We Have Gary Loomis' Stamp of Approval

Written by Nathan Woods on Saturday, 28 January 2012. Posted in News

We are now an approved builder of North Fork Composites

As a custom rod builder, we were disappointed when G. Loomis got out of the business of selling their rod blanks. G.Loomis has long been one of the best fishing rod manufactures and actually one of our favorite fly rod blanks. In 2007, founder Gary Loomis stepped away from G. Loomis, the company he had built from scratch into one of the most respected rod companies in the world. Over a decade before this he had been bought out by Shimano with the understanding that he would still be involved with the operation of G. Loomis. However, after over a decade his differences with this large corporation had grown too extensive and he left the industry. Well, he couldn't stay away long and soon started up North Fork Composites, where he was able to get back to his original passion of producing the best rod blanks on the market for custom builders and up and coming companies.

Custom rod makers helped to build my last company. I've not forgotten that. One reason I got back into making blanks was for the custom builder. - Gary Loomis

NFC wants to grow the custom rod building industry and one of the ways they plan to do that is with a new program. Now, of course Gary and NFC are pleased to have anyone build on their blanks, they also want to take the professional custom rod building to the next-level and with them in mind, they created the NFC Approved Rod Builder Program. The ARB Program is a carefully selected rod building professionals who submitted a rod to NFC and met all their quality standards. Once approved, those selected are put on a registry and can be associated with the legend himself.

Wanting to be a part of the Loomis name, we at True West Custom Fly Rods submitted a rod on a 2-piece 9ft 8-wt back in November 2011. We are happy to announce that we were approved and now are a part of the NFC ARB Program.

ARB

As a part of this program we get among other things:

A license to use the NFC Approved Rod Builder logo in your business.
A listing on our registry of NFC Approved Rod Builders with phone, address and website links.
The opportunity to build on American-designed and manufactured blank.
A place to show and promote our work on North Fork blanks (via our listing in the Registry).
Overall program promotion (and thus program builder promotion) via North Fork advertising (where applicable).
The inclusion of Approved Rod Builder rods in the NFC booth at ICRBE (for year of submission, space permitting).

We love to build on NFC blanks. They cast and perform as well as any high end blank on the market, and are everything that you would come to expect from a Gary Loomis rod. These blanks have plenty of power to spare, but are amazingly light and have great feel. Stay tuned to our page about the details on NFC blanks.

Want a custom NFC rod? Contact us today and we can get your rolling on your new fishing tool.

We want to thank Gary and the NFC Team for selecting us and letting us join them as we do our part to grow the custom fly fishing rod industry.

The Fly Rod...Customized!