A Visit to Thomas & Thomas: The Comeback of a Trusted American Brand

thomasandthomasflyfishing

How do you re-energize a trusted brand? How do you regain marketshare in a market that’s not only crowded, but also highly discerning? These are the very questions American rod manufacturer Thomas and Thomas is facing.

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Video: Hoagy Carmichael on the Garrison Carmichael Bamboo Fly Rod Shop

Before the bamboo rod shop was gone, I wanted to capture it, and its history. Over Thanksgiving, I shot a bunch of video of my dad talking about the shop, and have spent the past few months editing that video down to what you can see in this post.

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Video Preview: Hoagy Carmichael & Everett Garrison Bamboo Fly Rod Shop

hoagycarmichaelflyfishing

Over Thanksgiving, I shot video of my dad explaining his relationship with Everett Garrison, who owned most of the workshop equipment before him, his love of working with bamboo, and the importance of it being in a museum. Check it out here.

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Pops’s Bamboo Rod Shop at the Catskill Fly Fishing Center & Museum

As I’ve written about before on this site, my dad’s bamboo rod building workshop has long been bound for the Catskill Fly Fishing Center & Museum. That day finally came, and the long room in the back of our garage is now empty.

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Fly Rod Building in Dad’s Workshop

graphiteflyrodbuildinglathe

A tour around the shop is a crash course in fly fishing history. Those reels there? Pieces of a Bogdan, or a Vom Hoffe. That tool there? It was originally owned by Everett Garrison, the great American rod maker with whom my dad wrote his book on bamboo fly rod making. That bamboo there? Bamboo sourced from a remote region in China. And that there? Me, trying to learn a fraction of what my dad knows.

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