this company, this was all a, a, a leap of faith, right? So I had no idea, I mean, I didn’t know if people were gonna get our rods in their hands. I mean, I, I, I shouldn’t say I had no idea I had a, I had a pretty good idea that we had a good product, but you never know until it gets into the marketplace. And, you know, we’ve shipped probably close to 750 Roz now since we, we really launched the company in 2021. And, you know, one of the most amazing things to me, I was looking at the statistics the other day, we’ve literally had six rods returned.
Gary (27m 29s):
Oh, wow. You know, because it wasn’t the right fit for somebody.
Dave (27m 31s):
Right. That’s so cool.
Gary (27m 33s):
Yeah. So it was like, you know, if you’d have told me that when we were starting this, you know, that our, our return rate would be that low, I would’ve been shocked. But yeah, it’s been, it’s been so well received. And I think part of it is, is because we do try to offer that, you know, level of customer service and, you know, and people really appreciate that in today’s day and age. I mean, you know, we really try to go in above and beyond, and if somebody has an issue, you know, we’re always gonna be there to pick up the phone and have a conversation with them and help them out however we can. So that’s
Dave (28m 3s):
Awesome. Yeah, I think you look at a couple things, I think first off the warranty, but the, the rods, you know, just the quality is another big thing. And the price, I mean, the price point you have is pretty amazing. Maybe talk about that a little bit, because I feel like there’s other rods out there that are more expensive, but yeah, you’ve got a price point that’s pretty hard to be, describe that a little bit,
Gary (28m 22s):
You know, understanding that you can spend about as much as you want on a fly rod, kinda like you can with virtually anything in the world these days. I mean, but I was like, you know, I want, I wanted to build and create something that was premium quality without the premium price tag. And, you know, in the world of, you know, 900,000, $1,200 fly rods, can we build something that’s approaches that level of, of quality, but it’s something that, you know, the average person can afford and they don’t feel like they’re, you know, they’re spending their life savings on. And so we really focused on coming in at a price point that again, was going to provide people a level of quality that, that they could expect, you know, something to last them a long time that was gonna perform at a really high level and all of that.
Gary (29m 8s):
So, you know, all of our rods right now in today’s day and age are $250. Again, it includes free shipping, everything comes, you know, in a cordura tube. Really nice case with it. We ship everything with two tip sections, which again, was one of the big things that I thought could help differentiate us in the marketplace. And it, it’s nice to have that backup tip section with you and, you know, if you do slam that tip section in a, in a, in the car door, yeah. Or, or break it in some other form or fashion, at least you’ve got that backup with you when you’re out on the water that day day or on that trip. So that, that’s been a huge, you know, a huge selling point for our brand. People love that.
Gary (29m 48s):
As far as the warranty goes, we offer a lifetime warranty on everything. If it’s a manufacturer’s defect, we obviously take care of it, you know, I’m really happy to say we’ve had very, very few of those. But other than that, if again, you close it in a car door or step on it or however else it might break, you literally go to our website, choose the rod, choose the length, weight, which section that needs to be replaced. It’s a $35 charge that it covers all the shipping. We ship it out to you no later than the next business day and you’re, you’re back up and on the water. So, you know, so free shipping, lifetime warranty, 30 day trial, those were kind of, you know, big things that were really important when we launched this company that we really kind of felt like we’ve built it on.
Gary (30m 34s):
Yeah, it’s
Dave (30m 34s):
A, it really, like you said, it goes back to the service, customer service, which is definitely doesn’t get any bigger than that, so. Awesome. Well, and you mentioned the club, so what would be the, I always like, you know, kind of going back to this, I think it’s kind of fun with the golf stuff, but what is the, an an expensive golf club, and then what’s a similar thing where you can get like a lower price club?
Gary (30m 52s):
Yeah, that’s really interesting. You know, like everything else, the, the price and technology and golf clubs has continued to really evolve, you know, and you’ve got your major brands, you got like your tailor MAs and Callaway, you know, ping and all of that. But, you know, there, there’s some brands out there now. You know, one that comes to mind is, is Tour Edge. A lot of guys on the Champions tour use their, their clubs now, you can literally go, you know, much like fly rods now. You can, you know, you can obviously go online, build, you know, buy blanks and all the components and build fly rods. There’s an element of that. There’s several companies out there now where you can go and buy components and, you know, and custom build your own, your own golf clubs, which I think is really cool.
Gary (31m 33s):
I actually did that for my wife last year. I, she was, she wanted to get into golf, and so I built her a built her a set of clubs from, you know, assembling some components, which was a lot of fun. But, but yeah, there’s, I firmly believe at the end of the day, having gone through a lot of this stuff and all these analogies of guitars and golf clubs and, you know, fly rods, I do think that there is an element to it of, yes, a quality product that performs well is important, but at the end of the day, it’s your technique. It’s how you utilize that tool. And really all of those things are tools that how you learn to best utilize that tool. And the more you practice with it, the more you work with it, the more you understand how that tool works, the better you’re going to be.
Gary (32m 21s):
You know, Winston Sage, all the big companies, they make great, wonderful fly rods, right? But I’ve kind of had this firm belief that, you know, it’s how you, how you utilize that tool is going to really determine your success. Yeah.
Dave (32m 35s):
It’s, and you obviously practicing. That’s the other thing we’ve heard a lot about from not only, you know, guides, but any put that knows, you know, they just say practice. I mean, we’ve had the guides on that that are the best in the country, and they still practice the yarn rod every day. Yeah. So that’s what it comes down to. If you’re not practicing, if you’re going out for a, you know, a tarping trip or something and you’re not preparing for that, you’re probably gonna have some struggles. Right? Absolutely. And same thing for the San Juan. Well, I’m interested because I think the, the San Juan, you know, and, and Colorado, but I mean, the San Juan, I think is a famous river around the country. I feel like I’ve heard about that one forever. I’m hoping the next year or two will be the time I break the, you know, my, my time.
Dave (33m 16s):
I haven’t been out there yet. And, and, and it’s such a cool area. But what would be the rod for the San Juan? Like if you, the perfect like length, weight, you know, what’s your recommendation there? Because is that more of, is that more of a Nph river? Is there a mix of techniques used there?
Gary (33m 30s):
Yeah, primarily in Nph River, you know, it’s a tail water where most people fish at below that Navajo dam there, you know, in north northwest New Mexico, there’s a lot of midges, you know, really small stuff, you know. So I would say most people fish that with, you know, a nine foot four weight to a nine foot six weight. Again, a lot of people are moving to the 10 foot rods, even euro nymphing up there, you know, you can have a lot of success. The best day I’ve ever had on San Juan, I was euro nymphing and this never happens to me, but I caught more fish than I ever thought I would. I think I’m done for the day. Oh, wow. Yeah. So I kinda got, I almost got tired of catching fish, which never happens. Right. But, but yeah, so it’s, it’s a very interesting fishery.
Gary (34m 14s):
There’s, there’s so many fish in that river, you know, and Indian quality fish that you can, you can catch it on a, if you catch a mid hatch going off, I mean, it is, is so much fun. It’s
Dave (34m 26s):
Crazy. What does a mid hatch look like? You’re on the water and it’s, it’s going crazy. What, what?
Gary (34m 30s):
Yeah, I mean, I, I’ve literally been up there and the water looks like it’s boiling. I mean, you’ve just got fish just rolling up on these midges coming up and, and, you know, and taking them off the surface and, you know, I’ve seen these cluster midge hatches where there’s just kind of this cluster of midges and you, it, it, it’s amazing when you see something like that start to happen and then be able to be able to present your fly in a way that, you know, you fool one of those fish and you, you get it on the hook and get it to the net. So, so yeah, it’s a ton of fun up there. That’s crazy. And I, you know, I would really recommend if, you know, there’s so many great guides up there, but if you’re gonna make a trip out here, it’s a tough river to fish until you kind of figure it out. And I would always recommend that, you know, if you’re gonna come out and you’re gonna fish that at least the first time, get with a guide, they’re so good up there, there’s so many great guys up there, and they’re gonna really ensure that you have a great time and kinda learn the nuances of that river.
Gary (35m 23s):
And, and it’s, it’s, it’s a blast once you kind of figure it out. Yeah. It’s
Dave (35m 28s):
Sweet. What, what is your out there, it sounds like you fish that river. Is that kinda your home water? Or do you have some other ones out there that you fish?
Gary (35m 34s):
So the San Juan, for me, it’s about a, it’s about a two and a half hour drive from where I live. Like I said, my, unfortunately, I, I seem to not have as much time as I would like, like most people in, in life these days. But the Pecos River, like I say, up outside of Santa Fe, I can be on the water there in about an hour. And so that’s kind of my go-to. And I’m just like, all right, I got a half a day, I’ve got an afternoon or the case, maybe I’ll run up to the Pecos. And it’s a great fun, you know, kind of more of a, a Freestone river, you know.
Dave (36m 0s):
Is that a lot different, the Pecos versus the San Juan? Or is it just like worlds apart, or The environment I’m guessing is similar, but what about the fishing?
Gary (36m 8s):
Yeah, fishing’s very different on the Pecos. I mean, they, they stock the Pecos, there’s a big hatchery up there, the New Mexico game and fish stocks, that river. But there’s also a lot of natural browns up there, you know, and they’re not generally big fish. You know, I’ll usually, you’re usually catching something in the eight to 10 to 12 inch category, but, but it’s a ton of fun. I mean, the fish are not very picky. You can generally throw virtually anything out there that resembles some sort of food source, and if you present it to ’em, well, you’re, you’re gonna catch a bunch of fish. But it’s just a fun, you know, it’s a fun river for me. It’s up in the mountains, it’s, you know, pretty secluded. It can get a little bit crowded, particularly on the weekends.
Gary (36m 49s):
But yeah, it’s just a, it’s a fun, fun river and a beautiful place and, you know, it’s just a, it’s a joy to be out there. Yeah.
Dave (36m 55s):
So you have the Pecos and the San Juan, and are there, are there a number of other rivers out there in kind of that area around Albuquerque?
Gary (37m 2s):
Yeah, so the Rio Grande, obviously everybody’s here, the Rio Grande, or most people have, anyway, it, when you get up towards Taos as a great river, a great fishery up there. The Chama River Oh yeah. Is another great river. The up in the EZ Mountains, there’s a, there’s a bunch of small streams. The Guadalupe, the ez up in the, up in the EZ Mountains, which is, I’m actually, I’m actually heading up there tomorrow, which will be a lot of fun. But yeah, there’s a lot of great fisheries. And then you get into Southern Colorado and there’s even more, you’ve got the, again, you’ve got the eos, you’ve got the Dolores, you’ve got the animus. So there’s a lot, we’re very blessed to have a lot of access to some great water, you know, in our part of the world in northern New Mexico, Southern Colorado.
Gary (37m 47s):
So.
Dave (37m 47s):
Awesome. You mentioned a few, I think a couple of your kind of ambassadors, people that are kind of helped or using your stuff. It sounds like you have like a local fly shop. Is that one of them that you’re connected with out there?
Gary (37m 58s):
Yeah, so we, again, we initially started this thing strictly big in e-commerce, direct to consumer brand. Did that for a couple years and then decided it was kind of twofold. Number one, I really wanted to make sure that we had a really good quality product before I approached, you know, fly shops to see if they might be interested in carrying it. And we, and we kind of proved that over the first few years, the brand. And so I approached the, a local fry shop in Albuquerque, Los Pinots fly Shop, great guys over there, a great fly shop. They were, you know, showed them what we were doing and they were very interested. So they started carrying the product. And then the real life up in Santa Fe also carries the product.
Gary (38m 38s):
We’re talking to a couple of fly shops up in southern Colorado about potentially bringing our line on board. But the partnerships with them have been great. Again, they’ve given us a lot of great feedback. Again, a bunch of the guides that we work with, we work with guides up on the Green River up in Utah, which have been great, you know, again, guides up on the Rio Grande up in Taos, obviously up on the San Juan. So, you know, they’ve all been great in providing a lot of feedback to us and in helping us kind of really advance what we’re doing.
Dave (39m 7s):
Nice. No, this is awesome. I, you know, I wanna start to take it out here a little bit with our segment. This is kind of our, our casting challenge. We’ve been working on this, trying to get some tips on casting, and we’ve had some different experts on that have been talking about this. And now in golf, were you a ca, were you a, a hitting instructor or did you do that, or what, what was your golf back?
Gary (39m 27s):
Yeah, yeah. I spent a, I spent a lot of time teaching and coaching golf, which I really enjoyed, honestly, of all my kind of various responsibilities within the golf industry. You know, teaching was what I always enjoyed most. When you’re kind of able to help somebody when you, you know, when you can kind of see it click for somebody and they’re able to take, you know, take the information that you’ve given them and able to actually apply it and see, you know, the joy and excitement in somebody when they, when they make that connection, right, yeah.
Dave (39m 56s):
And it goes straight and goes way out there straight.
Gary (39m 58s):
Yeah, exactly. And you just, it’s just so fun from a, as a, a teaching standpoint to see that happen. So, and I, and I, I will be the first to admit that there are a whole lot of people in the world that cast a fly rod better than I do. But, but yeah, I mean, I think one thing I would tell people is, is, you know, like we were talking about a little bit earlier, you gotta practice same in golf, same in playing guitar, same in casting a fly rod. Anything, if you don’t practice, you’re never going to change. You know, change the behavior, change what you’re doing and going out to a local park with your fly rod and, you know, just tying a, a piece of wool on the end and then casting that or getting one of the great, you know, little echo makes a great little Yeah, the yarn rod.
Gary (40m 39s):
Yeah, exactly. Yarn rod. I mean, I’ve got one of those all going my backyard and, and cast that one, I’m out there, you know, grilling steak or whatever. Yeah, exactly. You know, so, you know, doing all those things, all that helps. And I, and I always, it was interesting when I was teaching golf people always, I would have people say, well, you know, I’m gonna go out every Saturday, I’m gonna hit, you know, go to the driving range and hit three buckets of golf balls. And then they wouldn’t, they wouldn’t do anything for a week, you know? Oh yeah. I told all my students, I said, I would much rather you go out in your backyard and spend three minutes a day just making practice swings without a golf ball, without any, just swinging the golf club. And you would be shocked at how much better you get over a much shorter period of time, spinning three minutes really focusing on what you’re doing.
Gary (41m 27s):
And I’ve applied that logic to virtually everything I do in life. Like, I, I’ll pick up a guitar for two or three minutes a day and just really focus on what I’m doing. And it’s, and it’s amazing over a, a month or two months or six months, how just that really short focused practice really helps me more so than sitting down and even playing for an hour or something like that. Same thing, like I say, swinging a golf club, you know, get a yarn rod and go out in the backyard and, and practice casting for five minutes a day, you know, and you’d be shocked at how much better you, your cast and your feel and your motion starts to become. I
Dave (42m 2s):
Love that. Yeah. I think that’s a, a great tip is just the, the daily, you know, and then just not make it too big. Yeah. You don’t have to go out there and hit three buckets of balls, but maybe you hit one or, you know, five minutes of casting or three or whatever you can get. No, it makes total sense. So, you know, we have, we have that, I mean, obviously practicing is a big part of it. Anything else? Any words of advice? Like somebody’s thinking about picking up their next rod, if somebody’s thinking about that. Do you take calls from people? Like, do you Yeah, or, yeah, so like if somebody’s thinking like, okay, they want this, they’re like, man, the the price point is awesome. You’ve got this great high quality rod. If they had questions, is that the best way to call you and just, you know, pick your brain a little bit? Yeah,
Gary (42m 42s):
Give us a call, shoot us an email. We are still a small company. We’re a small family owned company. It’s primarily me. I have my kids who are great, who help me as well. I mean, they do a lot of the packaging and shipping and all of that stuff. But yeah, I, I take a lot of pride in, in being the one to answer the phone and, and have conversation. And I love doing it, having conversations with people and talking about fly fishing and kinda what their needs are, what they’re looking for, where they’re fishing, you know, what are they, what are they targeting? Like, there’s so many variables that can go into, you know, picking the right fly rod, you know. So I, I love having those conversations and, you know, if I don’t get the call answered right away, you know, we’ll absolutely get you called back and love doing that.
Gary (43m 24s):
Love helping people, you know, find the right, you know, right rod for their needs. And we’ve introduced, like I say, last year we introduced a fly line, late 2023, we introduced a line of reels. So we’ve kind of got, we’ve kind of got the whole package now. You, we, we, we carry reels, we carry rods, we carry fly line, you know, so we’ve got some bundle deals right now that we’re, we’re doing, providing a really premium product at, you know, less than a, what I would call a premium price. So, so yeah, we love, we love helping people get, get the gear they need to get out the water, have a great time, and have something that, you know, is going to last them and ultimately even be able to pass down to the next generation.
Dave (44m 5s):
Yeah, definitely. And you even have, you have blanks too, right? You sell some blanks?
Gary (44m 9s):
We do. We did a custom program. We had a custom shop for a while. We still do a little bit of that, you know, quite honestly, we’ve gotten so busy now with, you know, and the response has been so good on our production rods that we’ve kind of pulled back from that a little bit. But yeah, we do, we do sell some blanks. We do, you know, do have some of that stuff on the, in the catalog right now online as well. That’s
Dave (44m 30s):
Right. Yeah. I remember blanks back in the day. It feels like blanks were a lot more common. You know, we used to build a lot of, you know, my dad’s old shop. I, you know, I know he used to build a lot of, and there was blanks. It seems like blanks aren’t out there as much. I mean, there’s, I think there’s one big fly custom rod company that will give kits out, you know, we’ll send kits out. What, what’s your take there on that? Do you see much of the the rod building stuff out there, or do you think that’s slowly like, going away?
Gary (44m 55s):
Yeah, I don’t know. I think that there’s definitely not a ton of people who do it. I, I love doing it. It’s a time consuming thing, but it’s a craft, right? I think it’s really cool that you can, you know, I wanna pick, pick the specific blank. I’m looking for this length, this weight, this, you know, this action to it, you know, pairing that up with a beautiful real seed and, you know, a, a grip and the colors and the wrapping and all that stuff. I actually, a few years ago, built all my kids and my wife all, they all got for Christmas custom rods that I built them, which was a really fun project. And that’s another thing I love to do, is I just, I love, I love to, you know, build and craft things and that’s, you know, that’s kinda a whole nother level to it. But, but yeah, I, you know, somebody who’s interested in doing that kind of stuff, I think there’s nothing more rewarding than, you know, than building your own fly rod and then taking that out and fishing it and catching fish with it.
Gary (45m 45s):
And, you know, I think that’s a, I think that’s a great way to do it. And, and, and there are, you know, there are people out there, there are companies out there, there’s a company actually in Albuquerque called Custom Fly Rod Crafters, and they sell basically all of the components to build your own fly rods and Great Bob and Lee Whir. They actually used to own Los Pinos fly shop at Albuquerque. They’re a great, great company. I think the website is fly rod crafters.com. But yeah, I see it. Great company. You can get, you can get everything you need on there to build your own fly rod. Oh, cool. Much like us. They’re a small company. You, you can call them Bob or Lee will pick up the phone and talk to you and, and help you through what you’re doing. So yeah, so there, there’s, there’s some, some great resources out there.
Gary (46m 26s):
That’s awesome.
Dave (46m 27s):
No, I see that. So there are more than just the, the one I was thinking about there. There’s definitely a few companies. Okay, good. We’ll put a link in the show notes to that. Yeah, the fly rod crafters.com and anything else we, we talked about today. But let’s get into, this is kind of our random segment as we start to take it outta here. And I want to go back to the, again, we’ve been on this golf analogy, I think I wanna keep on it here. So what would be, you’re not that far away. If, if I was going out in the golf, what’s that look like? If I was gonna get a set of clubs, and I’ve actually been thinking about it because my brother is big time into it. My dad, who’s like 85 and still he’s struggling with some dementia and stuff, but he’s still literally getting out there, cracking the ball. What would be a set of clubs? What would I expect to spend on a set that would be just decent for me to get back?
Dave (47m 10s):
I haven’t golfed in probably five or 10 years, something like that.
Gary (47m 12s):
Yeah. Golf has become a very expensive sport from an equipment. And I, I, I mean you can literally spend six, $700 on a driver now just on a dr. Yeah, yeah. You know, again, for me, somebody who’s getting into it, here’s the first thing I would tell people is, is when you’re starting in golf, you do not need a full set of golf clubs. The rules of golf allow you to carry 14 clubs. If you’re just getting into golf, you know, you need to buy maybe three or four irons, a hybrid and maybe a three wood. And that is all in a putter. That’s all you really need to get started playing golf. At the end of the day, learning how to Swing the golf club and make consistent contact with the golf ball is far more important than confusing yourself with which of these 14 clubs should I be hitting here?
Gary (47m 59s):
And so again, even, even if you’re starting, if you’ve got one golf club that you can take out and Swing in your backyard, go to the driving range, practice hitting the golf club, you know, getting to the point where you can consistently hit the golf ball in the middle of the club face, that’s where you have to start. But you know, there, there’s brands out there, you know, I know Callaway I think has done a really good job recently. They’ve got some kind of, I would, I guess I would, you know, for lack of a better term, starter sets, you know, and some of the companies now are, are starting to do that kind of stuff. A lot of the companies now too do kinda have these refurbished programs. I believe Tailormade has that now, you know, where you can go in and kind of buy, or, or Callaway pre-owned, I know is a, is a company now that, or a, a component of Callaway where, you know, basically people trade in older Callaway clubs and they kinda refurbish ’em.
Gary (48m 48s):
They may refinish the club heads, put a new shaft in ’em, new grip on ’em, whatever the case may be. But I think those are always gonna be the best place to start. Again, when you get to a point in your golf journey where you’ve become very serious and you, you know, you’ve taken it to another level, then yeah. At that point going in, getting custom fitted, you know, for a, you know, a custom set of golf clubs that that’ll be an element that you may wanna consider. But, you know, getting started,
Dave (49m 14s):
Which is not much different than fly. Right? Same thing like you talked, I mean, it’s, you don’t have to go out and get the giant, in fact, I’m looking at one now, right here on the Callaway Golf Min Strata complete set, $300, right? 2, 9, 9. It’s only got, like you said, it’s got three irons, a putter, it’s got the hybrid and a drive just like you said it. So it doesn’t have a whole bunch, but it even comes with a bag. So like that, that’s your, so 300 bucks. So it sounds like for about the same price you can get into a star set, that’s probably okay.
Gary (49m 40s):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I’m really glad that the golf companies have started doing that, and it’s been really smart on their part from a business standpoint, right. Because
Dave (49m 47s):
Gets ’em in, you can,
Gary (49m 48s):
You can, yeah, you can go once you get into golf and you start at that point, you know, then maybe five, 10 years, you know, two or three years down the line, whatever it is, then maybe you’re buying that Callaway $600 driver. You know, so it’s, it’s obviously very smart on those companies part to give people an, you know, an opportunity to enter the, enter the market.
Dave (50m 5s):
Enter the market. Exactly. And I feel like that that’s something you are also doing very good at. Yeah. Right. Yeah. You’re, you’re, you’ve got this quality and like, like you said, the Callaway, I am sure this is probably a quality set. My guess is they’ll probably last a lifetime right. Sort of thing, so Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So there we go. We knocked out one of my, one of my tasks, so we got the golf clubs to take care of. The other random one was the guitar. So I definitely want to hit on that. Maybe just go to the music because you’ve, you know, we both kind of mess around you play it sounds like, but what’s your style? I always love to hear that. So we can get some music on Spotify as we head outta here. Do you have a style that you play or what do you, what do you listen to?
Gary (50m 40s):
Yeah, so I’m a big blues guy. I love blues. That’s 95% of what I play. I played in a couple little garage bands when I lived in Denver, which was a ton of fun. You know, I grew up on classic rock, that’s kind of always been my thing. But I really love playing blues. You know, buddy guy, Stevie Ray Vaughan. Oh yeah. All of that kind of stuff. Just a ton of fun for me. Even the, you know, led Zeppelin, I mean, they, they were basically started as a blues band, right? Yeah. They
Dave (51m 5s):
Were blues rolling stones,
Gary (51m 7s):
Rolling stones. Exactly. You know, just simple blues chord progressions. And I love doing that. And I love, I, what I do mostly is I’ll put on a jam track, you know, or a backing track and I’ll just sit there and noodle around to it and, and just, I, I can sit there and do that for hours. I’ve had this fascination with guitars. My, my grandfather and grandmother actually had a band. Oh wow. They would play like senior citizen dances in the little area. I grew up in Oklahoma.
Dave (51m 33s):
In Oklahoma, yeah.
Gary (51m 35s):
Yeah. And so, so I was kind of always around it then. And you know, I I kinda like, kinda blew it off until I got older, older and it kind of got into it. But yeah, I, I love guitars. I love, I think they’re works of art. I mean, I’ve literally got most of them hanging up on my wall in my office and just, you know, the, the different colors and the wood and, and all that stuff. Yeah. I, I, I almost do ’em as, as much of works of art as I do an instrument to play. Yeah.
Dave (51m 59s):
That’s so cool. Yeah, we had Ra B 80 on was, he was on in a recent episode and he was talking about, he was talking about the history of the fly fishing film tours, right. He’s there at the beginning, which is really interesting. He got into all this stuff on just the movies he’s making and it was a really cool episode. But also he talked about what he does on his kind of side, or I guess the, you know, the day is he, he gets wood from around the world for guitars. And these guitars are, and this wood is sourced naturally, but it’s sustainably. So, yeah. You know, the idea was is how do you, you know, could you get sustainable wood? And he basically went out and made a business around it. And so that, that’s really cool. And you, I imagine probably know a little about as a collector, the type of wood, like it sounds like, I think there’s a few types that are really common in guitars, right?
Dave (52m 44s):
But there’s some that are very exotic.
Gary (52m 46s):
Yeah, I mean, you can, you can get into some really exotic woods, particularly in acoustic guitars, you know, like KOA and Brazilian rosewood. That’s changed a lot now. You really, I mean there, there is still some Brazilian rosewood out there that’s, you can, they can no longer harvest it is my understanding. But there is still some people who have some of this wood stashed away that, you know, has been curing for decades that, you know, some people, some guitar builders can get their hands on it and build, you know, just unbelievable works of art with it. We, we actually had a customer like a couple weeks ago, he, he’s a custom guitar builder in upstate New York and builds the most beautiful guitars.
Gary (53m 26s):
And I’m, I feel bad I can’t, the name of his company’s slipping my mind now. But it was funny ’cause we were going back and forth, you know, he bought a fly rod and I was, I was looking at his website and he just did these most beautiful custom guitars that he builds. And it’s just, again, they’re just, they’re works of art. I mean, it’s there, it’s amazing when you look at some of that stuff.
Dave (53m 44s):
Yeah. I think that’s the beauty of some of this stuff. And rods are no different, right? Yeah. You find a beautiful rod and, and you kinda, you’re sitting there holding it and casting it all day and, you know what I mean? It’s not much different. I think it’s not, yeah. It’s all similar. Cool. Well this has been fun, Gary. I think, like we said, we’ll send everybody out to San Juan rod works.com if they have questions for you or want to connect and check out some of your lineup. And yeah, we’ll definitely be in touch because I think, you know, we’re obviously working together this year, gonna be doing some cool stuff, but I, I feel like getting out to your neck of the woods would be a big, a big thing to look at in the next year. So I’m gonna stay in touch with you on that. But yeah, thanks again for all your time today and look forward to everything we’re doing this year.
Gary (54m 22s):
Yeah, appreciate it. Thank you guys, Dave, and again, yeah, really looking forward to doing more stuff with you guys this year for sure.
Dave (54m 30s):
Okay, quick call to action. If you get a chance, check in with Gary right now. Go to San Juan rod works.com and find out what these things look like. Take a look, find out about their customer service. If you wanna get a local family run business. If you wanna get some action right now in a part of the world that we’re gonna be heading to check in with Gary right now. And if you haven’t yet, you can subscribe to this podcast and get the next episode delivered to your inbox. We’ve got the litur zone back, Phil roll is back next week. We’re gonna be jumping into it with Phil. That’s gonna be, as always great to get back into the Stillwater game. And, and that’s all I have for you today. Appreciate you for stopping in today. Hope you have a great morning, great afternoon, or a great evening, and we will see you on that next episode.
3 (55m 12s):
Thanks for listening to the Wet Fly, Swing fly fishing show. For notes and links from this episode, visit wet fly Swing dot com.
Conclusion with Gary Davis on San Juan Rodworks
Gary Davis’ perspective on fly rod design and customer service brings a fresh approach to the sport. From choosing the right rod for specific fishing techniques to practicing casting for just a few minutes each day, Gary’s insights can help improve your skills and make your fishing experience more enjoyable. Don’t forget to check out San Juan Rodworks for affordable, high-quality rods that could be your next go-to tool. Thanks for tuning in to this episode, and be sure to subscribe for more fly fishing tips and stories!
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