Embark on a journey through the world of fly fishing with host Marvin Cash as he welcomes Morten Valeur, co-founder of Ahrex Hooks, to The Articulate Fly. In this episode, they delve into the Scandinavian approach to fishing, the artistry of fly tying and the science behind hook design.

Morten, hailing from Denmark, recounts his earliest fishing memories by a small pond, setting the stage for a life-long passion. He shares his transition from spinning gear to fly fishing and the influence of American fishing literature on his development as an angler.

The conversation takes a turn towards the business side of things as Morten discusses the inception of Ahrex Hooks, the challenges of keeping stock during the COVID-19 pandemic and the importance of listening to the fishing community to perfect hook designs.

Listeners will gain insight into the collaborations with fly fishing legends like Bob Popovics and Bob Clouser, understanding the nuances of hook features and the future of Ahrex Hooks, including an exciting teaser about an upcoming project with Blane Chocklett.

Marvin and Morten also touch upon the value of real-life connections in the fly fishing industry, despite the digital age's convenience. Tune in for an episode filled with wisdom, nostalgia and the shared love for the sport that binds us all.

Tight lines and inspired tying await you in this episode of The Articulate Fly!

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Helpful Episode Chapters

0:00 Introduction

1:02 Early Fishing Memories

7:05 Mentors in Fly Fishing

9:09 Scandinavian Fishing Culture

12:53 Starting Fly Tying

15:13 Favorite Flies to Tie

24:36 Birth of Ahrex Hooks

38:19 Understanding the Importance of Hooks in Fly Fishing

43:22 Design Process for New Fly Hooks

48:19 Evolution of Hook Design at Ahrex

Intro: Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Fly.

Intro: On this episode, I'm joined by Morten Ballour, one of the founders of A-Rex Hooks.

Intro: We take a deep dive into Scandinavian fishing, fly tying, hook design,

Intro: and all things A-Rex. I think you're really going to enjoy this one.

Intro: But before we get to the interview, just a couple of housekeeping items.

Intro: If you like the podcast, please tell a friend, and please subscribe and leave

Intro: us a rating and review in the podcatcher of your choice. It really helps us out.

Intro: And we recently released our 800th

Intro: episode. A huge shout out to all of our listeners, guests, and sponsors.

Intro: We couldn't have done it without you, and your support means more to us than you will ever know.

Intro: And we also recently released an interview-only show, The Long Haul with the

Intro: Articulate Fly. So if you prefer to listen to The Articulate Fly without the

Intro: fishing reports, just search for The Long Haul in your favorite podcatcher.

Intro: Now, on to the interview.

Marvin: Well, Morten, welcome to The Articulate Fly.

Morten: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Marvin: Yeah, I'm really looking forward to our conversation, and we have a tradition

Marvin: on The Articulate Fly. We like to ask all of our guests to share their earliest fishing memory.

Morten: Well, it's, uh, I grew up on a farm here in Denmark and, uh, not far from that farm.

Morten: There was a small pond and I, I first, the first memory I have from that pond,

Morten: I think I was four years old and that was with my dad.

Morten: My dad is not a fisherman at all. I was not a fisherman at all,

Morten: but he, he took me down there and I was allowed to fish for maybe half an hour or something like that.

Morten: Then he got bored and want to go home. home but i and

Morten: after that you know i probably i'm quite sure that my

Morten: both my dad and mom got pretty irritated with

Morten: me because i want to go down there all the time but so i

Morten: when at the time i was six i just started

Morten: to go down there alone i can't i can't understand why my parents let me do that

Morten: i wouldn't do that to my kids but that's it was another time i'm i'm 58 now

Morten: and and you know i think back then you were allowed to do more than i don't

Morten: know that's just my impression so from When I was six years old,

Morten: I was fishing down in that pond all summer.

Morten: And it was not like trout or anything. It was small.

Morten: It was roaches. Not roaches, sorry. What do you call them? Small,

Morten: shiny fish. Small bait fish, I would probably call it.

Marvin: Yeah, like probably brim or perch.

Morten: Exactly. Perch we had, a bit of bream, and no pikes there.

Morten: But that came later on. So it's just, you know, small fish, but I was using

Morten: my worms and a cane and just very basic equipment.

Morten: So it's fantastic, fantastic memories, to be honest. And to this day,

Morten: I still have it in, you know, it's part of my life.

Morten: You know upbringing and it's uh yeah very important and very dear memories actually.

Marvin: Yeah it's funny you say that so you can't see it but on the wall i've got a

Marvin: picture of me probably maybe five or six with my grandfather fishing for trout

Marvin: on a cane pole and he's got the aluminum worm box on his belt and wearing his

Marvin: wellies so i i completely get it um yeah it's great stuff and.

Morten: It seems like you never forget you know i think even in my fly fishing today

Morten: or because Because you're so much into it as a kid.

Morten: I think a lot of what you learned back then, you kind of have it with you.

Morten: Even when you're fly fishing, the understanding of the fish,

Morten: how they move, where they are.

Morten: I'll never forget that. And I still use it to this day, to be honest.

Morten: It's like a sixth sense you kind of get when you're young and a kid.

Morten: I think, at least. That's my impression.

Marvin: Well, I would tell you, I mean, you know, my, you know, kind of spending time

Marvin: in the industry, I think all of the people that we think of as being great are

Marvin: all, all bait gear and fly fishermen.

Marvin: And they understand fish behavior. And particularly, I mean,

Marvin: you know, this, we've taught fly design stuff, like you can't design predator

Marvin: flies if you don't know what fish are doing.

Morten: No, it's true. I totally agree.

Marvin: Yeah. So, yeah. So when did you come to the dark side of fly fishing?

Morten: Fishing well uh quite late actually

Morten: to be honest i was maybe 17 18

Morten: uh i was using spinning gear

Morten: and from for quite quite a long

Morten: time then i started working in a in a

Morten: shop it was not a fly shop but it was a shop where we sold sport

Morten: fish sports equipment and fishing and hunting gear

Morten: and all that i think you'd call it all tackle probably and

Morten: uh that was it an older guy there was a fly

Morten: fisherman and he introduced me to fly fishing and from then

Morten: on it just you know took off so it

Morten: was quite late and uh yeah but i

Morten: spent all my time on fly fishing it's still just like

Morten: being a kid again to be honest we spoke about before it's

Morten: just you know it's just like starting all over

Morten: just in fly fishing i didn't know anything i

Morten: didn't know what to do i needed to read books that by back

Morten: then it was all books no no youtube no instagram

Morten: no nothing all books and so i

Morten: bought a lot of books and yeah bought a lot of american magazine magazines actually

Morten: fly fisherman was with me from that time i bought every issue was super expensive

Morten: here in denmark to get them but uh i i've read i don't know how many issues

Morten: of uh of fly fishermen i learned a lot from them back then.

Morten: Back then, it was all the great ones like Lefty Cray and Bob Klauser.

Morten: It was just amazing to read about these people and how they were fishing.

Morten: I learned a lot from them.

Morten: I have a feeling today, even though I grew up in Denmark, I'm fishing in Denmark,

Morten: I think a lot of where I learned my fly fishing from was actually from the U.S.

Morten: Because I was reading a lot of American magazines and books. back then.

Marvin: Yeah. It's an interesting thing because we're roughly the same age and,

Marvin: you know, it's like fishing with grandparents, fishing with parents.

Marvin: You know, it's kind of funny because I try to tell my boys that,

Marvin: you know, it's like you literally got a newsletter in the mail and someone hand

Marvin: wrote your name on it and put it in the post.

Marvin: And, you know, I think in some ways it's hurt us from a sports perspective because

Marvin: I think people don't put the time in to kind of have the foundation of knowledge.

Marvin: And so they say, well, just tell me what to do or tell me what to buy.

Marvin: And I think it really hurts, I mean, to the extent people want to be complete

Marvin: anglers, I think it really hurts their development. But then I think it's amazing.

Marvin: I was online the other day, and I was shocked to see that Martin at the Global

Marvin: Fly Fisher just celebrated his 30th anniversary.

Marvin: I mean, he was one of the original guys on the internet, right?

Morten: He was.

Marvin: Yeah. You know, kind of bridging it.

Marvin: And so, you know, you were doing it kind of the old school way,

Marvin: learning. Who are some of the people that, you know, because obviously,

Marvin: as I always say, it's been kind of downhill for the last 40 years fly fishing.

Marvin: Who are some of the people who have kind of mentored you on your journey?

Morten: Well, apart from the ones I mentioned in like the great American tires and fly

Morten: fishermen, I would say here in Denmark or maybe Scandinavia,

Morten: we had a very important fly fisherman called Peyton Top Jacobsen, who's also an author.

Morten: He made, I think he wrote maybe seven, eight books.

Morten: And he actually lived only like, you know, 15 miles from here.

Morten: So in my later age, I got to know him.

Morten: And met him a few times and but all his

Morten: books are like you know almost like small bibles to

Morten: me and that's especially on the dry fly fishing and the

Morten: nymph fishing that's what what he was doing and so he's he's been a mentor but

Morten: even even even uh in spin he was not a you know another danish guy also a writer

Morten: and an author but he was not fly fishing only a guy called jens plow hansen i think

Morten: most europeans know him because he was

Morten: very known for all his photo photographs so there

Morten: he his photographs you see in a lot of different magazines i'm

Morten: not sure if they made it to the u.s but at least over here

Morten: he was quite well known and he became a good friend as well so but that was

Morten: more like a fisherman mentor not like maybe a fly fisherman mentor but just

Morten: the way he was thinking about fishing and life for that matter so i kind of

Morten: i really like Like those two guys,

Morten: Preben and Jens, they were mentors to me and a lot of other people for sure.

Morten: But if I look at the Danes, they are probably the two that I remember the best.

Marvin: Yeah. And it's interesting, you know, just to kind of help.

Marvin: Like I sort of have a little bit of a familiarity with sort of the Scandinavian

Marvin: fishing culture because I think I mentioned to you that my wife lived in Denmark

Marvin: and her first husband was a Dane.

Marvin: And so when I think about Danish fly fishing, I think about fishing for sea trout.

Marvin: And I think about, you know, it's a place, for example, like where Blaine's

Marvin: predator flies are very popular.

Marvin: Like that's a very part of that northern European fishing culture.

Marvin: But for Americans who just kind of think about how we do things,

Marvin: you know, how is kind of Danish and kind of Scandinavian fishing culture and

Marvin: fly fishing different than in the States? Yeah.

Morten: Well, for sure what you're mentioning with the sea trout, that counts for at

Morten: least Denmark, the southern part of Sweden, northern part of Germany.

Morten: I think we have a very strong, I think that's kind of the, you know,

Morten: where it all started when it comes to sea trout fishing in the salt.

Morten: That's what we're doing. It's a saltwater game fish actually for us.

Morten: It's in the rivers as well.

Morten: But I think the saltwater fishing for sea trout is probably what's the most known.

Morten: And so that that differs a lot because you

Morten: don't have that species that many places in the world we have

Morten: it here and i i know the travelers come here

Morten: now just to fish for that it's not because they're super big anything i

Morten: think just people like you know people have

Morten: their bargain lists and i guess the sea trout is ending up in

Morten: that bargain list sometimes but i would say in general if

Morten: you talk about fly fishing in scandinavia in general

Morten: i would say we have the salmons we have the sea

Morten: trout and we even have the pike and i need

Morten: to mention that as well and and and especially in

Morten: sweden you're seeing a really strong community around the pike

Morten: now on the fly so it's uh i

Morten: think those three game fish are the most important ones

Morten: here we see the purchase will come out and i think but

Morten: i think in general if you look at scandinavians they're very

Morten: good fly casters most of

Morten: them and i think it's because in eastern denmark you

Morten: need to be a good caster if you're fishing in saltwater and we need these

Morten: those long cast in cast in hauling winds

Morten: and all that so you become a pretty good

Morten: fly caster over here quite quickly if you don't you don't catch

Morten: anything because we don't fish from boats i think that's a big difference between

Morten: the us and and europe a lot of our fishing is waiting we're waiting in salt

Morten: water and casting not from boats you could fish from boats but nobody does it

Morten: so it's i think that's a big difference so good casters and a lot of good fly I must say.

Marvin: And then obviously, you know, you've got real winter in Scandinavia. So is travel,

Marvin: you know, like I noticed on your blog that you've got a lot of people in the

Marvin: company that like they're chasing bonefish right now, is kind of more deliberate

Marvin: kind of travel to kind of go places where it's warm or different?

Marvin: Is that more part of the fly fishing culture?

Morten: It has become that. I wouldn't say, if you look maybe, I don't know,

Morten: 15 years back maybe, it was not a big thing.

Morten: But the last 10, 15 years, traveling has become quite big for Scandinavians

Morten: as well. And I think it all started out with, you probably know,

Morten: the guy who founded Loop Tackle, Swedish guy.

Morten: And he, Christoph Scherber, his name, he actually, when he started that company,

Morten: it was only rods and reels and lines and all that. They did a very good job.

Morten: They had their own kind of feeling to it all. But he started traveling.

Morten: And he actually developed Loop into almost a travel agency as well,

Morten: which was quite early at that time. But I think he started all that traveling.

Morten: And I think now it's everybody, not everybody, a lot of people are traveling.

Morten: I'm not one of them, to be honest, but a lot of people do, especially during the long, cold winters.

Morten: It's a good escape.

Marvin: It's interesting too, you know, to see that because you see,

Marvin: because of the profitability in travel, like you see Farbank has purchased a

Marvin: travel company, like you're seeing brands realize they can make a lot more money

Marvin: selling travel than they can selling gear.

Morten: Yeah. Yeah, it's true. And it's, yeah, I agree.

Marvin: Yeah. So you took up fly fishing when you were 17. When did you get the fly tying bug? Yeah.

Morten: Well at the same time almost it's uh because the

Morten: the older gentleman worked in the shop he was

Morten: a fly tire as well and we sold fly tying materials and

Morten: hooks and all that back then so i started that

Morten: as well i was not very good at it to be honest it took me some

Morten: time to learn and i've tied a lot of but i think i guess

Morten: that's i guess that counts for everybody but i really liked it uh so yeah i

Morten: took it up the same time so i've been i've been tying ever since actually it's

Morten: uh still not as much as i would like to these days but i'm doing it quite frequently yeah.

Marvin: And so what was your first vice and do you remember the first fly you tied.

Morten: Uh i i know i remember the fly it was a mickey finn it's uh i don't know if

Morten: how popular that That is in the U.S., but over here it was kind of a stable

Morten: pattern for many, many years,

Morten: both for sea trout and for brown trout in the streams and all that.

Morten: So that was the first one I tied. It's a pretty simple fly.

Morten: So it's just a silver body and I think calf tails for the wing.

Morten: So that was the first one. And I think the vice I had, we had a Danish vice

Morten: company back then called Danvise.

Morten: I think it was one of their vices. I'm quite sure it was. I can't remember exactly,

Morten: but I'm quite sure it was, actually.

Marvin: Yeah. And what do you tie on today?

Morten: Today, I tie on a Regal. Yeah, Regal-wise. I really like that sturdy American,

Morten: a little bit on the heavy side.

Morten: And, you know, it's not – I know a lot of people like the Rinsettis.

Morten: I think they're beautiful.

Morten: I like the Rinsettis as well. But for me, the Regals are just,

Morten: you know, bomb-proof, and they work all the time.

Morten: I really appreciate tying on them. I've done it for many, many years now, actually.

Marvin: It's an interesting thing. There's certainly a pocket. I'm sure you've seen

Marvin: this because you've done the show circuit here in the States.

Marvin: They're incredibly popular in the northeastern United States.

Marvin: People tie on those, but yeah, obviously the Renzettis.

Marvin: It's interesting to see. I would imagine, too, since you tie bigger flies,

Marvin: you like the jaws on the regal.

Morten: Exactly. Yeah.

Marvin: And so, you know, that gets us, I apologize to you before we started recording

Marvin: that we weren't going to talk about pike very much because I just ran out of time and space.

Marvin: But I'm going to ask you your favorite flies to tie, and I suspect they're pike flies.

Morten: Oh, yeah. The ones I still tie myself is actually my pike flies.

Morten: And it's nothing special.

Morten: It's actually built on the same thinking as Bob Popovich, his bucktail flies

Morten: and bucktail deceivers and all that.

Morten: So it's not my own creations. because he's done a phenomenal job on the par-butch fly.

Morten: So I really like the way he's doing it. I'm just trying my best to make him

Morten: look like what he is doing.

Morten: So they work really well from our pike fishing over here.

Morten: They got the right shape. And most of them are black. I'm sorry to say that,

Morten: but black flies work really well.

Marvin: Yeah, it's all good. And I was kind of curious too,

Marvin: you know, because I met you at kind of a really kind of niche-y kind of fly-tongue

Marvin: event, but I also know you were doing other shows in the States,

Marvin: you know, who are some of the tires that you follow and who are kind of some

Marvin: of the people you just mentioned, Bob, but who are some of the other folks that

Marvin: have kind of influenced you as a tire and people that you just kind of watch

Marvin: that you think are doing really neat things?

Morten: Yeah. And I think if I look at what I'm doing now, I would say people like Garner

Morten: Brammer is a great inspiration. Bob Popovich for sure.

Morten: Klaus or his flies, but that's more on the traditional side,

Morten: but it's still really, really good flies and then you

Morten: have an english guy um paul monaghan

Morten: uh he's a great great tire as well i think all these are in kind of the same

Morten: tradition or the way they're doing things but they're tweaking it a little bit

Morten: all of them so it's i always get new ideas from these guys and for sure some

Morten: of the swedish guy andreas anderson great tire we have over here he's quite well known in the U.S.

Morten: As well. He's part of the whole trout predator scene and made a few,

Morten: created some of his own patterns. Very, very good fly tire.

Morten: So, yeah, Andreas and Paul and Gunnar and Bob for sure, the old master.

Marvin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's interesting too with Gunnar because he's kind of,

Marvin: he's like the young beast fly generation.

Marvin: So, like, he's really trying to work with kind of Bob's flies. Yeah.

Marvin: You know, it's where Whereas you see like, I kind of, because I'm still kind

Marvin: of playing with this book idea and you kind of see the like Russ Madden articulation

Marvin: and then you see the Blaine articulation platforms and kind of see who's tying off of those.

Marvin: But it is interesting to see, you know, Gunner is really working really hard

Marvin: just tying beast flies, right? Yeah.

Morten: And I think what I like, I'm sure, and he also recognizes Bob,

Morten: for sure, because that's where we all got it from.

Morten: But I think what Gunnar is adding to it is he's very good at explaining on how

Morten: he does it, even down to the smallest detail.

Morten: And I really enjoyed watching some of his videos and going into all the niche, niche details.

Morten: And that's what you want to do if you're not very good at it.

Morten: As you know i i need to learn i i'm not i'm not a super tired but yeah i'll

Morten: get it right eventually but uh then getting a few tips and tricks from guys

Morten: like gunner and and paul monaghan that's that's just you know worth a lot.

Marvin: Yeah and to go back you mean so different than you know reading a book right

Marvin: and it's like and it's literally you know anywhere in the world and it's an

Marvin: amazing thing you can find your people and um you know it's an amazing thing

Marvin: like on the predator fly thing i can remember doing classes and we would have

Marvin: people from south South Africa,

Marvin: you know, and it's just like, they're like, how can we get the materials?

Marvin: I was like, well, we can't help you with that, but we can get the internet to you. Right. So, yeah.

Morten: And I think that's, I think that's the good thing about, uh,

Morten: you know, books had a limitation today.

Morten: You can sit in anywhere in the world and learn from the best quite easily and quite quickly.

Morten: And also that's one of the reasons why we see so many good tires these days.

Morten: And some of them are not even fishing, but they're extremely good tires.

Morten: That's an interesting thing. And that's thanks to YouTube and Instagram and

Morten: even TikTok maybe for the younger generation than us.

Marvin: Yeah, well, I mean, it's amazing. Like if we were doing this the old school

Marvin: way in the interview, we would be doing it on the phone and it would probably

Marvin: cost $200 or $300 just to have the phone call, right?

Morten: Yeah, exactly.

Marvin: So i always like to uh to ask tires uh morton they all almost every tire that

Marvin: i know has some kind of goofy weird tool that no one else really uses that they

Marvin: can't live without particularly if they're tying predator fly stuff and i was

Marvin: curious if you have something like that ah.

Morten: Goofy tool no to be honest marvin i don't think i have i got my straws you know

Morten: to pull push back the deer hair and all that.

Morten: But I think that's more common today than it was maybe 10 years ago.

Morten: Everybody has that these days. They'll have that these days.

Morten: So no, I don't think I have any special.

Marvin: Nothing that lives in a craft store in Denmark or like ladies nail polish or anything like that.

Morten: No, I'm sorry. Maybe I'm old school that way. I don't know.

Marvin: You know, it's more than doing the research for the interview.

Marvin: Interview, you know, I think you spent probably close to 35 years in the industry.

Marvin: And I was kind of curious, you know, when did you decide that you wanted to

Marvin: make a living in fishing?

Morten: Yeah, that's a good question. I started in the shop I mentioned earlier in 85,

Morten: which was not just fishing, but I was, I was working in the fishing department

Morten: as part of my job, not full time because it was not that big a department,

Morten: but that was kind of my, my, so it's almost.

Morten: Is that 40 years now? Yeah, it's 40. Sorry.

Marvin: No, I always try to underguess on stuff like that, right?

Morten: I kind of like, I like that, Marvin. Well, so I started there and I worked there

Morten: for six years, which was a great experience.

Morten: And then I studied for a while and traveled a little bit.

Morten: And when I came back from the traveling, I don't know, you know,

Morten: it's a little bit like the bumblebee that you don't know they can't fly.

Morten: But I kind of got the idea that I wanted to have a company that sold fly-time materials.

Morten: I thought I could live out of that. But if anybody asked me today if it was

Morten: a good idea to do that, I'd probably say no, because it's not that easy.

Morten: But I think we were kind of lucky at the time. We had some new materials coming

Morten: up at that point. I think that was just when Arctic Fox started out.

Morten: I don't know if you remember that, but that was actually back in 1990, 1991, 1992.

Morten: Arctic Fox was coming onto the scene. Everybody was using bucktail,

Morten: calf tails, and all that.

Morten: Then this Arctic Fox tail came out, and that actually started out in this area.

Morten: Norway, Denmark was among the first ones because we have all the,

Morten: you know, and Finland as As well, we have all the, what do you call it,

Morten: the fox farms and all that.

Morten: So we got the tails from them and started dyeing them, selling them.

Morten: So that was actually the door opener for me as a wholesale company going to the shops.

Morten: That was the thing they bought from me. They didn't buy the flash.

Morten: They didn't buy all the other stuff, but the foxtail they wanted.

Morten: And that was actually where it all started, with the foxtail.

Marvin: And did that start at the Fly Company or is that a...

Morten: Yeah, that was the Fly Company. And we started that company in 95,

Morten: as I said, it was a bit of, you know, a dream, but maybe not the best idea.

Morten: It took a long time to make that work.

Morten: Earn some money on it but eventually it it

Morten: it got we we got it took off and

Morten: we got a you know a place in the industry but

Morten: it took some time we didn't have any money i started from scratch

Morten: we did we had a very small credit in the bank that was all so no no no old money

Morten: anything we started from totally from scratch no rich parents either but it

Morten: was a good very good experience i would i wouldn't be without it because you

Morten: learn a lot from from a tough start and it maybe took us i I don't know, the first five,

Morten: six years, it was struggling every year.

Morten: But, you know, if you keep on doing it and you try to do it well,

Morten: eventually people will, you know, follow and buy some products from you.

Morten: And you build a reputation, you may be on quality and, you know,

Morten: deliver speed or whatever you want to build a company on.

Morten: And, yeah, so that was 95.

Marvin: Yeah. And you started that with your brother, right?

Morten: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And my brother is still actually, my brother is still at the,

Morten: the flight company is still existing.

Morten: It's still a Danish company and it's still, they still sell flight time materials.

Morten: And my brother is still working there actually. So he's been at it even longer than me.

Marvin: Was it helpful for the business, I guess, when the EU came into existence in

Marvin: terms of the ease of moving stuff around on the continent?

Morten: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Very, very important, I would say. It's just very easy.

Morten: And it still is very good.

Morten: And even buying things within the EU for us, you know, we had Vinyard as a supplier.

Morten: We even supplied them as well. So back then, just shipping product back and

Morten: forth between UK and Denmark was very easy.

Morten: Now it's become more difficult again because they decided on leaving EU.

Morten: But that's another story.

Marvin: Yeah, well, we won't talk about currency and all that sort of stuff.

Morten: We'll keep politics out of this.

Marvin: Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I guess you sold, I guess, your interest in the fly

Marvin: company and started A-Rex in 2016.

Marvin: And I was really kind of curious, you know, because there are lots,

Marvin: not a lot, but I mean, there are, I don't know, a half a dozen long-standing

Marvin: hook companies in fishing.

Marvin: I was kind of curious, you know, what opportunity you saw in the hook space

Marvin: that you wanted to take advantage of.

Morten: That's a very good question. To be honest, we started AERICS at the time we

Morten: had the flying company as well, my brother and I.

Morten: So AERICS was actually part of the flight company in the beginning.

Morten: And to be honest, we didn't see a lot of opportunity.

Morten: But what we were missing year after year, we were distributing Partridge,

Morten: Chemco, Various, and Camazan in the flight company.

Morten: And we had issues every spring to get the shrimp hooks we needed for the sea

Morten: trout flies, basically.

Morten: It was always sold out in March, and we needed them in April and May and June. We couldn't get them.

Morten: And that was the same thing every year. I will not mention any brands here,

Morten: but we had the same issue every year.

Morten: So my brother and I decided, why don't we just make the shrimp hook?

Morten: Because we really need that shrimp. We can make a hook.

Morten: It can't be that difficult. and then they started

Morten: researching and we found a design we liked

Morten: and said okay we we'll make two models

Morten: and that's all and it needed

Morten: a name and we came up with the name erics but we

Morten: didn't have a you know in the beginning we didn't

Morten: have a long strategy anything like that we

Morten: should build this into a it branded a big brand

Morten: in its own anything like that it was just to fill the gap

Morten: of hooks we couldn't get and then

Morten: when the when we started introducing the brand

Morten: people started right away people started asking us

Morten: why why don't you make a this hook or that hook and

Morten: say well maybe we could do that as well and then from there we decided to okay

Morten: if we want to do that we want to do it probably probably and then we started

Morten: develop more like a more general thinking about But what is it we want to do?

Morten: Do we have more series of hooks?

Morten: How should we work with that? Do we need social media? How would you do things in general?

Morten: But all the time, and to this day, actually, I think the most important things

Morten: for us is to have hooks in stock at all times.

Morten: That's actually the basic things. That's the secret, to be honest, with the Herix.

Morten: We have hooks in stock all the time. We've never run out.

Morten: And I think for a lot of people, both tires but even

Morten: for shops for commercial operations like you know

Morten: blaine good example if if

Morten: he if he can't get the hook he need for his

Morten: fly in time he will be out of flies when the season starts and he will he will

Morten: never go back to a company where he can't get the hook he needs for his flies

Morten: because he will be out of business at least lose a lot of business so having

Morten: hooks in stock at all times that actually that's actually the secret of erics the rest is just,

Morten: icing on the cake, all the social media.

Morten: And people like that. We love it to make it. So it's for us,

Morten: it's that's, you know, that's the.

Morten: That's the hobby for me around it, you know, photographing all the beautiful

Morten: flies and posting that on social media. I really like, I enjoy that.

Morten: But the basic thing is having hooks in stock at all times. It's very simple, to be honest. It is.

Marvin: But, you know, it's an interesting thing you say that because we have that conversation all the time.

Marvin: And I think, you know, consumers may not understand that, like,

Marvin: if you miss the delivery window, you're not late a month, you're late a year.

Morten: Exactly.

Marvin: And that's not great. Great. And I would say, you know, the interesting thing,

Marvin: you know, for A-Rex, and I think, I guess, so your first hook was your Gamera's

Marvin: hook, right? Isn't that your shrimp hook? Yeah.

Marvin: And, you know, it's been pretty amazing to me.

Marvin: I mean, you know, even with COVID, you know, eight years in,

Marvin: I mean, incredibly popular, very wide adoption.

Marvin: Like I know, you know, Blaine is using them for his flies.

Marvin: There are other people that are doing that, but, you know, in particular in

Marvin: the predator fly space, you guys, I would say, are probably the dominant hook

Marvin: manufacturer there you know how do you think that happens so quickly because

Marvin: there's got to be a little bit more than just having the hooks.

Morten: Right yeah true when it comes yeah how many hooks is one thing that's actually

Morten: maybe the base of everything to be honest i think working with a lot of very

Morten: experienced fly fishermen and fly tires around the world that's the other part

Morten: of it working with gunner brammer is one of them paul monahan i mentioned as

Morten: well so we have got a lot of

Morten: inspiration for a lot of very good tires and good fly fishermen.

Morten: As you said in the beginning, it's very hard to create a good fly.

Morten: If you're not fishing yourself, you need to understand the basic, you know.

Morten: Basic things about how a fly should look, how it should swim in the water and all that.

Morten: And if you can do that, you can also see, okay, if I had this hook made like

Morten: that, that would make my fly even better.

Morten: And that's, I think we've been good listeners as well. And for sure,

Morten: we've been designing a few models ourselves as well, because we are fly fishermen

Morten: and fly tires ourselves.

Morten: But we've been listening a lot to a lot of other people all over the world, especially from the US.

Morten: And just to mention one more very important

Morten: part of eric's is actually steve silverio who quite

Morten: early on reached out and said i want to work with you guys i think you you you're

Morten: on to something here and we and he's been very very important part for for us

Morten: in of the team in the u.s to be honest so and steve being who he is and knowing

Morten: knowing everybody and And, you know,

Morten: being able to talk to everybody has been very, very good for us, for sure.

Morten: He's a good friend now as well.

Marvin: Yeah, he's a piece of work. I spent some time with him in Michigan,

Marvin: but I didn't drink any rum with him.

Morten: Shouldn't. Never.

Marvin: So, you know, it's interesting because, I mean, you've got a long history in the industry.

Marvin: Was there anything that kind of pops into your mind as like a greatest challenge

Marvin: or surprise as you built out the hook company? something that you didn't expect

Marvin: to have happen that happened.

Morten: Well, I don't think there was anything I didn't expect.

Morten: I think what we all got hit by was the COVID period.

Morten: I think that's actually, but nobody could foresee how that would affect our

Morten: industry and every industry, to be honest.

Morten: And I think what we experienced at that time was, as everybody else did,

Morten: was longer and longer lead times.

Morten: When I was ordering a hook, it would take like almost a year to get it.

Morten: And uh and it and and that was

Morten: very very challenging i was thankful that we had such

Morten: a big stock which helped us out but even

Morten: we ran out for sure like everybody else did at that period because we couldn't

Morten: just we couldn't just order a new batch of hooks because every everybody was

Morten: so busy at that point you know as you know fly fishing and fishing in general

Morten: just got super All outdoor activities got super big.

Morten: So, and, you know, getting things transported from one place to another was a challenge.

Morten: So everything, but that's, you know, that's more a general thing that it is

Morten: because I think just to get back to your question, I haven't been that surprised.

Morten: I've been very positively surprised about how, and especially Americans reach

Morten: out to small companies and really want to help out.

Morten: And that's where us being able to speak directly to some of the tires in the

Morten: U.S. at a very early point really helped us out to point us in the right direction.

Morten: But that's another positive side. I didn't expect that, to be honest.

Morten: I would have thought that it would be more difficult.

Morten: But quite early, we got requests and people want to try the hooks and what it was and all that.

Morten: So I really appreciate that from the beginning.

Morten: So that was, but that's only on the positive side. I've never,

Morten: I haven't experienced anything on the negative side, to be honest.

Marvin: And it's interesting because I know how important, you know,

Marvin: there's really no substitute for being on the water.

Marvin: And so I know how important that feedback is in terms of perfecting hook designs.

Marvin: And that's, you know, we'll talk about it later. You know, like Bob Clouser

Marvin: finally has exactly the perfect hook that he wants for his Clouser Minnows and Popovics as well.

Marvin: And I know you're working on hooks with Blaine. But, you know,

Marvin: for people that may not know, you know, what are some of the,

Marvin: you know, like steel features,

Marvin: hook point features that make your hooks different than, say,

Marvin: like Daiichi's and Taimco's and other hooks that are out there just to kind

Marvin: of help educate the consumer when they look and they just see a big wall of

Marvin: hooks and they're like, holy cow.

Morten: Yeah, and there's a lot of hooks to choose from these days, to be honest.

Morten: I don't think we ever had as many as we have now. Now, I think what characteristics,

Morten: yeah, I think there's two ways of doing hooks, you can say.

Morten: You can look the way the steel behaves.

Morten: If you take a Japanese-made hook, if you take it and try to bend it out, you can't do that.

Morten: It's very, very, very strong. but it's maybe

Morten: else maybe it'll become a little bit brittle as

Morten: well our hooks will bend out that's what

Morten: part of the design of it is how they work so our

Morten: hooks that they might need some of them might break

Morten: i'm not 100 sure percent sure about all the hooks but most

Morten: of them will bend out and not break i think

Morten: japanese hooks will probably break but not

Morten: never bend out and i don't i can't say.

Morten: That one thing is better than the other i think

Morten: a lot of people appreciate that they

Morten: don't bend out and rather have them break if that

Morten: happens it's very seldom happens it's not like that

Morten: but that's i think it's two different ways of

Morten: thinking of hooks and how they should perform so it's

Morten: more like a i wouldn't call it a

Morten: religion but i think it's it's a belief we believe in

Morten: hooks that bends out not break and then

Morten: you have the other things the other thing is that if you

Morten: look at a lot of the other designs a lot

Morten: of hooks have a needle point like a

Morten: very just just another very very very

Morten: sharp when you have a needle point and even sharper than our hooks

Morten: actually ours have it's maybe it's not it's

Morten: very difficult to explain and just in words but

Morten: if if you look at our hook if you look

Morten: at our points very close up you'll see they have like they're they are on a

Morten: needle you know look like a needle but then right at the point they kind of

Morten: you know become small what do you would you call that like more like a not as

Morten: a needle but it continues all the time but it just like it gets a little it's.

Marvin: Slightly rounded off at the point.

Morten: Right yeah slightly right rounded off and there's one thing about that yeah

Morten: that's a good explanation i think what you can do with they're quite easy to shop,

Morten: And where we have a needle point, if the needle point break,

Morten: it is very difficult to get them super sharp again. You can always sharpen our hooks.

Morten: I don't know if people do that anymore, to be honest, or they just take out

Morten: a new fly out of the box. So maybe we're kind of old school.

Morten: So hooks that bends out and at point you can sharpen.

Morten: That's the two very important things on our hooks. And you'll see that on all our hook models.

Morten: And I wouldn't say that they set us apart. You see other companies doing the same thing.

Morten: But at least that's our features, you can call it.

Marvin: Yeah. It's interesting you say that because I've got hunting knives that you

Marvin: can't even really sharpen yourself anymore. The steel's so hard.

Marvin: Exactly. And so you literally have to mail them back, which seems kind of goofy to me, right?

Marvin: Because as a kid, I used to get the stones out in the oil and sharpen the knives.

Marvin: And now, they're like, really, the steel's too hard. So once you lose the edge,

Marvin: you got to send it back to the factory.

Morten: Yeah. But I know a lot of, I've spoken to a lot of the Danish sea trout fishermen

Morten: that, yeah, I have some of my best friends don't want to use A-Rex because they

Morten: want the Gamakatsu's where they have the needle point.

Morten: I say, why do you want that? Why don't you use our hooks? Well, I like the needle point.

Morten: And, but I say, if the point is, you know, it's not sharp anymore, I just take a new fly.

Morten: Okay. It's just, you know, it's just a way, different,

Morten: different ways of thinking yeah it's not like nothing is wrong here and nothing

Morten: is right it's just what do you prefer as a as a fly fisherman a fly tire and

Morten: we believe in our you know way of doing it but that's ours yeah.

Marvin: Well it's funny people get worked

Marvin: up and i was like gosh people it's just fishing it's not politics right.

Morten: Exactly yeah that's my yeah i totally agree with you on that marvin because,

Morten: don't let it be become a religion i think we should have fun with what we're

Morten: doing and And there's room for everybody here.

Marvin: Yeah. And it's interesting, back to what we were talking about at the beginning

Marvin: of the interview, I think a lot of anglers don't truly appreciate what the hook

Marvin: brings to the fly in terms of,

Marvin: weighting, gap, point, straight eye, bend eye.

Marvin: I know that's a super broad set of things to think about, but I think a lot

Marvin: of anglers don't think about why we're doing what we do.

Marvin: And I think that's one of the things that makes all that feedback you're getting

Marvin: from these guys on the water.

Marvin: But just can you kind of give like a 30,000 foot view to anglers about like

Marvin: how those things come together to kind of make the right hook for the right job?

Morten: I think the easiest way to explain that is probably the conversation we had with Andreas Andersen.

Morten: I think some tires are really, really nerdy about this.

Morten: And I didn't, to be honest, when we started all this, I didn't know that.

Morten: I was not thinking like a hook designer or anything like that.

Morten: I was just thinking as a fisherman.

Morten: When speaking to Andreas Andersen, the way he was thinking about how the hook

Morten: should look, how it should keel,

Morten: how far back on the shank you could tie before the bend starts and all that.

Morten: And it was down to millimeters sometimes.

Morten: No, it's still not right. And the point, how far from the point to the barb

Morten: and all that, how long that should be.

Morten: So being very meticulous about it he was designing the hooks like he would would

Morten: for his flies and and for sure he was part of a whole i would say a generation

Morten: almost of or maybe a group of new.

Morten: Uh streamer fly tires ross madden is one of them as well as a friend a friend

Morten: of andreas as well so that group of people they had a very set mind on how the

Morten: hook should look and they really really

Morten: work so it's so when it

Morten: comes to hook design seen from from from as you

Morten: said from a 30 000 feet perspective it's it's

Morten: a lot of small small things that make the changes and even how maybe you sometimes

Morten: you buy a hook and then you balance it i know a lot of tires do that these days

Morten: then put lead underneath on the top uh and and a lot of things i would say the

Morten: last 10 years I think fly tying has changed tremendously,

Morten: probably more than ever.

Morten: Blaine is one of them, you know, starting out, you know, just his way of thinking.

Morten: That's one part of it, all the shanks and how the fly moves in the water.

Morten: So, you know, I would say maybe more than 10 years ago, but let's say 15 years

Morten: ago, I think a lot of people looked at flies as flies,

Morten: like, you know, like non-fishermen When things have a fly, they think about

Morten: something flying in the air and all that.

Morten: You know, it's a big difference now. I think there's no limits anymore.

Morten: I think you can do whatever you want. The discussion about is that a fly or

Morten: not, I think that discussion has almost vanished.

Morten: I don't know if you agree on that, but I don't see it anymore out there that

Morten: much. You know, oh, that's not a fly. It's more like a spoon. No.

Marvin: Yeah, I just come back to it's fishing and then I just go fish.

Morten: Exactly. But I think a lot of people are like that now.

Morten: If you fish with a fly rod, it's fly fishing. What fly you use,

Morten: well, that doesn't maybe really matter.

Morten: And that has sparked a lot of creativity out there.

Morten: And Blaine is a very good example of that.

Morten: You know, thinking the way he does. And that's, and Ross Madden and Andrea Sanderson,

Morten: when we talk kind of life,

Morten: especially in the, and all the big predator flies for a muskie and pike and

Morten: all that. It's a lot of development there.

Morten: And we borrow from the, from the spin industry as well. Cause sure we do.

Marvin: Yeah. And I think it's interesting too, right?

Marvin: Because, you know, we've seen how you had, And you now have the ability to produce

Marvin: almost an infinite number of hook options cost effectively because you can design

Marvin: them inexpensively. You don't need large runs anymore like you used to.

Marvin: And it takes the time where, you know, if you talk to Blaine,

Marvin: he'll tell you about spending hours in his garage cutting shanks.

Marvin: Yeah, right. And now you're like, Oh,

Marvin: I want one that looks like this and someone's going to make it for you.

Marvin: So then you can go spend time fishing and perfecting the fly and not playing

Marvin: around with bolt cutters in your garage. Yeah.

Morten: And one important thing you said there is the minimum order quantities we need to do.

Morten: The hooks are quite expensive still, I would say, compared to a lot of other things.

Morten: But you can run them in relatively small quantities.

Morten: And that's the important part of it. That's the reason why you can do all these crazy designs.

Morten: And if people ask me, can you do a hook like that?

Morten: Yeah, we can. And if you think there's enough need for this,

Morten: we can do it because the runs are not that big.

Morten: Because for sure, if you do a super big run, the price per hook will be lower, but the,

Morten: Then you'd probably never do that hook because you don't need a 100,000 in one

Morten: size. Maybe you only need 20 or 30. And that's doable today.

Morten: It wasn't like that like 10 years ago. I think that's huge competition as well, to be honest.

Marvin: Yeah. And so for folks that aren't familiar, tell us a little bit about kind of the design process.

Marvin: Because I think we were talking in Michigan and you kind of have a notebook

Marvin: with pictures. and how you kind of move from that to bring a fly to market and

Marvin: kind of what that process looks like and how long it takes.

Morten: I think I could use a quite fresh example we have right now.

Morten: The hook is not even on the market. That might be more fun to talk about, to be honest.

Morten: It started out with an idea that we wanted to remake, actually,

Morten: some of the classic dry fly you can use for all the classic catch skill patterns.

Morten: And that's not an easy task. You can stir up a lot of people.

Morten: So you need to talk to the right people.

Morten: And that's where it all starts and put them together. In this case,

Morten: it was one from the US, one from Europe and one from the UK and one from Denmark.

Morten: And they sat together and kind of discussed how should that hook look like.

Morten: And a lot of these three guys know a lot about the history.

Morten: They have the old hooks from the 1910 and

Morten: 1890 or whatever and they look at that

Morten: oh and even back then there was no one right design

Morten: that's what it just the perception of how that hook should look like then gradually

Morten: they come up with something that okay it should look like this then we do the

Morten: drawings send them to the factory make let them make a sample so they can have

Morten: a look at it and try to tie on it, which is very important when it comes to classic looking,

Morten: hooks for classic looking flies.

Morten: They need to tie it as well. So it's.

Morten: And that's not even on the market yet. Then they decide, okay,

Morten: this is the right design. Then we do the ordering.

Morten: And then we'll probably have the hooks within three months or something like

Morten: that. So from the start to the finished hook, this will take,

Morten: you know, until the hook is on the market, it would probably take at least a

Morten: year from the first idea.

Morten: Sometimes we can do it much faster if we have a very clear picture of what that hook should look like.

Morten: Then we can probably do it in six months or something like that.

Morten: But normally it's longer.

Marvin: Yeah, and I know you relatively recently, you've got specialty hooks.

Marvin: We're talking about Bob Klauser and Bob Popovics. How is that design process different?

Marvin: Is it easier because they have very, very specific ideas of what they want,

Marvin: and so you don't have to iterate the design process as much?

Morten: No, true. They have a very clear picture, because that's their,

Morten: both the Bob's and both the Bob's case, they have a very, very clear.

Morten: They've been doing the flies and the tying for so many years.

Morten: So that's very, very easy. But even just to talk about, I think Klaus was very

Morten: easy because his flies have been out there for so many years.

Morten: I think in Popovic's case, he always felt that he didn't have exactly the right hook.

Morten: So there we had to do some small changes, especially on the size of the hook eye.

Morten: He wanted a slightly bigger than normal because

Morten: he wanted to be able to use a wire and things

Morten: like that and maybe a thicker leader and we didn't think

Morten: about that that was bob's input and we

Morten: made those small changes and that's because it's not

Morten: a you know a normal thing to do for the hook manufacturer you

Morten: need to let them know and how to make that hook bigger and

Morten: all that so it it took a little bit longer time with

Morten: his hook design but still it was it

Morten: was pretty easy because he had some of

Morten: the same because he's the father of many of these very all the big streamers

Morten: he had the same idea about having a you know a long shank where you have a when

Morten: the when they from shank to the bend it come quite abruptly so he has a lot

Morten: of space to tie on and that's the same like

Morten: Andreas had on his stream of flies, inspired by Bob, for sure.

Morten: So everybody's kind of looking at what he has been doing.

Morten: So now Bob was, Popovich was easy as well.

Morten: It just, we don't, we just, for us, when we work with people like Klaus and

Morten: Popovich, it's very, very important for us that we hit it right.

Morten: Because the worst thing that could happen is that we make a hook and they really

Morten: don't like it. That would be awful.

Marvin: Yeah, that would be very, very, very bad. Yeah, very unfortunate.

Marvin: Do you have any other kind of upcoming product releases you can share with us?

Morten: Apart from the couple of classic fly hooks and hopefully the hook with Blaine,

Morten: when we get time to sit down and do that one, that's the three hooks we're working on right now.

Morten: And to be honest, we haven't been working on Blaine's hooks yet.

Morten: We've just been talking about it. But hopefully it will play out.

Marvin: Yeah, it's interesting too because I've watched your hooks through the years.

Marvin: And doing time classes and things and it's interesting to see that you kind

Marvin: of almost have an inverted product development uh catalog where you did specialty

Marvin: hooks first and now you're building out the more traditional hooks.

Morten: Right yeah yeah um i think that came out of the whole idea in the beginning

Morten: that we needed to fill some gaps and uh and that that we just kept doing that

Morten: in the beginning and then as you said eventually we got around to do the the

Morten: hooks everybody needs as well.

Morten: But I think we maybe got known for doing the goofy stuff.

Marvin: But I would say one of the great things, and I think Daiichi has this too,

Marvin: is if you go to your website, you've got the chart so that people can go and

Marvin: see, oh, well, I like to tie on a TMCO 100.

Marvin: What's the analog AREX hook, right?

Marvin: And that's super helpful. I mean, like you said, they're all still different.

Marvin: Like the wire gauge may be different. The gap might be different,

Marvin: but it's always helpful.

Marvin: Kind of back to what we started about at the beginning, people are like, well i don't have

Marvin: a tmc 100 and i was like well do you have a daichi

Marvin: whatever and they're like oh i was like it works like what are you looking for

Marvin: long shank you know thin wire hook um so i think that's a great thing for people

Marvin: to to check out and um you know morton is there anything else you want to share

Marvin: with our folks before i let you go and uh wrap up your work day and go have dinner.

Morten: Well i would say one thing and that that's actually very important for me to say it's it's,

Morten: Even though I've been in this industry, as you said, or maybe I said,

Morten: for almost 40 years, I really still enjoy every day.

Morten: It's amazing still to meet people out there like we did in Ypsilanti a couple of months back.

Morten: It's just meet tires, meet fly fishermen.

Morten: And I think it will never grow old.

Morten: I've never been in this industry to be either rich or make a lot of money.

Morten: It's a lifestyle for me. And I think that's, I'm not the only one in this industry who feels like this.

Morten: I think a lot of people, like Blaine is one of them as well.

Morten: And I know a lot of people, they're in this because they really,

Morten: really like fly fishing and love fly fishing and fly tying.

Morten: And that's, I really hope the new one, young ones coming into the industry are thinking like this.

Morten: For sure, you need to make a living. You need to put food on the table and provide

Morten: for your family. But at the end of the day, it's all about the passion for what we are doing.

Morten: That's the thing I'm saying.

Marvin: Yeah, it's interesting you say that because I always say that I think the fly

Marvin: fishing community is one of the most generous communities in the sporting world.

Morten: Yeah, I agree.

Morten: Sharing is a big thing and i even on social media i always get like you know if you look at,

Morten: instagram for example where you see a lot of you know tires sharing the the

Morten: flies and all that it's almost never any politics in there it's always about

Morten: the the hobby and it's almost like if you if you if you dare to write anything

Morten: with politics regarding politics you you'll be,

Morten: blame, but it's not a good thing to do. And I really, really enjoy that.

Morten: There's just still a few places where you actually just can share your love

Morten: for something you really like to do instead of ending up in bad discussions

Morten: about who's the best president or whatever.

Morten: It's just fish and night flies.

Marvin: What I would say is I know you're a very accomplished photographer and if you

Marvin: look at your website And if you look at your YouTube channel and your social

Marvin: media, you have great content, right? It's really beautifully produced.

Marvin: I think your tying videos in terms of helping people learn to tie,

Marvin: like, you know, all the materials, everything's great.

Marvin: You know, I think people should check them out. And I'll drop links to all that stuff in the show notes.

Marvin: You know, I guess in the United States, I guess Hairline is your distributor here.

Marvin: So it's not like you have a lot of retail outlets. But I guess if you're not

Marvin: in the States, go to your website and you've got all of your international dealers.

Marvin: Um i would imagine um probably your social media channels and your website's

Marvin: the best way to kind of learn more about the hooks oh.

Morten: Yeah the website is always updated on what we are doing and and maybe i would

Morten: say maybe the strongest we have is is youtube and and and especially instagram

Morten: because that's where i can play with the photographs as you said photography

Morten: is my My other big passion,

Morten: apart from fly fishing, I really enjoy doing that.

Morten: I've photographed a lot of flies, I can tell you.

Marvin: Yeah, I was going to say you need another more expensive hobby like shotguns, right?

Marvin: So you can get really expensive shotguns and then you'll have three really expensive

Marvin: hobbies and maybe throw in sports cars and you'll be done.

Marvin: But, you know, I'll drop links to all those. And I know, too,

Marvin: you know, even though you're a Danish-based company, you've spent a lot of time

Marvin: in the United States on the show circuit.

Marvin: So people can look forward to seeing you at the International Fly Tying Symposium.

Marvin: I think you've done a lot of the fly fishing shows.

Marvin: So if they're curious, you know, they'll be able to find you maybe in the hairline

Marvin: booth next year or somewhere like that.

Morten: We hope so. We haven't decided on next year, but I'm quite sure that we will be there.

Morten: So, and I really enjoy that. It's always good to meet people.

Morten: I have all the respect for social media, but it doesn't beat meeting up in real life.

Morten: That's what we should do even more often, to be honest. It's good.

Marvin: Yeah, a hundred percent. Well, I appreciate you spending so much time with me,

Marvin: and it's been a lot of fun, and I'm glad we had a chance to sit down and talk.

Morten: My pleasure, Marvin. Thank you for having me.

Marvin: Take care.

Morten: Take care.

Intro: Well, folks, I hope you enjoyed that as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you.

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Intro: Tight lines, everybody.