Several of us are planning a driving vacation through New England in September and I’ve already put Manchester on the list of places to visit. Are the Orvis rods made in Manchester and if so can you take a tour of the facility? Also, do they have seconds for sale?
I believe you can take a tour of the rod shop if you are there on a weekday.
The rod shop is behind the “mother” store in Manchester…across the parking lot.
at least it was 6 years ago when we visited there.
I don’t know if tours of the shop are available or if they sell seconds. I’ve toured Winston and Winston does not sell seconds.
Orvis has a closeout/discount fly shop, in town, south of the main “campus”, in the old bamboo rod shop
Great, thanks for all of the replies.
It has been a number of years ago, 8 or 9 I think, but my wife and I took their rod factory tour, and it was excellent! They showed rolling the graphite sheets onto a mandrel, cduring, wrapping, etc. When we took the Winston tour they would not show the graphite sheet rolling process, but I looked in there anyway and saw what appeared to be the same machine as the Orvis factory. Also the company, store had lots of older models of rods, no seconds that I saw, but some long discontinued stuff.
They have a giant tent sale in the back parking lot with great deals & a lot of used rods from their classes.