The Bandit

Epic Beginnings….

Epic was born out of two frustrations I experienced in fly fishing:

1. My students were coming to fly casting classes with new fly rods so stiff and so lifeless they were extremely difficult to cast - even for me!  _ Probably great rods if you wanted to bust out a 100 foot cast on a football field, but a total impairment when used as practical fly fishing tools.
   
   
2. The second big driver was my own fishing experience. Like all fly anglers, I wanted to be a better fly fisherman, become a better caster and ultimately catch more fish. And like all anglers, I’d grown through experimentation and improvement on just about every aspect of the sport. Rods, lines, leaders, my casting - and thousands of flies. 

Eventually I started fish lighter fly rods and lighter lines in order to make better presentations. You know, to get more feeling, better casts and better response.

While the lighter rods had better feeling for sure, I was regularly breaking tips by point loading when netting big trout - Yep, we have some fairly big trout here in New Zealand!

And so began the journey. A journey to "build a better fly rod” - that phrase still sits on the whiteboard above my desk to this day.

Many materials were tested and many tapers developed in the quest to leave behind the stiff lifeless rods I was so used to using. My first fly rod that went into production, the Epic 580, went through 15 iterations before we settled on a taper that could truly be called Epic - and that's how the brand began.

Our tapers are powerful, but not stiff. Incredibly tough, but impart wonderfull responsiveness and feedback. And test, they can still bust out those long casts

I know that you’ll feel and appreciate the Epic difference. You’ll be making better casts, making tighter loops, better presentations, and ultimately catching more fish. And if you don’t, we’ll happily take back the fly rod you are looking at.

Effortless Fly Casting - Smooth Like Butter, Sweet Like Honey.

Carl McNeil - Master Fly Casting Instructor - Founder - Epic Fly Rods

The Materials

Epic fly rods are made to exacting standards using either a proprietary S2-glass composite or a multi modulus, helical constructed low resign Carbon Fibre system.
Although fast for fiberglass, our fuller flexing FastGlass blanks have a beautiful soulful feeling and are incredibly tough. 

Our Carbon Fibre blanks are light, crisp and at the very forefront of fly rod design.

Each material features a unidirectional fibre layup which aligns fibers longitudinally along the blank. The result is an incredibly strong, light and powerful tube with a crisp, precise response. This recipe, rolled to our Epic tapers combine silky smooth easy loading with trophy pulling power. 

Regardless of the material you decide to choose, you have before you what we sincerely believe is the very best fly rod produced.

All jargon aside, these fly rods are just fantastic to cast, they look incredible, are super tough, and are a hell of a lot of fun to fish with.