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Freestone rods - Anybody tried them?

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Thomas
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Freestone rods - Anybody tried them?

Post by Thomas »

I am curious about the freestone-rods. Is there anybody here that knows anything about them?

/Thomas
"The more interesting the conclusion, the worse the logic" Bertrand Russell
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Marc LaMouche
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Post by Marc LaMouche »

what's a freestone rod, Thomas ?
Thomas
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Post by Thomas »

http://freestonerods.com/

Sam Drukman designed the graphite rods, Bernard Ramanauskas the bamboo rods. I am curious about the graphite rods.

/Thomas
"The more interesting the conclusion, the worse the logic" Bertrand Russell
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Marc LaMouche
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Post by Marc LaMouche »

Didn't know the company. Thanks for the link :)
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Post by ennio »

Thomas, I have a Freestone 8'6" #5.

I received it May 2012 and used it for all of my UK trout fishing to the end of the season (Oct 2012). It is a beautifully designed and built rod: a graphite rod finished like the highest quality hand built cane. It has all sorts of neat touches, like the sections align automatically as the rod is assembled. Blanks apparently rolled by Northfork Composites (Gary Loomis' company).

I've really enjoyed fishing with it and look forward to using it again in 2013. I was fortunate to buy mine significantly cheaper than RRP: they are scarily expensive.

Andrew
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blackwater
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Post by blackwater »

There was some stuff posted on one of the New Zealand forums about these rods.

Not all of it good, and for the price of them i would want everything to be perfect.
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Post by Jeroen »

At 1250 dollars I am somewhat surprised to see a cork handle with filler in the cork. Not impressed by that. Those blanks should be magic wands to justify a price tag like that.
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Torsten
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Post by Torsten »

Hi Jeroen,

this is called "high price strategy" or "premium pricing".
Have a look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pricing_strategies#Premium_pricing

Often the pricing does not depend (ideally it should not) on the production/ development costs but rather what the customer is willing to pay for the particular product.
The other extreme: Shakespeare for instance seems to use a different strategy; it looks more like the "Cost-plus pricing" for a mass market.

Still I'm wondering how they still make some profits with such a rod series:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-JKVPD00tU

(sold for ~30 GBP incl. a cordura tube)

Bye,
Torsten
^^ Warning: The above text contains misspellings, grammatical errors and of course nonsense.
Thomas
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Post by Thomas »

Thanks for the info guys.

Blackwater: Do you remember what was being said about the rods?

Ennio: How would you describe the action?

/Thomas
"The more interesting the conclusion, the worse the logic" Bertrand Russell
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Paul Arden
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Post by Paul Arden »

John Tomsett former MD of Shakespeare once told me that there were two ends of the market. One where you couldn't be too cheap, and the other where you can't be two expensive (within reason) and not a hell of a lot in-between. Steve Parton told me the same thing. That's now changed somewhat and the mid-priced market seems to be where most of the competition happens. But to be successful there you almost certainly have to buy from Korea or similar, and there is not a huge price difference at cost level between any of them. Of course if a business invests in production development that's going to add costs. But then most of them get ripped off almost straight away.

Our cork handle, by way of example, costs us more than a fully made up and delivered Korean manufactured rod!

Cheers, Paul
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Post by ennio »

Thomas wrote:Thanks for the info guys.

Blackwater: Do you remember what was being said about the rods?

Ennio: How would you describe the action?

/Thomas


Hi Thomas, I remember the NZ forum because I checked this out before buying my rod: hope it's OK to link to another forum here http://www.flyshop.co.nz/cgi-bin....eestone

Freestone make what seem to me ludicrous claims about the rods. I emailed Len Codella to say I really like the rod I bought, but asking why do they claim the rod to be the lightest rod in the market when, for example, the Winston BiiX is lighter! (I never had a reply) They don't seem to know where to stop. I can't summon the interest to re-read that NZ forum thread but if I recall correctly it was the people posting who pissed off the guys on the forum with their ridiculous claims, rather than the product.

Action: err, it's a fly fishing rod. Action doesn't mean anything to me: I have read many explanations of it and have concluded the only way I know whether I like a rod is to put a line on it.

Sorry I can't be more specific; but if you are in the UK and want to meet up you are more than welcome to try it. I took it to the British Fly Fair International earlier this year for a few people to try (the UK importer didn't have one in stock so I offered mine). Paul Procter (one of our top fly fishing guides) played with it for ten minutes and really liked it: PP said it has that "doesn't feel like carbon" quality ... whatever that means :???: :D

The final thing I can add is that after trying it, the UK importer spoke with the guys at Freestone about my rod and was told that it is a late prototype and that the production blank has been stiffened slightly ...

Andrew
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Post by Biology »

Sam Drukman died this year, not sure what the future plans are for the graphite series of rods. Bernard Ramanauskus designs and makes all the Eden Cane rods. In part, what your paying for is the development of what Freestone believe is highly optimised casting and fishing performance, and not everyone is going to believe they've got that right. The essays they wrote describing how the rods are designed are a bit heavy for me, but I like their low volume and highly specialised business model. Without Sam, it's hard to imagine the brand will continue, it's a shame - they were just getting going.
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Thomas
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Post by Thomas »

Thanks for the information guys.

Thomas
"The more interesting the conclusion, the worse the logic" Bertrand Russell
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Post by Chris Dore »

Ive cast them. The australian agent also bought them to the local fff clave here. General opinion was they would be nice rods at the $500 nz pricepoint.
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