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| Made in Montana, hooked in Oregon. Photo by Jess Gibson |
With the lack of time to tie flies, I'm thrilled when friends gives me a few of their patterns to fish, especially when the flies are tyed by the person that cuts my waders. A few weeks ago I was gifted this red and black fly by Clay Krull, perfect for Deschutes summer steelhead and it paid off. Clay is Simms' lead fabric cutter, he lays out Locke's blueprints on his 16-yard-long cutting table. Wearing a metal mesh glove, he guides a fabric saw through various thicknesses of the fabric, cutting along razor-thin lines all designed to minimize waste.
"I think I've cut the patterns for 99.9 percent of the waders we've made over the last seven years," Krull says.
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| Simms-Made in the USA photo by Brian Grossenbacher’s |
The patterns that Locke prints out and Krull cuts are filled with lines that come within a fraction of an inch of each other. Any waste, which is generally thin strips of fabric, is collected for recycling in a bin simply marked "Gore."
