Mika Lappalainen | Friday, 10 May 2019
I have use different brands during the years. It doesn’t matter if is it fishing gears, phone, snowmobile or ATV. I would say that with all the products I had to use warranty more or less. I have several experience about warranty of fishing gears and how those work out. There is good sides and then well… the other side. Because of those experience I have moved to use certain brands and I have different approach when buying fishing gears. I won’t go thru brands and how it worked out but just sharing my experience with different issues. It is up to you how read it
So here we go. My first rod, I broke tip in the first summer when walking thru bushes. I holded rod that rod was behind of me and line got stuck in the branch. I thought that it would took off easily when pulling it little bit and I didn’t even watch how it was stuck. Result: Broken rod. So my fishing trip was ended before it started and I had to go back home. Next day I went to fishing shop and told what happened. Owner said that it is not really warranty issue BUT….. He gave me new tip anyway. Because of that I used only that shop for several years even I had other options also.
After that it went several years that I didn’t have any problems with gears and there was no reason to think about warranty. Then I had to renew my gears and I was looking different brands. Some of them were way too expensive or there were not on sale in the local shop. I still like to communicate with people if I have issues so I’m not using web much for this kind of shopping. I just find info and then buy gears from local shop.
So I found waders and wading shoes from same brand, suitable for my use and price was good. (not cheap but not expensive either). I had now problems with waders and I still have them as spare. And there first shoes were also good, fitting nicely, good grip etc. Then that brand published news sole which should have even more grip. So I decided to get those and save older ones as spare. After just one summer sole was peeling off itself. So I got other ones as warranty. I fished with those autumn and beginning of next season (2 weeks) and same problem. Warranty was working great. I sent email with photos to manufacture and in the return email they told me get new ones from shop. No complaining about warranty.
In the same summer I twisted my angle just day before group from Italy was arriving. I couldn’t get wading shoe on because of packed angle and tight shoe. So I visit the shop and bought another brand which had different design so I could put them to my feet. On the fifht day when we had overnight trip in the river those shoes broke down. Well I could use them put not tight them well because one of the clip where the lace goes took off. So I made reclamation and I got new shoes from shop. ( even manufacture was not so happy about this solution but salesman told them that I can’t sent shoes for them in middle of season). So shop did excellent work with this one. (this is different shop than in the first one). In autumn new shoes broke down again and same thing with clip. So now we sent the shoes to manufacture and I got new pair as warranty.
So it was time to renew gears again and I started to look new brand. Well I knew what I want to get. I wanted to quality. My season is short and furious, it means that I really don’t have time to have my gears broken or somewhere on the way to be fixed. Even that one manufacture has excellent warranty system and it is working fast, I wanted to have something else. So I paid little bit more than earlier and got great gears. They fit nicely, those are comfortable and when walking long distance there are just great. So I’m happy with those even I know that warranty system is little bit slow if those broke during the season. I have fished now two full season and I haven’t got any problems with these gears.
Last summer during the casting my flyline broke down suddenly. It was new line and manufacture made everything possible that I could have new line even it was Saturday and I was in Sweden. I appreciate their effort and I got new right after getting back to Finland. Year before rings in my rod loose and they started to turn by themself. I contacted to manufacture and they fixed it.(different brand than line)
Conclusion about this. Warranty has to work, when things happens and there are under warranty, you need to get new gears fast or fixed somehow. But there is also otherside and you need to think about that also. That thing is that if some brand is marketing itself or you see on forums that certain brand got praises about how good their warranty is working…. maybe you should think twice. It could mean that you will probably need they warranty system and I’m not sure if you want use it during the season.
Nowadays I have spare gears with me if I’m having longer trips that I’m out few days. You never know what will happen and it could be something that you can’t fix with ducktape. (with that I have been fixing snowmobile, backshield from car, wading shoes, waders etc)
One other thing which is really important to me. I want to have person who is dealing possible problems in gears. Or if that is not possible then I want to have shop where I can talk with salesman about issues. That is reason why I buy my main fishing gears from shop. In the case of reel and rod, I have straight contact to owner if in need.
Have a nice weekend
Mika from Finland
ps. I’m my life’s Donald Duck so it might be that things happens more to me than others. Or what you say if you hear that my tractor’s roof took off while driving it.