Looks like Zach Matthews of the Itinerant Angler has a podcast coming up this week where he interviews Mark Richens. He provided a few post interview notes on the forum.

OMG, he's a Brit! I guess that's OK though. :-)

I have the T&T Heirlooom 8' 5wt. It is no broomstick, beautiful, technically perfect in it's cosmetics, and casts like a dream ( you do have to get use to the action). Tom Dorsey doesn't associate himself with junk; it's a shame to see him gone from the company he co-founded.

Last I heard Mr. Dorsey is at TnT. I spoke with Trevor a week or so ago and Tom was there.

I sure hope T&T will continue to deliver high-end fiberglass rods, because they sure know how to build them. They might not be in the front line with space age materials and minimal weight, but they know how to build a fishing rod.

I had the opportunity to fish my new 8', 4wt last weekend in a small swedish stream. It was a perfect match with a Joan Wulff TT5. I look forward to fish it hard next season.




/Chris

Yes your rod is a Special Dry Fly in a 4 piece format. I owned the same rod in mint condition. The rods are worth a lot of money for graphite rods. This model is the finest dry fly rod I have ever handled.

enppu83 welcome to the forum

enppu3, very few Americans speak Suomi. Your English is fine. Hope you will post some photos of the places where you fish.

You are either awake very late or very early. Good morning!

I've heard there closing again ... any truth to this?

Cameron, you prompted me to check the T&T website just now, and wow, do they ever have a lot of new models for 2014 - in fact, about a half dozen new SERIES of rods. The glass rods appear the same for now, but at least all the new offerings are a sign of vitality for T&T overall: http://thomasandthomas.com/rods-category

Lordideme, what Heirlom were you casting? I found their 8 ft models to be clunky also but really liked the 7'6" 3 wt and 7'6" 4wt. Well, I've made it well known that I've never cast a glass 3wt that I didn't like and that includes the T&T stuff. However I can't justify spending $700 bucks for a tip over ferruled rod that in all honestly doesn't cast (much) better than my 2 piece tip over Lami. How well does a 3wt rod need to cast anyways?

The glass market is tiny but I think T&T is well positioned to take advantage of this growing segment. Their rod building skills are second to none as far as I'm concerned (well, Burkheimer does nice work also). If they tweaked the tapers a bit, used spigot ferrules and perhaps dropped the price a little they might see a big increase in sales.

When you are a very small company you need to build rods that the majority of the fishing public is going to be potentially interested in. I'd guess there is more than a 20 to 1 ratio of saltwater fly fisherman compared to Fiberglass Flyrodders and an equally large ratio of spey anglers compared to this tiny angling community we belong to. If a company is going to stay in existence is has to play the numbers game thus build rods for popular fishing styles. I think we would all agree although glass is unique, but it is not very popular out there on the water, at least I never run into anyone fishing glass. The last time I visited Trevor he was giving me the rod company comparisons and even Scott(which I think of as a small company) is huge compared to T&T.

I have been a T&T customer for decades. Love their saltwater rods and many of their graphite trout rods. If they didn't make glass I'd still be a huge fan. There are glass rods that I have found much more to my liking than any of the Heirlooms I have cast and fished, thus I probably would never buy a T&T glass rod anyway.

My partner and I visited Thomas & Tomas last week. Tom Dorsey is active in rod design and continues to develop new rods.

The company is in its second year of ownership by Mark Richens and is quite profitable with a nice backlog of orders. I saw at least 8-10 of the dark green fiberglass rods on the finished table ready for shipment.

The bamboo rods are also backlogged and that department is very busy.

We will visit again later this week to work with Tom on new Spey rod development.

Regards,
FK
Spey Casting North East