How Outfishers Does Business

As a reseller of pre-owned fly rods, it's important to us that you know exactly where our products come from, what we do to them, how we get them to you, and how we stand behind everything we sell.

We want you to know we're not trying to slide in some lawyer language here. This is plain speak about what we do and how we do it.

Our business is simple. We buy used fly rods and resell them.

We source our rods from individuals like you.

We've bought rods off folks that have found collectable Sage LL's at Goodwill, off wives of deceased husbands who were avid fly fishermen, and from ordinary people that simply have a dusty vintage rod in a closet they want to sell or trade in towards something new.

We don't purchase rods from authorized dealers, manufacturers, or defect or flawed inventory.

We do everything we can to ensure the rods we buy are the exact same as the day they were sold new.

We don't make any changes to any products. Ever.

We don't repair any products, we don't replace any parts, and we don't knowingly sell any products that we think have repaired or replaced parts.

We don't use cork sealer, or repair epoxy chips, or replace logos worn off.

Enough about what we don't do.

This is what we do.

When we buy a fly rod and it arrives in our shop, the very first thing we do is inspect the fly rod (or reel).

We've got a long list of components and elements we look at (100+ checkpoints on standard 4-piece rods).

We examine the finish, the cork, the guides, the guide wraps, the epoxy, the ferrules, the logos, the tube, the sock, and so on.

During that process we rate the rod on a scale of 1-10 in our various subgroups.

If anything doesn't meet our standards, Outfishers doesn't sell it.

Our standards for selling gear under the Outfishers brand generally means two things.

First, the rod can't have a total rating less than 70. We sell plenty of good, usable rods with plenty of life left that are rated in the 70's. But in our experience, any rod that doesn't meet that magical 70 number for us isn't something a customer would be happy with, no matter how we priced it or disclosed the flaws.

Second, it's got to be something we would fish with ourselves. It's just common sense that any rod we put in your hands we better be willing to fish with ourselves.

Our products typically have scratches, dents, chips, or imperfections of some sort. But we always note these flaws in our conditions details and we never sell fly rods where these flaws might impact performance.

We test every rod thoroughly.

We put together each set of male and female ferrules and use a standardized pull test to ensure the fit is secure.

We put together the entire rod, reel it, feed some line through it, and cast it with a variety of different fly weights and sizes the rod should be able to cast in the normal course of use.

Our photos are real.

After all our inspections and cleaning have take place, we photograph every rod and reel individually.

Yes, this means that the pictures you're looking at are of the exact physical rod we are going to send you.

Those aren't stock photos. Those aren't photos of other similiar rods.

Those are photos we took of the rod you are buying.

We spent gobs of time and money on photography gear and software so that our pictures are accurate, transparent, and detail everything we would want to know about the rod if we were in your shoes.

We ship rods in specialized boxes we designed for fly rods.

When you buy a rod, we pull the rod from our shelves and place the rod inside a box that we spent months custom-designing in house for fly rods.

Our box holds fly rod tubes of all shapes and sizes in the 3-dimensional center of a 200# test single-walled 32ECT cardboard box with a maximum weight limit of 65 lbs sourced right here in the good old U.S. of A.

We usually ship our rods via UPS but regardless of the carrier, we always insure the rod for the amount you paid for it.

God forbid but if anything happens in transit, we get another rod as similiar as we can find to the one you ordered and we ship it to you as fast as we can. We'll deal with the postal folks but the most important thing to us is that you get the rod you want in time for your next outing on the water.

As far as our packaging materials go, we try to be good to mother earth.

We're not tree huggers but if we can make the planet a little bit better by spending an extra nickel on bio-degrable packaging, and its just as good at protecting your fly rod, then we do it.

At the end of the day, our value is giving you confidence.

If you don't believe that Outfishers will sell you a good product, will be transparent and accurate in describing your fly rod, and lastly will have your back when something happens to that rod, then we might as well shutter our doors.

We're here for you.

A lot of businesses these days seem to have forgotton what it means to be a good business.

It doesn't mean lobbing slick words like 'customer service', 'solutions', and 'support' at people that spend money with you.

It means standing behind your products. It means fixing problems. It means helping people.

And if we do those things, we are confident we'll have you on our side.

If you have questions, we're here to answer them.

If you call, one of us will answer (yes, like actually pick up the phone and say "Hello") or call you back.

If you email, we don't send automated reponses. You will get a written response from a bona fide human being on the other end.

Do the right thing and we'll all be better off.

Sounds simple but it takes work.

We know you can buy a rod on eBay, or Facebook, or Craigslist.

We know our business model for pre-owned fly rods and reels is a new concept for a lot of folks.

But we also know that if we do the right thing and carry awesome fly rods and reels, we'll be alright in the long run.

Thanks for your business and tight lines.