Why tools?

"I like the idea of making stuff that gets used a lot and does what it's supposed to do. The fly fishing tool market didn't really exist until catch-and-release fishing started to get popular in the 1980s — the two really go hand in hand. You started seeing more and more hemostats appear on trout streams then. It became apparent that there was a need for tools specialized for fly fishers, like lighter, more weather-resistant stuff with features that made fishing more fun and releasing fish easier. But a trout stream is a very different place than an operating room. I had worked for a company or two that tried to build everything for everybody — rods, reels, vests — and whenever we lost focus on our core products, we lost money. So I liked the idea of working within a niche."

But what about the challenge of being a niche player in what is already a relatively small market?

"There was an interesting study that used to come out of Princeton each year, and it measured lots of variables on the fly fishing market. The thing that really started to stand out in the late 1990s was that the average age of fly fishers was increasing pretty dramatically. And fewer and fewer new participants were showing up. Anyone who is watching how our culture is changing can point to the reason: people have less time for hobbies. For someone to learn to fly fish takes a large commitment of time. Tying flies, for example, means you may need to plunk down $450 for the basic tools and capes and materials and then you might decide, 'Hey, maybe I'm not so good at this.' So there are fewer new, young fly fishers, and you have fewer people in that age slot — say the mid-twenties to mid-thirties — where folks are most likely to buy their gear. To me, what that means is that we need to stay focused on what we're doing, and do it better than anyone else."

Dr. Slick deburs tubes, and grinds, bends, shapes, polishes and sharpens tools at their U.S. shop in Belgrade, Montana. As Fournier says, "We have to make each one 'behave.'"

photo courtesy of Dr. Slick

Outsourcing is a hot-button issue with some U.S. fly fishers. Why does Dr. Slick have their basic manufacturing done overseas?

“The answer is very simple: there is no other way to do it and get the quality we need. If you look at the history of tool manufacturing, the highest quality steels have always come out of Europe and Asia. It's an industry that never really happened here. In World War II, U.S. Army medics were using scissors made from two pieces of ribbon steel twisted into shape. Surgical-quality hemostats, on the other hand, were originally made in Solingen, Germany, and the British were developing technology in Sheffield. You had to have ample water supplies, wood for charcoal and lots of iron ore. The British later started setting up factories in Pakistan, very close to water supplies, coal and coke. It ended up providing a home for the nascent medical instruments industry, because of the culture of craftsmanship, just like you have a culture of silver-working among the Navaho or Zuni indians in the U.S. southwest.

Inspecting a pair of nippers for alignment.

photo courtesy of Dr. Slick

The people who make our unfinished tools are a family of tradesmen who learned the skills from previous generations. We design and create the molds, and the stuff is poured overseas — where they also do some basic polishing and coloring — then sent to us. We spend a lot of time here in our Bozeman factory finishing each individual tool, making sure it performs to our standards. We debur tubes, bend, shape, polish and sharpen. We have to make each one 'behave.'

But if you look at the products coming from almost any of the high-end tool makers, especially the medical industry, you'll see they are being forged in Pakistan, often from steel that is sourced in Japan, the biggest player in the steel market.”

Beyond releasing fish, have changes in fly fisher's habits changed the way you build tools?

Absolutely. A good example is the love affair going on with synthetic materials, which are hell on regular stainless steel scissors. A normal set of scissors can last you indefinitely, and even with synthetics if they are sharpened every five years or so. But now we have a three different types of scissors specifically built for synthetics. One series has tungsten carbide blades. Then we have a razor scissor, which has a hollow-blade 440-grade French steel blade. And we also have a synthetic scissor that has a serrated edge.

As tastes change, so do fly fishing tools. Most anglers recognize the value of having cutting edges on their clamps — something that standard hemostats didn't normally feature 10 years ago.

photo courtesy of Dr. Slick

Back 12 to 15 years ago, we had 3 scissors, 3 clamps, and a handful of fly-tying tools. But there is always a demand for more specialization. Scissors that we once made only in 4" versions we find we now have to make in 3.5" and 4.5" as well. When we first introduced release tubes on our clamps about six years ago, the fascination with bead-head flies hadn't started. All of a sudden we found out that we need to make the tube diameter larger.

Since we service a lot of products that people have used for many years, we have the advantage of learning by repairing, and we incorporate what we learn in any new product. We've discovered, for example, that the rivet is what kills a scissor over time, so if a pair of scissors doesn't have an adjustable rivet, you can expect some loss of performance after after several years. The adjustable rivet, of course, allows you to re-tighten the scissors.

Also, as our market expanded overseas, we discovered that the Europeans like a much less cambered action on their scissors — they want them slightly looser, whereas Americans like a tight camber.

How do you decide what new products to introduce each year?

We get plenty of ideas from out customers, and from shops and reps. Once we have something 90% ready, we send it out to a large group of field testers to send us information on what is working well and what isn't, and sometimes we go back to the drawing board from there. Wherever we go, we carry around a big Tupperware container of tools and notes and test products so that we can be sure they get field tested and that the feedback is timely. And most of the major overseas fly tying operations use our scissors for production tying, so you can imagine how valuable the information we get from them is.

Before synthetic materials became such an important fly tying ingredient, scissors could be made with standard high-quality steel. But fly tiers today need tools that will cut everything from tiny fibers to thick mylar without dulling, like these scissors with tungsten carbide blades.

photo courtesy of Dr. Slick

Of course every once in a while we get surprised. We once made a $26 pair of tungsten-carbide-jaw clamps that were designed to grip and never let go. They wouldn't sell, and we heard the reason was the price. Then when the titanium craze started, we made a similar pair out of titanium and of course sold them for much more — $50. Now we can't make enough of those.

But we try to stay ahead of the curve on product design, and we've test and tossed out more ideas than I can remember. There are some new pliers coming out with soft vinyl grips, for example. We tried that concept a long time ago and found out that those pliers, hanging down from a vest, will suck a PVC fly line to them like a magnet.

What do your top-sellers tell you about customer tastes?

“Well our top seller is a standard 5" mosquito clamp hemostat, the C5G. But the southeast, northeast and northwest U.S. likes black, and anglers everywhere else like gold finishes. You might think that's just a regional oddity until you dig deeper. The reason is that if you drop a black clamp in a river, it's gone forever. But in salt or brackish water, the black oxidized finish provides the tool with greater corrosion resistance.

But there are some tools that will always sell well, just because they make so much sense. Most folks who buy clamps with side-cutters in them would never buy anything else. So our CSC5G is a very popular clamp.”

What tools do you carry with you when you go fly fishing?

“I always have two: A Spring Creek clamp that goes down to a needle-nose tip on the jaw, which I can use on any size fly up to a 22, and a scissor clamp. And of course I carry a hook file. But if I had to pick a couple of tools that fly fishers can't live without, I'd pick the needle-nose clamp and a scissor clamp for any trout fisherman. The scissor clamp is also a great all-purpose saltwater tool.

If you look on my vest you'll see I still use the same clamp that Dr. High gave me when I started with the company ten years ago. He handed it to me and said, 'Here, use this. This is what we sell.'”