North Fork Composites is now making rods! (not blanks)

[Bassboss]

For those fo you who don't know what North Fork Composites is (NFC), it's a company that Gary Loomis started about three years ago, after he sold G.Loomis to Shimano in 1997.

Their site says they're gonna start making factory rods sometime in 2012. They already have a few steel head rods for sale at an introductory price ($299). I can only assume they'll have bass rods sometime in the near future.

Look for Gary Loomis at next years Icast folks, I think this is gonna make a splash!



http://northforkcomposites.com/blog/...into-rods-now/
http://www.edgerods.com/

[keithdog]

This could get interresting and expensive.

[Bubba_Bruiser]

Gary Loomis has definitely made his name a fishing table discussion. Anyone that has fished for a little while knows the name and the skeleton fish icon. I think he is going to make some money hand over fist doing this. Awesome move in the first place for selling out to Shimano and keeping his name on the line. Not many people knew it was a Shimano product. But it kept his name in the light. And it sounds like he is shooting for the moon again. Maybe to Pure Fishing this time. IMO he is sort of undermining the rod builders though. He is putting a rod on the market for the cost of what it would take just to supply the components to build one. He would be removing some of the demand from the CRB because they can buy built from the man, himself as to say. But I guess every man his own right and maybe I am being out of context.

[DVT Mike]

There will still be a custom market if we explain that no production line can mass produce rods with the attention to detail (static testing...) that a custom builder can. Also, NFC makes great blanks but they are not the only ones. The Shimano GLoomis rods are way over priced in part due to the replacement programs cost built in.

[Bassboss]

Originally Posted by Bubba_Bruiser

Gary Loomis has definitely made his name a fishing table discussion. Anyone that has fished for a little while knows the name and the skeleton fish icon. I think he is going to make some money hand over fist doing this. Awesome move in the first place for selling out to Shimano and keeping his name on the line. Not many people knew it was a Shimano product. But it kept his name in the light. And it sounds like he is shooting for the moon again. Maybe to Pure Fishing this time. IMO he is sort of undermining the rod builders though. He is putting a rod on the market for the cost of what it would take just to supply the components to build one. He would be removing some of the demand from the CRB because they can buy built from the man, himself as to say. But I guess every man his own right and maybe I am being out of context.

Yeah, I'm sure there will be some fans of NFC blanks that will try his rods. But I doubt they'll stop building rods altogether. Kind of like saying people will stop buying jig making supply's from do-it, if do it start making jigs.

[WaffleJaw]

The Kistler custom Z bones have already been using the NFC blanks for thier line of bass rods for some time.Figured it was only a matter of time for this..
The custom market wont be phased (Already hard enough as it is )
NFC has (or had) that custom rod spotlight on their site promoting custom building...on their blanks of course,but still I thought that was pretty cool.

Im sure these will be nice rods,The blanks already are.

[bassboogieman]

I've got a custom (Nelson) baitcaster built on the NFC IM blank and like it VERY much. I thought G.L. would be back making rods once the blank business stabilized.