Ari 't Hart is an artist, reel maker, & creative individual from the Netherlands. His fly reels are of a truly unique, futuristic design. In fact one of his reels is included in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Each one of his reels is a work of art itself & they command very high prices on the fly fishing tackle collectibles market. Expect to pay high prices for his work.

In addition to fly reels, Mr. Hart has also been known to make fly tying vises. These are truly fascinating vises - as much a piece of art as they are functional. 

On top of all the interesting & unusual designs of the items he makes, the quality of each is second to none. He is a very skilled, knowledgeable man, indeed! 

Below is a short video of an interview he did recently where he tells us how he got into the work he does & his thoughts & philosophies behind it all. If you're not familiar with his work, search the internet for examples & I think you'll be impressed. 

I can remember when I first felt an Airflo fly line. Boy, have they come a long way since then! While I'm an old-school type of angler, I appreciate & respect the thought & attention to detail that Airflo puts into their fly lines. Their use of modern technologies is very cool because, in my opinion, they integrate modern methods not because they can (like some other line companies do) but because it allows them to make the type of fly line they want. 

I don't endorse any brand or type of fly line. For Bamboo & glass fly rods I typically recommend other brands of line to folks who ask me, but for graphite fly rods I say you can't go wrong casting an Airflo fly line. 

Below is a short video about the company - a little of their history, accomplishments, & a very interesting look into their factory. 

I love to see photos of rivers, streams, fish, & folks out fly fishing. I also enjoy a good fish story, too. That's why it always makes me happy when folks share their fishing adventures with me. In a way it allows me to see places through you folks I might never get to fish myself. I learn a lot from you all, too. Plus, it makes me happy to know you're all out there catching fish & enjoying yourselves in beautiful places. 

If you have any fishing stories to tell & feel like sharing them with me, I'd love to read them. In fact, you can see some of the adventure a few rod clients & friends have had all over the world on the 'Beyond The Rod Shop' page. 

As this fishing season progresses, & if you feel like sharing any stories & photos of your fly fishing journeys with me, just know that I welcome them. I'd love to hear from you & see all the beautiful places you folks wet your lines. I hope you're all having a great fishing season out there!!

I don't think there's any aspect or item associated with the sport of fly fishing that someone doesn't have a collection of. Leather fly reel cases, in the traditional style, are no exception. Sometimes folks have an old reel & they want a case that would have come with the reel originally, when it was new, to make a nice outfit. Having a matching case will increase the value of your vintage, collectible fly reel. 

However, some folks have modern made reels that they cherish & want to protect better than a soft-sided case can. Maybe they have a modern reel that's made with classic aesthetics & they want a vintage-style leather case to house it in? A perfect fit for those folks would be the clamshell or D-block reel cases I make & offer on the Leather Accessories page. Considering what some of the vintage leather cases can sell for, my cases can be a very affordable & appropriately styled alternative.

The video below discusses these vintage cases, what's collectible, & the prices that they can fetch. If you've got one or more gathering dust on the shelf, or if you enjoy collecting these cases, you might find this information very interesting. You'll also note that it's mentioned in the video that while Hardy, Farlow's, & other reel makers were often assumed to have also made the cases for their reels, they did not. The vast majority of the English made vintage reel cases were made by Wheatley - the same folks who were famous for making those luxurious metal fly boxes! 

A lot of time & work go into making the clamshell & D-block reel cases that I offer on the Leather Accessories page. I'd like to talk a bit about some construction details of these cases. Hopefully this info will help you to better judge the quality of fly reel cases & leather cases overall. 

Whenever you make a case, box, briefcase, piece of luggage, etc that's made from leather & requires stitching, we use a particular type of stitch called (you guessed it) a "box" stitch. Whenever two pieces of leather meet to form a corner in a case, there are a couple of ways to do this. 

The first way to join two pieces of leather in a case together is called a butted joint. This is where the leather of one piece simply butts up against another. Almost every reel case you'll ever see uses this method:

This butted joint will leave one of the two pieces with it's end grain showing, as you can see from the photo above. The advantage of this type of construction is that it's much faster to make cases this way. In fact, they can be sewn & mass-produced on a machine when the leather is joined butt to butt.

The way I join the leather pieces together in my reel cases is to use a miter joint. The leather is cut down on the edges to a 45 degree bevel by hand with a specially shaped knife that is kept very sharp. When the two pieces of leather are stitched together there is no raw edge, end grain, or seam showing.

It takes a lot more time & skill to make cases this way & once mitered, they can only be hand-stitched. Just one glance will show you how much neater & cleaner the edges & corners are in a case made with mitered edges. Compare: the photo below shows a mass-produced reel case that was machine sewn & made with butted joints or seams.

Take a closer look at those seams to examine the butted joint:

Now compare that to the seams & edges on my cases, which are made with mitered joints & stitched by hand:

Maybe in the grand scheme of things these are just details - one seam versus another - but when you're looking for the best made case you can get for your fly reels, those details add up. I want these cases I make to be among the best you can get. A quality case will protect your fly reel, in style, for a lifetime.

For even more detailed photos from inside the rod shop, photos of rods, trout streams, fishing accessories & everything else fly fishing related that I get into, check out my feed on Instagram. The idea here is that I'll be able to show just little bits & pieces of rods & related items without all the detail & depth that we go into here.

I'll admit that I'm not a tech-savvy guy. Hey, I still use a rotary telephone (kids, ask an older person what that means) but I'm trying to catch up!!  

Please feel free to follow me there & let me know what you think. I'd love to hear from you.

​Hope you're all having a great season on the water so far!!