My Trip to the Orvis Rod Shop
When my wife suggested a road trip to several New England states in early September, my answer was, “Uh, yeah, sure.”
I DID try to sound as enthusiastic about the trip as I could. But to be honest, September and October are a couple of my favorite months to trout fish. By then the hottest weather is pretty much behind us. The evenings can be nice and cool. Plus, with the kids being back in school, it’s often a great time to fish and avoid crowds. But since we do so many things as a couple just for me, I couldn’t possibly say no to her, in fairness.
So, she made all the reservations, planned things out and asked if there was anything special that I wanted to do. When I noticed that “our” itinerary took us through Vermont, I hinted that a trip to the Orvis Rod shop in Manchester would be nice. Anyone familiar with the Orvis Flyfishing Podcasts knows Tom Rosenbauer says they have tours of the rod shop. As Tom R says,” If you are in the area, stop by.”
A check on the website mentions that tours are available weekdays at 10:30 am. Wouldn’t it be cool if Tom Rosenbauer himself was there? Fat chance of that… So, my good, patient wife and I stopped by the Orvis flagship store and found out that they open the door to the Rod Shop at 10:30sharp and if no one is outside waiting, there’s no tour that day. The reason is that one of the 42 workers at the rod shop gives the tour. They are quite busy building rods and need to get back to work.
At 10:25 am we were sitting in the bench outside the door. Three old guys tumble out of a pickup and said they were going in the tour too. At exactly 10:30 am as promised, the door opens. A family of 4 who we later found out were from the UK, joined us. As we are signing the register, in walks none other than the much-celebrated Tom Rosenbauer himself, with a buddy. I can hardly contain myself as I ask to have my picture taken with him, to which he kindly consented. I managed to tell him how much I enjoy his podcasts, but I take pleasure in disagreeing with him on occasion (as I’m certain he has heard many times before). Tom knows, as well as we all do, that flyfishing is a more personal sport than might be imagined to the outsider. There are no right or wrong ways of doing things. Some ways work better than others and your own style/preferences are something that must fit you, and you alone.
It’s as another notable Tom (Hargrove) says, “there are many paths to the way”.
So, my wife and I and a bunch of strangers and Tom Rosenbauer took the tour, which was quite interesting. We saw how they create the different sections of the rods by wrapping carbon fiber tape around different size tapered rods and then baking them. The various sections are gently cooled, and then sanded, trimmed, painted and have the ferrules wrapped by hand. The cork handles and rod seats are glued in place and set precisely along the main line of the butt section. Apparently, it makes a big difference. Later the rod guides are meticulously put in place by hand. We asked some questions such as how they are able to make a variety of weight rods with a specific action. On a few occasions, Tom R provided the answers. At the end of the tour, we were given Orvis stickers. I went over to the flagship store and bought a couple shirts. The British guy bought a $700+ flyrod.
On a personal note, meeting someone you consider a revered “celebrity” can be a tad of an unsettling experience. It occurred to me plainly: even though I’ve sat listening to Tom Rosenbauer in his podcasts and watched him for hours in YouTube videos, Tom was not as familiar with me as I was with him! Of course he wouldn’t be, you might be thinking we’d never actually meet in real life. But due to the expanded social media presence that celebrities have today, it’s only natural to feel that we are buddies.
It’s a sobering experience to realize that, well, we just aren’t that close. Still, the tour and whole trip was a fun and different experience.
