SmithFly designs and builds innovative gear for fly fisherman, hunters and outdoor recreation enthusiasts. It was founded by designer and fly fisherman Ethan Smith in 2010 and is based in Troy, Ohio. The SmithFly showroom holds a majority of our inventory, and is the sole location for all of the production the company does in-house.
Why Made in the USA?
There are many factors that went into Ethan’s decision to manufacture his products in the United States. The main factor that weighed most heavily is accountability. Ethan needed his suppliers to be accountable for their work, for their materials, for their environmental impact, for their labor practices, for their process, for my intellectual property and for the timely delivery of quality goods. The international market puts the accountability of all those items on shaky if not unsteady footing. You lack the ability to have a direct and reliable representative on the ground doing the accounting for you to hold to these standards.
Second to accountability was the ability to do smaller runs throughout the year. Ethan didn’t need to wait on a boat to arrive and we don’t need to ship our goods in HUGE quantities, which enabled him to do smaller orders than the bigger companies. Consequently the likelihood of long waits on backorders is greatly diminished. By making products in the USA the turnaround time for an entire production of goods is weeks instead of months.
Sustainability
At SmithFly, sustainability and the environment are at the top of our priority list.
SmithFly is focused on making products that can be multi-generational. The things we make may even improve with age gathering a patina of fair and careful use. Making products is an investment of resources and like any investment we want to get the maximum return out of what we put in.