Temporary Time-out

Hello everyone!

I hope everyone out there is doing well. Everything here is going well. I was able to fish for the first time since December last week and it was absolutely wonderful. I’m busier than ever with rod orders and I am so very grateful for that. Due to the pandemic, there have been significant supply chain delays over the past year that have slowed me down. Frustrating for you, I’m sure, and certainly frustrating for me.

At this point, I am working at least 4 months out for the completion of new orders and some of my current orders have been waiting longer than that! This is longer than I am comfortable with for several reasons.

One: I don’t like making people wait for their rods. As Jud says, ‘T'int right t'int fair t'int fit t'int proper.’

Two: I don’t like spreadsheets. Especially ones that go on too long and are just a bunch of blocks, numbers, and words, like my current spreadsheet of orders which now doesn’t fit on one screen. It just isn’t right. Even though this sheet contains meaningful content, the impersonality of it distracts me from the whole idea of why I build fly rods for a living, to begin with. I enjoy the connection with each and every one of you who orders a rod from me and am afraid that this is slipping because I am too busy.

Three: Fishing. I want to make sure I get in enough fishing this spring, as that’s another main reason I build rods and I know that when I have time to fish and test and use new rods it always makes me a better rod builder, and person in general. According to my family, fishing also makes me a more pleasant dad and husband, too.

Because of this, I am taking a temporary time-out on taking any new orders so I can catch up on existing orders effective 19 March 2021. I will announce here, as well as elsewhere on my website and the other places in internet land, when I open up to new orders after I am able to catch up.

I am grateful to be able to build fly rods for a living and feel tremendously blessed at the abundance of orders and interest I’ve had in this past year, especially when I know so many folks have faced job losses and other hardships in the face of the pandemic. I truly appreciate everyone’s support and understanding about this and will plan to make a good bit of headway on my current orders over the next several weeks so I can open up some build spots for new orders. And just to make sure y’all don’t think I’m going full hermit and will go underground for the next few weeks, if you have questions about rods or current orders please feel free to contact me.

Thanks, again, so much! I hope each of you enjoys a great season ahead.

Chris

And because everyone asks how Stella is doing, here is a picture of the girl from a quick outing last week. She’s happy to be past winter.

Stella looking for a fish.