Manufactured during Covid-

[DFoster 0]

A friend say's nothing made during covid is worth a damn. Company's were utilizing anyone willing to work in any capacity to fill orders.  When your accounted is given a crash course on how to weld because he's the only one that showed up things are bound to go wrong. 

First a little back story.  This summer's heavy rains  made my style of dead drift wade fishing difficult if not impossible.  Not willing to put my fishing gear away until the rains subsided I decided to try swinging wing wets at a distance and began catching Smallmouth fry.  This lead to swinging larger streamers and after landing a couple of adults I had found a fun way to fish the heavy flows.    The heaviest rod I owned was a 5 weight and it was struggling to push the larger flies to distance.  I started thinking about adding a 6 or 7 weight, finally deciding that a 6 was the best option given the width of the river and the fact that the Smallies average about 12"s.

NEW ROD DAY! (not made during covid)

Last week the stars lined up when sitting on consignment in a local fly shop was a beautiful Orvis Recon, 9' 6" 6 weight, perfect for what I needed. Not a mark on it.   I was told it was used only a few times on a single trip for steelhead. The owner wanted a little more than half of the list price for new.  

I got out to the river and I couldn't be happier with the rod.  I was able to reach area's with ease that were a struggle for my 5 weight.  I even managed to hook a Smallie.  While I was fighting him I noticed something didn't feel right with my footing.  I released the fish and a quick investigation revealed this-

These Covid Korkers are on there 2nd full season and I've had nothing but problems from the start.  I bought these near Halloween 2020.  The trouble started when the rivets that hold the lace eyes began to fall out the first time I used them.  I called Korkers and 3 days later I got a response to a voice mail that I left.  I was told that I could send them back and they would repair or replace them.  The rep said they were closed and he didn't know how long it would be until I received them back, probably months, unacceptable.  I bought some rivets and replaced them myself.  Then I noticed the molded shell on both boots had cracked through in several locations and despite tightening the studs several of them were missing.  Finally on Saturday morning the epoxy holding the sole to the shell completely let go.  I took a couple of vacation days to fish following the holiday and now I needed a replacement pair of boots that wasn't in my budget (see new 6 weight above).  Despite being very disappointed with these boots I decided to give Korkers another chance, hoping that now that people are returning to work Bob from accounting isn't still mixing their epoxy or running the rivet machine. Korkers has a great reputation for quality and service and I'm hoping the first pair were just the result of pandemic issues.   A quick ride to a fly shop and I came home a pair of Dark Horse with the boa lace system.  So far so good.  

This incident got me to thinking about how many Covid manufactured things I've had trouble with.  I have an Orvis Battenkill reel that I bought at the end of 2020 that's been giving me a hard time also. 

[Steeldrifter 0]

Jeez that is quite the failure for a boot 🙀 Speaking of Korkers and customer service, I had an interaction with them this summer that really changed my mind about them quite a bit. On my 3 week trip back in June my boat lace frayed and broke on one of my boots. My boots are about 6-7 yrs old but other than the boa lace overall in pretty good shape still. I got a new boa lace and tried to relace them myself. The problem is on the older Korkers the plastic curved part the wire laces go through is ABSOLUTELY TINY, as well as curved. So trying to thread a wire through it is next to impossible. I sat at the motel room trying to thread the new lace for over 2 hrs and finally just gave up.

Anyway, after I got back home I emailed Korkers to see if I sent the boot to them maybe they could re-lace that boot for me . Took about 3 days for them to reply, but when they did, the reply I got was really a bit off putting imo. Basically the guy said "we are a small company, and can't really do things such as that"... He then said maybe to send him a picture and he could help me. Like that's gonna help at all 😒

Kind of blew my mind, Korkers saying they are a small company and can't really help. Hell I am a one man company with my rod business yet if someone reaches me about a rod they bought from me then I do everything I can to get them taken care of and not just brush them off.

I have always liked my Korkers, and I do like the Boa system, but I am seriously thinking about going back to normal laces just because of how Korkers brushed me off, and the fact that you can't fix Boa laces easily while on a trip like I was.

[DFoster 0]

3 hours ago, Steeldrifter said:

Jeez that is quite the failure for a boot 🙀 Speaking of Korkers and customer service, I had an interaction with them this summer that really changed my mind about them quite a bit. On my 3 week trip back in June my boat lace frayed and broke on one of my boots. My boots are about 6-7 yrs old but other than the boa lace overall in pretty good shape still. I got a new boa lace and tried to relace them myself. The problem is on the older Korkers the plastic curved part the wire laces go through is ABSOLUTELY TINY, as well as curved. So trying to thread a wire through it is next to impossible. I sat at the motel room trying to thread the new lace for over 2 hrs and finally just gave up.

Anyway, after I got back home I emailed Korkers to see if I sent the boot to them maybe they could re-lace that boot for me . Took about 3 days for them to reply, but when they did, the reply I got was really a bit off putting imo. Basically the guy said "we are a small company, and can't really do things such as that"... He then said maybe to send him a picture and he could help me. Like that's gonna help at all 😒

Kind of blew my mind, Korkers saying they are a small company and can't really help. Hell I am a one man company with my rod business yet if someone reaches me about a rod they bought from me then I do everything I can to get them taken care of and not just brush them off.

I have always liked my Korkers, and I do like the Boa system, but I am seriously thinking about going back to normal laces just because of how Korkers brushed me off, and the fact that you can't fix Boa laces easily while on a trip like I was.

 I got the same feeling as you when I called about my 4 hour old boots loosing rivets, like it wasn't all that important.  Well we we're still in the Covid lockdown and being able to fish was about all there was to do. So yes, wading was pretty damn important.  I understand that states forced most businesses to close during the pandemic and this was through no fault of their own so I do gave them a pass.  Small companies need to be doing everything better than the mega corporations if they expect to survive. I could buy Cabelas brand and get the "your just number 6,234" blow off for a lot less money.   I  like the boa system a lot but have reservations about it's durability.  The plastic the knobs are made of seems awfully light.  They say the system is guaranteed for the life of the boot, fine. But what happens if it fails on a trip as yours did?  I can get laces anywhere.  We'll see how long last and I hope if I have an issue they are better this time around.  

Orvis is still waiting for me to send them a $31 check for fixing my Battenkill pawl spring.  The spring was installed improperly to begin with at the factory when the reel was made during covid.