Rod Review: Thomas & Thomas’s Zone Series

We had the chance to sit down with rod maker and developer, Joe Goodspeed. This interview highlights the new Thomas & Thomas Zone Rod series and explains why this American made tool is best in its class!

1. What is the T&T ZONE rod?  Zone rod is our award-winning new series of fully USA manufacture fly rods — nine versatile models that covers line weights 3-10.
2. If someone wants to try out one of these rods, where is the best place to look?  Authorized T&T dealers will have Zone rods in stock this fall, although the easiest place to take a look at the Zone lineup is on our website.
3. How many man-hours does it take to create the ZONE? Between cutting patterns, rolling blanks, ferruling, splining, mounting grips, wrapping guides, writing serial numbers by hand, and epoxy finishing work there are many steps involved building a rod from start to finish here at our factory.  It takes several hours of skilled labor and a week of moving from station to station in production process to complete a Zone fly rod.
4. What was the reason for producing another model?  T&T strives to offer our customers the best selection of products that we can produce.  With our improved production facility and better efficiency, we targeted a more accessible price point fly rod to help bring the T&T brand to a larger audience with the Zone series.
5. Is this rod for a specific species? Or is it diverse?  Zone rods are designed to perform the full spectrum of functions that any given line weight model might be expected to perform.  Versatile performance for a diverse range of species and fishing applications.
6. Tell us about the ZONE 9-weight taking home the “Best of Show Fly Rod – Saltwater” award. This was a very exciting moment for T&T!  It has been 22 years since T&T last won an IFTD award, when the Horizon series also won the saltwater award.  We feel like the performance and reception of our recent products – Exocett, Avantt, Contact nymph, and Lotic glass – significantly increased brand awareness to make this award possible for the Zone series.  
7. What in the rod making process makes this a high-quality product?  From start to finish, our materials, process, and people dictate that nothing but high-quality products make it through to our inspection bench.
8. Tell us a little about your slogan, “the rod you will eventually own.”  Always considered something of a tongue-in-cheek phrase, the slogan implies that when you fill your gear bag with the best products, the necessity to include T&T fly rods is inevitable.
   

For more awesome products, blogs, and information check out the Thomas & Thomas website!

This interview was conducted by Flylords team member, Collin Terchanik.