Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello. Welcome to the Slogans Podcast, where we love to talk quality and design. But most of all we love to hear the inspiring stories of the masters of these spaces. Join me, your host, Logan Ratcliffe, as we talk about Maine adventure business. And we explore with these creators the different aspects of quality and design and everything around them together. And we are here today with Jeff Davis. Thank you so much for coming, Jeff, really appreciate it. Founder of Maine Fly Company. And Jeff, I first saw you, I think on you had a thing came out on WCSH six right here locally in Maine about your story and I was like, no way somebody is making fly rods in Maine. I love fly fishing and so I was like an instant fan. But anyway, what else can you tell us for those who don't know you, what you do and maybe just some cool publications you've been in or something, what stands out most to know?
[00:00:56] Speaker B: It's becoming a more and more loaded question as we go right in the beginning, what do I do? Anything I can do to stay out of corporate America and feel good and calm at home? And since then, the company's morphed into so many things.
At our very core, we're a small batch fly rod company. We build fly rods that are as unique as the anglers that buy them. They're inspired by our trips and waterways and places we visit. And with more than 5000 waterways here in Maine, we're no soon at a loss of inspiration. But it's the very core of what we do.
It was a buck to mass production. It was looking at anglers, male, female of all ages nationally. And as a new angler myself, we all have these unique recipes and flies and ways of presenting and waters and fish we're after, but yet we're swinging these mass produced rods and the math just didn't add up to me. And so in an effort to balance myself in a new craft or industry, maybe I started building rods. It was a hobby and I didn't really care at the time if it was going to be a newfound hobby or a business. We'll just see how it goes and fortunately the latter of the two happened and I've now able to do this for a living, which is kind of the best of both worlds. Cool play with fly rods by day and fish them and explore the rivers by weekend in free time. So it's been a pretty awesome combo.
[00:02:31] Speaker A: I love it. So you make the small batch fly rods here in uh I know you've had quite a bit of press. Is there any favorite ones that stand out to you or anything or uh.
[00:02:43] Speaker B: You know, it's we've I don't put a ton of real estate on by all mean, I remember one know sitting on Fox Business News at 06:00 in the morning, watching the stock market report under my face. I said, man, this isn't right.
I wasn't expecting something like this. But it's more the local Downey's magazines and Maine magazine, the stuff you grow up on that's sitting on the tables of the doctor office, and you've been exposed to it your whole life. You never really envisioned this passion or this business that morphed out of loss and grieving and would become this thing that people wanted to write about. It's kind of a trip to watch, but I appreciate telling the story less, in a way, to say, oh, look at how far we've come, but hopefully more in a way to inspire folks that, sure, you're not trapped in anything if the corporate world and the hustle and bustle is not working for you. Here's a guy three months before having twins and sons, and it couldn't have been a worse time. But at some point, you got to just follow your gut and do what feels right. And sure, you sacrifice the money and the benefits and the vacations, but my quality of life has skyrocketed, and there's no way to quantify that.
[00:04:17] Speaker A: Great. Yeah. I want to get more into the origins of the story, and I know your father was a huge part of it, and I want to get into that. I would love to just which you'll fall right into that, I'm sure. But I just love to hear your story wherever you want to start as a kid or whatever it is. Just kind of Jeff's story and how you got to where you guess, you know, as the founder of the main fly company, I'd love to hear just kind of go as much as, you.
[00:04:49] Speaker B: Know I think the earlier version of me is not all that interesting or unusual. I'm a French Canadian kid, grew up with a hockey stick in Lewiston, Maine. And you didn't have to want to or not want to. You just played hockey. It's what you did. And I grew up in a house with three women, my mom and my two sisters and the younger brother, the kind of rowdy one of the crew.
So played some sports and did the mischief that Lewiston invokes and took a non traditional path. I think I was maybe a day out of high school going a little stir crazy at the house and skipped project graduation and dumped my hockey bag on the floor and filled it up with clothes and what. I thought was important. Threw it in the back of an old Toyota small body pickup truck that was at any .1 of the panels could have fell off and took off and lived on the beach in Florida for years and got into sales and business. And I just had a natural hustle at the time. One thing morphed to another, and you're in sales and sales management and business development and leading small companies and leading bigger companies, and there was always a rush in that early. But it was all about money, right?
Let me combat my upbringing and show everybody that this mischief from Lewiston can succeed. And you followed a path know, paper success or what I could show on the outside.
And it wasn't until much later and I'm sure we'll touch on it that I had some major awakening and realized there's just no value in that.
But all in all decent upbringing. My mom and I were tight.
[00:06:42] Speaker A: Tight.
[00:06:43] Speaker B: I had an uncle who was a tremendous craftsman and sailor and my aunt who was a missionary and would come home from the jungles and these random places around the world and she was my World Cup buddy for soccer and she was a huge inspiration to me in a million ways.
[00:06:59] Speaker A: How so?
[00:07:00] Speaker B: Oh, jeez. I mean she's an angel.
You look at these missionaries people don't these days and I'm not making any stance on any religion whatsoever.
[00:07:13] Speaker A: Well, I'm a big man of faith is why.
[00:07:15] Speaker B: Yeah, well, you know, I grew up with a house full of St. Joe's nuns across the street. And whenever my mom would go on vacation and leave me to the house, they'd come over and they'd all sit on the front porch and pray for me and Jeff be careful while she's gone and we're watching. And so I grew up in that kind of community because my aunt was a nun of St. Joseph's.
But she'd come home and she really valued if you were really doing well and thriving, it was a quick hello. If you were struggling and needed the help, she could read it and she'd give you the time and the energy and the conversations and things like nobody really could.
[00:07:56] Speaker A: I need to be better at that school.
[00:07:58] Speaker B: I mean an angel.
[00:07:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:00] Speaker B: And I remember one year as a young kid and I was having this kind of odd summer and she talked me into somehow entering my name in this checker tournament as a kid. It was the funniest thing. And we're in the small elementary and she sat with me through this whole thing and it was just one of these things we did one on one. And I'll tell you, I dominated in that thing. And it was just this really special experience from this lady who was a life teacher and an educator and the calm and all the things she provided. I have a million small antidotes like that. She spent a lot of time in the jungles in Brazil and would bring me know this lady who made no money. I had the same four outfits. She rotated, slept on COTS and she'd always pony up this Brazilian soccer jersey when she'd come home. And it was this moment. I've kept most of them to this day.
[00:08:51] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:08:51] Speaker B: But anyway a very inspirational person on living well and living for others.
So I had a really good balance.
[00:09:01] Speaker A: Of adults growing up and your uncle you said was a craftsman. That just perked my interest.
[00:09:06] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:07] Speaker A: I had heard another podcast where we'll talk more about it, but you're really into obviously you make fly rods and you learn how to do that, but I wonder if there's probably some influence. Maybe.
[00:09:21] Speaker B: There's no doubt.
[00:09:22] Speaker A: Yeah, right. I'm not trying to convince you, but I'd love to hear about him. What did he like to make?
[00:09:28] Speaker B: So it turns out my grandfather and his father, I mean, a lot of my Canadian roots, they're all carpenters. And so when you get into the religious part of it, joseph St. Joseph, my uncle, was an interesting cat, no matter where you found him. Within a town or two of where we lived, he was living in this old chicken coop that was being ripped down and give it to him eight months later, and it's these massive old mill as you see everywhere today, but it wasn't present back in that day.
[00:09:56] Speaker A: Right.
[00:09:56] Speaker B: He's got these condos in it and it's just amazing architecture and cool. Meanwhile, you'll see him at a table making this ten foot by ten foot stained glass mural that he's going to hang, and then he's overdoing refrigeration and building this hot tub in the base. He always had his hands in something.
[00:10:15] Speaker A: Man, those guys are cool.
[00:10:16] Speaker B: He was a sailor. He built sail boats.
He just always had something that was jaw droppingly incredible to watch.
So I think that's where some of those roots come from for me, for sure.
[00:10:28] Speaker A: Yeah. So out of the you said you got into sales and some professional and leading small companies. So what are your some of your during that time, corporate and all chasing money? What are your favorite moments or at least from what stands out? What parts did you like or what was your favorite place that you worked with?
There must have been some good things and learned a few things in there.
[00:10:54] Speaker B: I think so. And that whole part of my life was all for my dad. My dad was this played safe, the corporate man. I remember young saying, I'm going to be an artist. You can't be an artist, Jeff. You're not going to make any money.
So there was that safe path and that was the sales and business side. So through it in the thick of know, I didn't realize how polar opposite I was from the life I was living, but at the same time, I had a rush going into some of these big places in short time outselling, and I was very competitive.
So with that comes a lot of travels and new opportunities and your first business trips and your awards as salespeople, they're spoiled rotten. I mean, you're making people money, so they make sure you're making money. And as a young guy from a small French Canadian town in LewisT, Maine. In Maine. And I'm being flown all over the country and treated in first class I mean, there was some pretty cool moments and some great opportunities through all.
[00:11:58] Speaker A: You.
[00:11:58] Speaker B: Know, I reflect on it now and I don't regret a ton of it, but I'm sure glad I landed where I have.
[00:12:06] Speaker A: What do you think your biggest skills out of all that that you have now to start a business as an entrepreneur?
[00:12:14] Speaker B: I think that for a lot of people who craft or build or do things from the heart or passion or they're inspired by something, what you learn and what you see and the companies you've seen crash and starting, people are chasing money.
Let me just make as much as I can. And I'm not I mean, look, the world is abundant. People are making money everywhere, right? The fulfillment is not necessarily there. And I've got direct family members that support that.
I think what I learned in a lot of that is the people that really lived the passions. And as I dipped in and out of the hospitality world and restaurants and leading and running restaurants and seeing the chef, Owen passionate, the place reflected of him. It felt them. You tasted him in the food. It was just all about the food and passion similar to what the breweries later morphed into and these furniture makers and things you see.
So what you learn is how to make money and then how to really fulfill a passion and what's more important, right?
And then you later begin to quantify what's more important to me and which do I choose? You hope for both, right? But as any startup and any small business owner knows, you don't get both for a little while.
[00:13:38] Speaker A: Yeah, it's hard for sure. I was riffing on kind of single podcast before this and yeah, the start is like just trying to make money. That's what it was for me. And actually as I've been interviewing people, it's like you have this romantic I mean, they're all good stories, but initially I was like, well, I got to make money somehow. And then it's like getting to the passion. I mean, the passion is there too, but yeah, I hear what you're saying.
[00:14:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:12] Speaker A: So, yeah, that goes into Main fly. So how did Mainfly become to me.
[00:14:21] Speaker B: I was what are we now, 70 years, maybe six years or so.
Starting to feel my age. I was a soccer guy and played non traditional all through adulting and the body got a little more creaky and the running started hurting a little bit.
I was going through a transformational phase, or at least what's next for me as far as where I belonged in the world of sporting and outdoor recreation and a lot of this. Around that same time, I was working in an organization that I envisioned walking in and butterflies and rainbows were going to be everywhere and it was just this beautiful environment. It was one of the nastiest, most cutthroat corporate environments I've ever worked in, and it was essentially the start of the nail in the coffin.
I was in a challenging marriage at the time. I was anticipating young boys, twins, which we had recently learned.
My mom sort of had just sort of begun early signs of dementia.
And so, needless to say, I find myself early 40s. Like, nothing's really stable right now.
Out of the blue, I get a call that my dad went in for something very routine in the hospital and passed away.
[00:15:44] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:15:45] Speaker B: This was two or three months before my kids were born.
[00:15:48] Speaker A: Sorry.
[00:15:50] Speaker B: So as the only son and the only one capable at the time, I find myself immediately stopping what I'm doing and jumping on a plane and getting out to Chicago and sorting my affairs. What are we going to do with him? Where is he going? Does he have a will? Does he have anything?
There was nothing but a horde, a house full of stuff.
His partner, who's a wonderful lady who lives out there, very lost and mourning.
I was in pain. I was confused. I remember just talking to my dad and recently taking him back to Rocky Mountain, North Carolina. He couldn't travel. He couldn't do much. He wasn't well. But he was nowhere near passing.
[00:16:35] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:16:35] Speaker B: And anyway, I managed to break him out of his comfort zone, put him on a plane. So I'm bringing you back to your homestead. We're going to go see your mom's gravesite, your grandma, the house you grew up in. I want to learn these things before you get too old. And ironically, that was just a few months prior.
[00:16:48] Speaker A: Wow, good thing you did it.
[00:16:50] Speaker B: So whatever happens and whatever you believe in or don't, to that point, I certainly had a moment. And in being at his home, it was something telling me, take the tools, take this, take this. And all of a sudden, I trip on all his fly gear in the basement, and I'm like, Whoa, what is all this stuff? And I start putting I had never fly fished in my mean, we're talking eight, nine years ago, right? Seven years ago, eight years ago. And I find the waiters and all these things. And so I'm like, all right, I'm curious, but I don't have a lot of time for this. Let me throw it in. And I arrive back in Maine. I said, look, I'm too lost. I'm not going to work right now. I'm going to take some time off. Decided to build this mini barn shed thing in the backyard. And it was important to me that I used only his tools, nails, screws. This was dedicated to dad, and I was going to sit out there, and I was going to heal.
[00:17:40] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:17:42] Speaker B: One of the coolest two weeks of my life. I mean, bucks are walking in the yard one day, I look on my road, and this van goes by, and it says Davis on the side of it. I've never even heard of it. What is this business?
I mean, things I've never seen before. And a few things became very apparent.
I wasn't going back to a corporate life. I was staying outside. And that's where I wanted to be.
And this idea of working with my hands, which I've done part time as my way to calm and feel good through my whole existence, was feeling really natural and really good. And around that same time, ironically, I decided to put that first fly rod together. And my brother in law at the time, I fly fish. Let's go. And I say, no idea what the hell I'm doing. Well, I'll show you. And we start going. One day I'm sitting on the room like this rod's ugly. How are they made? And I start popping a guide off and I said, that's what it is. That's it. These don't look that great. So me and Toby bought some rod building kits and just started playing. It was just going to be something in tribute to dad. Yeah, well, I built a couple rods and 5 hours has passed.
I'm as calm as can be. Yeah, I feel pretty amazing. I'm going to build another one and another one and another one.
And these things started happening. And then I started making them available to friends. And with my business background, I said, let's brand this thing. It's a hobby. Let's have some fun. This is all about family. This is all about this lost art, little market research. One thing leads to another, the website launches. And we said it was just a hobby. It was something small. It was a dedication to fly fishing. And dad, before you knew it, people are calling. Can we hear your story? Why?
You've heard this before? Yeah, I heard you on this small podcast and one thing just kind of led to the other.
And here we are five years later.
We haven't made it. I tell the crew every day we haven't made it, right.
We're working harder today than we did five years ago to make sure this goes.
But the idea behind this to me was that I found this great way to say, look, these new children I'm bringing the world, I don't want them to see me pass.
And just remember all the things I wished I had done, the places I wished I had gone. Dad was notorious. I wish I was in Maine and I wish I was salmon fishing and I wish I was and that's all I heard for a decade or longer.
And then to get out and kind of sort the affairs and have them not be where they needed to be. And we never really had that chance to connect and be outside. And frankly, dad and I missed each other a million times in growing up because he's in Chicago or he's in New York or he's in I said, look, if you can't learn that lesson this way, when will you and my kids are not going to go through that? My kids are going to be first, and I'm not going to have a zoom meeting that I can't get out of on my kid's first day of coming home on the bus after school to tell me how school was family there just became nothing more important to me.
So one of the boys got another family name, the other one got another family name.
Now I have three sons, and for three years, main Fly company was a basement company. So their first walk, their first everything, it was the next floor down. And as soon as I heard something that was different, I was right there for them. And that hasn't changed.
Even in running a company today, there's two days a week that I am home. I want to be sure I'm there when they get off the bus, and I spend those times with them.
Our philosophy at work is family fishing work.
[00:21:51] Speaker A: Family fishing work.
[00:21:52] Speaker B: That's what we live by.
[00:21:54] Speaker A: I love it. That's fantastic. So your dad passes, you take some time, you coming to the realization, and, hey, we'll put a brand on this thing. This is a tribute to dad, and this is just generally something that we're passionate about.
So the brand kind of launches. That's a website. So what does that look like? Is that a website? And is it just you making rods?
[00:22:23] Speaker B: It's it March 2019, six months after we're branding. We're building some logos, and we're just having some fun with it. It's very small. It's just me. It's me in the basement.
[00:22:35] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:22:36] Speaker B: But through all this, I'm becoming an angler. I'm becoming an independent angler.
I couldn't catch anything for the life of me. I love when people come in the shop so I can't catch anything good. Welcome.
[00:22:49] Speaker A: You were a professional rod maker before you were a good fisherman.
[00:22:51] Speaker B: Oh, my God. And I told people, look, it took years before I could go hunt and catch fish on my own.
That's not why I chose fly fishing.
[00:23:01] Speaker A: Right.
[00:23:02] Speaker B: I come from anxious world that I would come home so jacked up after a day in corporate that I couldn't connect with anybody as an introvert. I needed 12 hours of recouping before I could even make it through another day.
[00:23:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:15] Speaker B: Next thing you know, I'm sitting in the middle of a river. All I can hear is the water running past my legs. I can't hear my phone.
[00:23:21] Speaker A: Nothing better.
[00:23:22] Speaker B: I'm coming off the water 5 hours later. And whether it's church for you, whether it's whatever it is that makes you feel as clean and calm as possible, is how I felt. And then building rods made me feel that way. And the whole thing, it was a movement.
It was a spiritual awakening that I can only hope people will experience.
And so, yeah, this was all going on, and it just felt really good. I was still employed around the time I launched the site, but the site was a product of my years of being in business development and a consultant, and I just wanted to put a brand around this thing because it's a hobby, and it was enjoyable. So I launched the website. Yeah. March 2019.
I remember the second the site went live, and we had a shopify platform. And so in shopify, you get the little dollar ching every time you get a sale, and my phone starts, ching, ching, ching. And I'm on the phone with shopify support, literally at the moment it launches. And are those all sales? I said, I have no idea what's going on. Is that what that noise is? She's like, that's absolutely what that noise is. And I had done some teasers and some things leading up to it, but out of the gate, we just got some really great support.
And as a guy who didn't want to fall victim to anything seasonal, I didn't really focus on a local presence. It was more about representing a state that I love in a newly found craft that I was obsessed with, on a sport that I was obsessed with. That all was geared around family and dad and kids.
The branding and everything that came around. It was just so natural.
What does it look like? It's heritage, it's vintage, it's family, it's history, it's disconnecting, it's rustic.
[00:25:26] Speaker A: It's everything yeah. That you naturally want to be, which is so cool. I mean, I'm passionate about finding learning how people tick and helping them find their passions kind of that's an indicator you talked about.
I made a fly rod, and 5 hours went by, and I didn't even know it. Like, boom. That's your sweet spot anytime, they say whenever time just flew by, you're doing what you should be. Kind of what you're made to do. Let's say that's. Right. And that's so neat. So, yeah, you launched the company. The company has launched, got the brand, everything's kaching.
And so small batches. What was a small batch then? What's a small batch now?
Kind of take me through the progression of mainfly a little bit. Yeah.
[00:26:15] Speaker B: Small batch. To me.
There was so many correlations to me in the very beginning. And I've always been a local brewery fan and watching the likes of the Allagashes and some really inspirational success stories coming out of Maine. And I always got a kick out of the tasting rooms and the idea of you come in and you'll go in for the same one a week later and I'm sorry, there was just a little batch of them. They're gone. And it just made you want them.
[00:26:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:42] Speaker B: And you're like, well, how can you do that? Well, they were just curious one day, and they made this batch, and it was delicious. So we small batch. I like it. I don't want to be married and stuck to a production of 10,000 of anything at any time. If we get sick of making the rod, we're going to stop making it. If we hit a new trip and something new inspires us, we're going to focus on that. But it keeps the quantities of the rods at a reasonable rate. I mean, they've scaled over time, but also to the idea that you're not going to look down the Connecticut River if you're traveling, or the Kennebeck in Maine and see 15 of the same fly rods like you do today. On mass production, anglers are unique and they should have a rod that reflects them in that way. And so the idea of small batch was, again, everything anti mass production and anti large business incorporation, where it's about 10,000, 10,0000 the right margins. And it's not what we do, why we build, and it's not what inspires us.
[00:27:44] Speaker A: Right. So what is like a batch today generally kind of run what are they, 50 rods?
[00:27:54] Speaker B: It can range. Recently, the industry all went fast with fly rods. They wanted stiffer faster, so we went opposite and we brought back the art of bamboo.
[00:28:04] Speaker A: Nice.
[00:28:04] Speaker B: And we only put out twelve of them. I think we did a little launch. Let's see what happens. We teased them a little bit. I'll be damned if they didn't sell out in a month.
But then we have stuff like the Little Rivers, the seven, nine, three weights that we do that have been our national bestseller, and they're always in production.
We're pumping out some of those almost every week. And it's tough to quantify them in forms of a batch because every builder is doing five of them a week.
[00:28:34] Speaker A: Well, in addition to that, it's unique to you. Totally.
[00:28:37] Speaker B: And so now we'll go astray and we'll take a common batch rod and change the colors on it, or configuration, or make a wood grip for it, or do something different and launch them in a limited form for a short time.
This fall, we're taking our Roach River rod and we're doing a cast and blast version and a Hunter orange to honor the old tradition in Maine of cast and blast weekend at the end of September.
So things like the Dead, the Kennebec, the Little Rivers, we're hundreds, if not pushing thousands of those.
[00:29:12] Speaker A: Those are all fly rod styles for anybody.
[00:29:15] Speaker B: For the non fly? Yeah, totally. Those are all batches waterways here in Maine, but as a result, inspired fly rods.
[00:29:24] Speaker A: Right.
[00:29:25] Speaker B: And so they're changing, and sometimes it's by market demand. Sometimes. I've got one of my lead builders who she's got three or four rods she just loves making and she'll pump them out all day long smiling.
And then the custom things become a very unique part of our business, too.
[00:29:43] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:29:45] Speaker B: The idea for me is we have a finite number of SKUs, sort of like those old restaurants used to. Go into that had five pages. Now you go in and look, you've got five entrees, you've got five apps and a couple of shareables. Those are your choices.
[00:29:58] Speaker A: And then you got your specials.
[00:29:59] Speaker B: And then you've got your specials. Yeah, that's what our menu looks like at any given time.
[00:30:03] Speaker A: Yeah, no, that's great. I love it. I would like to get to somewhat of a model like that. I was always just like, okay, I need a new product design, and this is massive because we've got to make it, stock it, guess how many we're going to sell, and we got to stock it for the year.
That's, like, impossible. Yeah. And then I'm like, buying this much rope, buying this much stuff, and then when you're trying to do something cool, new, and funky, well, that's great. And a few people like it, and it gets people's attention, but that doesn't mean they want to buy what they're comfortable with. They like it. So the small batches are something really neat, I think, and I love uniqueness. So I love the idea. So talking about those fly rollouts, so before I called you, I think I told you this, but my dad's an avid fly fisherman. I love fly fishing. It's just with the small family and this business still growing, it and just everything else going on, it's only, like, so much time. Right. So I got to pick the first kind of passion first for my time to use over the year kind of thing. But anyway, so I called my dad up, and I was like, hey, does this my guy make good stuff or what? We're doing quality. I can't be having somebody on here is not making quality. So he said, yeah, you're making great stuff. And he said his prices are really affordable, and so he's like, it's a breath of fresh air. So he really likes your you know, he's used to having orbis and whatever, so I think he's got three or four years know, how are you able to do that? Make these really cool, unique rods and here in Maine, and just make them so people can get that. I assume that was intentional from the.
[00:31:58] Speaker B: Know, like, a lot of people, especially in the Northeast, I mean, anywhere, frankly, but certainly around the I mean, there's a lot of gear junkies up here, and I was always one of my, you know, my wife know, how many more coats do you need? And boots and shoes.
Look what I sacrifice and everything else. I like to have some fresh gear, but I'm never the guy who was buying the $2,000 skis, and I'm a working guy.
I want the coolest stuff I can find in a range that I can afford.
If Main Fly Company is a reflection of me, then that's what the prices and the product should look like. I mean, the best bang for your buck for a handcrafted rod. I'd put them up against anybody. And I say it all the time nationally, internationally, we don't boast of technology. We're not sitting around in a lab of scientists generating the newest, strongest form of carbon fiber.
But what we are doing is we're following those trends. We know what those are, right? We're designing those tapers. We're designing those guide configurations on the rods. We're coloring them in ways that are interesting and kind of bucking mass production.
But because I formed this sort of hybrid model, we're not all in. We don't have the big factory where we're dealing with raw carbon, spinning these things out into a millimeter tapers on the top to quarter of an inch in the bottom in long steel. Mandrels, we're sourcing those and we're building them and crafting them and designing a lot of the small and the accessory pieces right in the shop.
That helps us to keep the prices at a reasonable price. And also, frankly, for a guy who had no fly IQ entering this multimillion dollar industry, I was in no place to walk in to this market and say, hey, just trust me because you need to trust me. Here's $1,000 rod. Right. So we had some great entry prices. I mean, look, we're going to make them really nearly nonprofitable for you. Try them, test them, kick the tires, see if you like us. And we've slowly been able to grow and increase from there, but I'm always going to keep that range from that mid, low level fly rod price to that mid high. Let's stay in that mid market.
[00:34:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:31] Speaker B: Uppers and lowers are dominated, and I don't want to be in either of those.
[00:34:36] Speaker A: Sure. So tell me how you learn, because you started making them yourself and then, of course, training, I assume, those who are there. So you're expert fly rod maker. It's probably a better term than that.
So how did you learn how to do that? And I heard you also talk people kind of normally do it this way. Well, we do it this way. So that's unique to what you guys are doing, which is what's really neat.
[00:35:04] Speaker B: Yeah. Look, let's go back 2018, right? Like, what rods was I designing? Nothing. I was calling blank manufacturers all around the world, and they all had minimum orders of 1000. I only need five. And so at that point, I'm kind of taking anything people are willing to give us. And so the quality of those components and blanks and the learning curve on carbon compositions and tapers is long.
Every angler wants to claim they've got that, but that's a lot of trial and error and a lot of wasted money.
But beyond all that, my first five or six rods is a book from Amazon. I don't remember the book, but it's still in the shop. And I share it with people all the and and then there was a bunch of YouTube videos, and so I'd post up my small surface pro on my small building table that was probably half of the depth of this table and maybe a foot shorter. And that table was responsible for probably the first 40 or 50 rods that came out of Main Fly Company trial and error. I mean, sort of like fly tires with their whip finish or a woodworker in his first routing.
It's messy, and every time it's a little better. You're pretty damn proud of yourself until you just get to the point that you look at it and I can't see any flaws.
The single coat of high build that a lot of the mass production will do. It makes sense, right? They're on production lines, and people have 20 seconds to hit each guide with this thick, thick, dense epoxy. So it gets one big coat so we can get them boxing out.
I've chosen to do the exact opposite of that. I think from a quality perspective, we want these really thin viscosities and multiple coats, and it's more time spinning, but it's more hands on the rod.
There's some longer lasting things and frankly, some stronger visual effects that come out of the rods.
It wasn't long ago I was wood turning and got into wood turning as a result of all this, which I also love to do.
[00:37:10] Speaker A: Yeah, I'd love to hear more about that.
[00:37:13] Speaker B: But I had turned this wooden handle, and so I'm going to put it on a ply rod. And somebody's like, you can't do that. Nobody wants a wooden handle on a fly rod. I said, well, you just made me want to do it.
[00:37:23] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:37:24] Speaker B: So we found this great burlwood and made these grips and matched the spacers on the reel seat, which is the part that the reel goes into in the fly rod. And it's turned out to be one of our national bestsellers. It's a tribute to the rangeley region of western Maine, the McGalloway River, which we currently had a rod out. And then I retracted that rod, brought it back in this limited edition form with these wooden grips where the cork belongs and sort of all these fixins. And it became this ultimate eye candy to anglers or craftsmen anywhere, frankly. And that was inspiring to say, look, Jeff, follow your gut. These weird ideas you come up, then they may not be that strange, right? And they're old traditions that existed. I mean, think about it. Late 18 hundreds. Was there a lot of cork trees in Maine? I mean, no. You were whittling it out of wood, putting on the end of a stick, getting some line of some kind, and you were fishing, hoping for the best.
[00:38:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:18] Speaker B: So we're bringing back some of those old pieces and parts to the heritage of fly fishing, but in a little bit of more of a modern way that we can accomplish right in our small shop in Yarmouth, Maine.
[00:38:32] Speaker A: So you learn how to make them and found things that you like better than how other people are doing them. And kind of got so good that you kind of started doing your own thing. I mean, I think that's a progression, right, with anything like, okay, now I know how to make a rod. And I was like, wow, I can start kind of and the purposes of all of it and the intentionality and then you start going fishing. Well, I could kind of do this with it, and I could kind of do that with it. So that's cool that you went by that point. Now you're really making not that they weren't special before, but that you're at that point. That's inspiring to me. I haven't really made anything like that.
[00:39:11] Speaker B: We hope they just keep getting better, and they seem to with each year.
[00:39:14] Speaker A: Well, and the more you fish, I'm sure the more you fish, you'll have that feel just like while you're out there, that's a lot of time. And for any of us, best ideas are when you're at most peace, like.
[00:39:25] Speaker B: They just all will come up for sure. And many trips we go on for inspiration come up short. But it's also why when I moved us from my basement to this new location we've got in Yarmouth, we're right on the river. So we're our own worst critics. We take our creations right outside the shop and we fish them right there in the river all year long. And we name all our prototypes. Sometimes they go through three, four, five prototypes before the final is done. Sometimes it's one and done, but there's a lot of things that go into it that the general consumer buying a fly fishing rod shouldn't have to factor in.
[00:39:59] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:39:59] Speaker B: It should just know it's in place and it's going to fish and cast the way it's supposed to.
[00:40:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
So what does that process look like? Like, okay, you're out fishing and you just get an idea for a new fly rod. Something new about it. So what's next?
[00:40:16] Speaker B: It looks all kinds of weird. I mean, it was a couple of years ago, we're up in the fall, which know, like living in a postcard here in New England.
We're up on the river called the Roach River by Moosehead Lake here. And there was this one small stretch of river we were on and we were having just the greatest day. And I was like, man, if this fly rod was just about six inches longer, I would really hit this pocket that these great big state fish landlocked salmon are sitting all stacked up. And at the same time there's this great bridge. When you enter this small town of Maine called Cacajo where it says population, not many, that's what's on the side. There's this little bridge there with a dam, and it says fly fishing only. And there was some rust kind of coming off it. So I grabbed a piece of the rust and a handful of the leaves from the foliage and stuffed them in. My waiters sort of forgot about them until I got back to the shop and laid them all out. And I said, you know what? This trip means so much to me every year, and the quality of fishing is so significant.
I'm making a rod. And I said, we talked about this rod being a little longer. So it's a nine foot, six inch rod, which is rare. Most of them are 9ft or 10ft the color of the blank. The rod itself was the rust color from the bridge. And then all the threads that we used to wrap on the guides throughout were all leaves from the fall foliage. And so this rod is a reflection of fall fishing chasing salmon. And because of its really superior quality, it's the only rod we ever made where the hardware down in the reel seat is all nickel silver instead of aluminum.
And so to a non fly fisherman, trivial data.
[00:41:55] Speaker A: Right?
[00:41:57] Speaker B: But when you can theme these small fixins that really can make a rod from these incredibly beautiful spots that are within hours of us, the inspirations are just endless and natural, and they just come or they don't. The roach river is a great example. It just was such a natural, easy design, and it's probably one of my favorite rods we've ever made.
[00:42:24] Speaker A: That's so cool. I can relate to it so much because I love fishing and being outdoors. But as we create products, my favorite thing is just walking around nature and like yellow lichen on a rock.
That's really cool. Now it's really hard.
Pretty much impossible. We can never recreate creation. That's the ultimate for us, especially with the materials we use. It's really hard to totally replicate those things, but we do the best we can. And I would love to get into telling more of a story behind it. We might get, like, jay Peterman on seinfeld, right.
Which is amazing, but no, it's so true. It means a lot. I mean, it would especially mean one of our taglines was bring home a piece of place. Right.
So that's like the story. People love Maine. They want to bring that home with them or some memory. But yeah, having that in your hand while you're right there doing that fishing, that would be really cool and specific.
[00:43:25] Speaker B: It's inspiring.
[00:43:26] Speaker A: Yeah, it is. I love it.
What's new and exciting at main fly company? What else can you tell me? What's going on?
[00:43:37] Speaker B: We're excited.
I don't necessarily tackle each year new year as how do we make more?
How do we continue to balance out this really hedonic approach that I've taken to this from inception?
And what's missing? I think one of the greatest components. I mean, there's certainly fly rod specifics that are missing from our arsenal that we're building for next year, which soon to come, but really focusing a lot on the environmental piece for 2024. We've just launched a recycled waiter program.
So what we're doing is we've kind of sought this really soft campaign and we're seeking some seed money now to kind of help fund it a little bit greater, but basically to keep all these waiters that anglers wear, right. For those listening, don't know Waiters, the neoprene waterproof pants outfit that keeps us in the rivers and dry.
Most of them are made out of Gore Tex and various plastics. And it was about a year and a half or so ago I was at the shop and I was just throwing out our normal for the day and I see two or three pairs of waiters sitting in the trash in the dumpster. Got me thinking, what are these things made out of? What's going to happen once they hit the landfills? These things don't decompose for 5000, sometimes longer years. Goretex is bulletproof, right?
[00:45:00] Speaker A: That's the idea.
[00:45:02] Speaker B: That's exactly the idea. Which you don't think about until it's just in a pair of pants.
So we've started a recycled waiter program and we're collecting we just got a huge box from the south of them and most of the soft goods that we're buying from other manufacturers. Now we're going to produce those soft goods here in Maine with the likes of the recycled waiters from anglers from all over the country.
[00:45:22] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:45:23] Speaker B: We're working on a new plant based epoxy that we're going to start using the rods, which will be the only ones globally that are using it in their fly rods. And we just started sourcing a new form of cork that's coming out of these Ecuadorian forests where they're not harvesting all the corks in the trees, they're just literally taking the barks and allowing them to replenish themselves, which are really supporting CO2, reducing those emissions and the replenishments and the restoration. So there's a real green factor. And as a result of these corks growing back the way they are, the cork quality is superior to what we were using and we're really excited to get those in all of our rods for the year ahead.
And the team is slowly growing and the trips are slowly expanding and the retail offerings and we just started a little fly bar in the shop so we can support local fly tires and people that we want to support who'd love to be able to make their passion a career or at least a side business.
And we want to sell their stuff in our shop.
And then recently I had the great pleasure of promoting to our first manager ever in the organization, aside from me.
[00:46:35] Speaker A: Yeah, cool.
[00:46:35] Speaker B: This young woman who is now our lead builder, we call them Rod Smith's in our shop. Just turned 25 today, actually to be second in command for Maine Fly Company and continue to inspire women, kids, youth.
It's so often you hear of fly fishing and people of my generation and their time fly fishing with their dad and their grandfather. But it's seldom you're hearing the young woman talking about the trip she took with her mom or her aunt.
[00:47:03] Speaker A: Right.
[00:47:04] Speaker B: And we want to really inspire that and continue to grow that because I'll tell you, she's dangerous with a fly rod.
[00:47:11] Speaker A: Sure. Very good angler and attention to detail.
[00:47:13] Speaker B: She's so much fun to fish with. And women in the sport are certainly growing, but it's no mystery it's been a male dominated sport except from inception, which the first registered main guide was a lady by the name of Cornelius Crosby.
[00:47:27] Speaker A: Fly.
[00:47:28] Speaker B: Rod Crosby. And so it started that way, then it became this male dominated show which we've been bucking ever since we've started this.
It's a lot of that hedonic continue to share the culture of this non elitist group of people who just love the outdoors, love creating, and that's a lot of what we're looking towards for.
[00:47:49] Speaker A: 2024 I do think I've seen because I'm in the hunting world probably a little bit more. I'm part of a team that was making products and doing other things, but I feel like they are seeing that and seeing the younger generation. It's not especially fly fishing early 19 hundreds or more of a gentleman sport. Right, I know hunting.
The guys would come up, hire the guide, and the guides would shoot all the animals for them and then they'd go home and say, hey, look what I did. Yeah, that was the most elitist part of it, but yeah, there's more. Everybody seem to be getting younger guys or seeing just the fake chaos and seeing all what's not there. The impurities of just like being on the computer all day and just playing video or just doing everything everybody tells them to do all the time and do no, this feels good and this is pure.
[00:48:49] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. And everybody we've acquired in the organization came from professional backgrounds or we're heading to med school and just realized their true introversion, what they really connected with.
And fortunately for some of these young folks working for me, their light bulb went off 20 years before mine did. And good on them. I think that's incredible.
[00:49:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:49:17] Speaker B: It's not a hobby, it's a lifestyle, it's a calming that very few things can bring.
And if we can inspire more people, which I think, and I've said it a million times, I think the pandemic had a million silver linings for folks. And when they sent everybody home to Zoom and companies realized people didn't need to be there and then people started leaving those companies to continue to pursue these hobbies and things that they got involved in, there was a real connection and a reconnection and a resurgence of small business and taking a chance.
I just love that we get a chance to inspire people in that way.
And I know young Izzy is going to do just that for us.
[00:50:05] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree.
I can't believe how many makers do you have making rods?
[00:50:13] Speaker B: We're currently at six that are making rods.
[00:50:16] Speaker A: That's amazing.
[00:50:16] Speaker B: Building rods. Okay. And then everything else we've got is a lot of people that have just been with us from the very beginning, or these great photographers and videographers and guides and this local machine shop we turn to.
[00:50:33] Speaker A: It's all family and you need them all. But to find six people to make fly rods where you're doing it and have them like you said, it's a lifestyle.
I just feel like that's inspiring. I mean, that's really hard. As we thinking about making products, especially on the coast of Maine, and the further south and west you get, the harder it is.
So you must be doing something. I feel like that it's got to be know and your passion coming out and championing the thing and then know them finding like, that's theirs.
That is that key. Yeah.
[00:51:09] Speaker B: I don't know what the key is. I mean, we've had turnover, like everybody. And people come in because fly fishing is sexy, and they get these great building stations that are in front of a window overlooking a river, watching people fish. We open the window, all we can hear is the river pouring through the shop all day.
But then a month later, it's work. We are building stuff. And so the only secret sauce that we're slowly dialing in is that it's just not that traditional. Let's run an ad and let's have interviews.
People naturally, on occasion, gravitate into the shop and they're inspired or there's something that spoke to them in some unique way. And this young guy I just brought on, his name is Garland. He's on his third week with us, and he walked in off the street. We connected in a way that was very rare. I didn't necessarily have the right opportunity at the time, but I created one for him because when those people come.
[00:52:08] Speaker A: Around, right, you take them, find something.
[00:52:12] Speaker B: They give you goosebumps. Like, these are just the people that inspire you. You bring them and you share that experience with them. Those are the people you want to have in your organization.
[00:52:24] Speaker A: Yeah, that's great. That's cool. Yeah.
You couldn't say it better. I got to do that.
Well, I have a great team. I'm very thankful for our team.
I wouldn't say a rigorous interviewing, but finding the right people, you listen to all these. So I was like, start a business. I don't know what to do. So I listened to everything I can to learn how to run a business. And the first thing people worst mistake, a lot of people do is they just hire way too quickly and they don't find the right fit. We talk with people a lot and they're good with our core values, but yeah, finding somebody who's passionate almost every.
[00:53:03] Speaker B: Time I've hired just to hire no longer with the organization.
[00:53:07] Speaker A: Right.
[00:53:07] Speaker B: And it's different. Right. I mean, people, businesses, we all need people in some way, whether we want that or not.
But when something comes from death and birth and resurgence and there's that level of inspiration, the only people that fit are the people that feel like, you know, this young Garland just came in yesterday and he said, can I come in on my day off?
I wake up and I just want to be here all the time. Wow, those are the people you want.
[00:53:43] Speaker A: That's exciting. Well, good for him.
[00:53:46] Speaker B: I feel like that every day.
[00:53:48] Speaker A: Right. Not many people say that, especially I hate to say it, but the younger generation but also there seems to be catching on a little bit about finding the true passions and not just going the way of the corporate world.
[00:54:03] Speaker B: Nice to see.
[00:54:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
So, Jeff, what does quality mean to you?
[00:54:11] Speaker B: You know, it's a saying, so if you ask anybody who works in the shop, they'll say, oh, yeah. He always says, quality over quantity.
I'd rather see us get five rods really? Right, than 20 done.
It's what we are. I mean, as a small batch fly rod company, part of the main made organization and part of Maine Outdoor Brands, which is such a humbling group to be part of, there's so many inspirational people there. The bar is very high for what comes out of New England. The bar is very high for what comes out of Maine. Maine was known all over the world as the most talented and greatest Maine guides that ever existed. The stuff that should be coming out of Maine that has not in this industry should reflect that craftsmanship, that old French Canadian craftsmanship know, not quite as superior as the Amish who are still doing it today and are inspirational in themselves.
But quality, something that's going to last, something that aesthetically is going to make you giddy if it's going to help you get you out on the water five more times a year because you love your fly rod, then we've done our job.
[00:55:34] Speaker A: That's a great way to put it.
[00:55:37] Speaker B: Quality is not necessarily having the finest and most expensive of components and parts.
It's how we're putting those together, what that end product looks like. And for me, it was maybe two or three months in operation. I was browsing, or like everyone does on social, found this branding company who did these small two inch by two inch branding irons thing. And I said, that's pretty cool. I think I'm going to do one of those with our logo. So as a matter of fact, I'll torch it and I'll burn it into our cork as our QC method.
I don't know. He's going to like that. Anyway, it's stuck. And so it's a thing at our shop very similar to what you'd see. And I've used this analogy in the shop whatever angry show Gordon's on now. But the food comes the window, and he's giving it that final look, or he's kicking it back. And we have a very similar process, just without the hostility.
And there's ceremonial lined up on this table for me to look at every morning. It's all the creations that are finished. And they've gone through a head builder, they've gone through a buddy system throughout the build, and then they end up me last. And it's that final look. Is everything aligned? Does this look the way we want this represented wherever in the world this thing lands? And if so, we light the torch and we burn them like a branding iron on all the rods to show that they've been quality controlled before they've left the door.
[00:57:03] Speaker A: Cool.
[00:57:04] Speaker B: So we've made it part of our day to day.
And it's something that means something to us. No doubt about it.
[00:57:10] Speaker A: That is really neat.
I guess it's a two part question. Usually it's one I ask people. What is your favorite item? Could be household or could be anything household or at work. Just something you might use on a regular basis. Is there one that kind of pops into your head if you think about it for a second? I guess the next one would be, what's your favorite fly rod? I would love to hear that, but if you have anything besides a fly rod if it's fly rod, that's fine.
But I heard you do other woodworking or if it's a tool or maybe it's nothing. Maybe it's a mug.
[00:57:48] Speaker B: I've become pretty simple these days. If you go through the shop, there's some really cool stuff. I don't hang anything in the shop. I don't do anything unless it's made by somebody local or somebody we know.
But the simple drawings that are hanging under the photos of my boys that are in my office when they come to the shop, and they draw me a new picture.
There's this one that one of my boys did for me years ago. And it's just two stick figures, one's taller than the other, but their hands are connected.
[00:58:19] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:58:19] Speaker B: And, dad, it's me and you walking, holding hands.
I would give you my truck before I'd give you that photo, that picture.
[00:58:28] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:58:30] Speaker B: The things that inspire my children that they want to share with me, those are my items. I'd give up everything to have just that.
[00:58:41] Speaker A: That's a good way to put it.
[00:58:45] Speaker B: Now, my favorite fly rod.
[00:58:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:58:48] Speaker B: I am one of those Gluttonous guys who has 7810. Twelve whatever I've got left of rods.
[00:58:54] Speaker A: Well, you're a fly rod maker.
[00:58:56] Speaker B: It fits the crime. Probably. One of my newer obsessions is this lost art of bamboo rods. And I've got the original prototype to the St. John that we have now. And I'm heading up to the Kennebago next week to go fish for a couple of days. And I was just telling the guys. Before I left. That's the rod I'm taking with me.
So anything from a really unique bamboo to that roach river I talked about earlier.
And then we have these series of rods we generate. We call them the landlocks. The landlocks are a separate page on our site and it's just these one off creations that we make when we're tired of baking batch stuff.
[00:59:35] Speaker A: Right.
[00:59:35] Speaker B: And so named after the landlock salmon, the one of a kind salmon, which is our state fish. Anyway, it's a play on that. So there's these one off rods, and we name all of them and they all have. So last fall I was listening to Tom Petty, I think, at the end of it, and he's singing Away Free Fallen. And that's the name of this rod, free Fallen. So it's this matte charcoal fall themed. It's the rod I get really excited about fishing with every September and October. I just strung it up. It's sitting outside my office as we speak. But I'd say Free Fallen, probably the roach and that bamboo are my favorites right now.
[01:00:11] Speaker A: Cool.
And the Free Fallen is a one off.
[01:00:15] Speaker B: It's a one off.
[01:00:16] Speaker A: That's a Jeff rod.
[01:00:17] Speaker B: It's a one off, yeah.
[01:00:18] Speaker A: Well, I guess the other one's a prototype.
[01:00:20] Speaker B: That's it?
[01:00:20] Speaker A: Yeah. That's really neat.
Is your favorite time of the year? I think you said maybe September always.
[01:00:26] Speaker B: Yeah, since I was a kid, since I didn't even know fly fishing existed.
We're anxious, culture like, we get really stoked up here waiting for April 1 because that's when the season starts. But the reality is that two thirds of Maine is still under ice at that point and fishing doesn't really start until a little later in May and into June. Then you've got that really great 45 60 day window until the rivers start getting above 70 and people still fish them, which we shouldn't. For cold water species, where if you have a conservation mind and you're protected of the fish, then you've got the hot summer that comes, or in our case, wet one this year.
But a lot of it's setting the stage for the spawning that occurs late fall. And the idea of those cold, cold 40 degree mornings leading up to these late 60 deg afternoons where you feel like you're standing in a box of crayons in this river with no cell reception, fishing for some of the most beautiful fish in the world. I'm biased.
There's a few things that rival that. So my absolute favorite time of year to fish has always been September and October. I mean, the summer and saltwater fishing and these things are all incredible, but I'm very connected with the fall. I always have been. And so the idea of fly fishing in the fall is just icing on the cake for me.
[01:01:53] Speaker A: So, Jeff, thank you so much for coming. Really appreciate it. Where can everybody find you, find your stuff?
[01:02:00] Speaker B: We are simply mainflyco.com. Or you can also find us mainflycompany.com. Maine is in the state. M-A-I-N-E. You call us. You can find us on Social, on Instagram, on Facebook or watch some of our adventures on our YouTube channel, which is also at Maine Fly Company.
[01:02:18] Speaker A: Cool. How's that YouTube channel going?
[01:02:20] Speaker B: I don't put a lot into it. We've done some great trips. There's some good videos where we've got two or three in the mix now and so we'll be adding to it in the fall. But there's some pretty awesome trips that.
[01:02:30] Speaker A: Are on there right now. Okay. Thanks, Jeff.
[01:02:32] Speaker B: Thank you.
