Kenyan Flies

I've been chatting a while with a fellow from Kenya that has a small
fly-tying concern. He indicates he's had some dealings with "the
FLYGUYS" but I'll not go into the details of that. What did piquque
my interest is his fly offer. He indicates he uses Umpuqua 1500 or
1000 hooks on his flies and assures me of the quality of the tie. His
prices are a bit too incredible for me to believe. $3.00 per dozen
with a min 100 dozen. (Drys).. Nymphs are $2.80 per doz, same
quantity. Has anyone had any experience with this company (Mediasoft
Technologies)? And the individual of Samuel N. Kioi? Thanks in
advance. Bill

A couple of points I would make in regards to this... and I'll start off by
declaring that I have recently taken a position with Feather Merchants in
New Zealand heading up their product development for Australasia.

It wouldn't be possible for this guy to use "Umpqua" hooks as "Umpqua" do
not make hooks, all of their flies are tied on Tiemco. I would very much
doubt that these flies could possibly be tied on Tiemco at their price
point.

I had an interesting experience recently with another Kenyan outfit who
e-mailed me offering very cheap flies. I requested if they had pictures of
their flies and I promptly received an e-mail showing several New Zealand
patterns that would be appropriate for me to purchased as an indication of
their great work. The funny thing was, the photographs were photos I
actually took myself for the Umpqua NZ website! I sent back a note saying
that I knew the photos were not of their own flies and received an apology
and a word document with more photos of American style patterns. However
when I put my cursor on the photos in the word document the source link for
the photo origin was to an American company that sells Sri-Lankan flies. In
the entire dealing with the guy he seemed extremely dishonest.

My personal experience with Kenyan flies is through two guides I know who
have purchased from some of these companies. One had some very well tied
flies on hooks that seemed to have all the holding ability of soldering
wire. you could bend every hook with no effort, and so could our big trout
down here.

The other ones were not very well tied, on better hooks but the dryflies all
sank having been tied with poor materials and heavy nymph hooks.

They are cheap, but you might just get what you pay for.

The reality is, for large numbers of flies, it is impossible for the
wholesale trade to find tiers in western countries who can produce quality
flies at a rate that makes it possible for the wholesaler to sell them on.
This caused the need for companies such as ours to go offshore in the early
'70's. Chiang Mai in Thailand has become the "Silicon Valley" of fly-tying
over the years and is a significant part of their local economy. I don't
know the Kenyan situation, but flies from that area have always had the
worst rep and certainly have in recent years. When people hear of these
offshore tying factories they immediately think of "sweat shops" as this
thread has sort of alluded to at times, but in Umpqua's case nothing could
be further from the truth. When I visited the factories in the mid nineties
I was amazed at the place and once inside, people's appearances aside, I
could have been in any modern factory in the western world. Air conditioned
and spotlessly clean. The workers are well compensated by local standards
and receive a wage that is equivalent to nearly double the going rate for
manual labor. There are health and education plans and all sorts of things
to help retain good staff. With the growth in the business in that area a
good tier is valuable and they are treated as such.

I have posted a couple of pics of the factory in Chiang Mai on ABPF for
those that are interested.

I think the system we run of having qualirty flies made in these countries
and rewarding western fly designers on the royalty system is the best one
for all.

Clark Reid

"Bill McDonald" wrote in message
om...
I've been chatting a while with a fellow from Kenya that has a small
fly-tying concern. He indicates he's had some dealings with "the
FLYGUYS" but I'll not go into the details of that. What did piquque
my interest is his fly offer. He indicates he uses Umpuqua 1500 or
1000 hooks on his flies and assures me of the quality of the tie. His
prices are a bit too incredible for me to believe. $3.00 per dozen
with a min 100 dozen. (Drys).. Nymphs are $2.80 per doz, same
quantity. Has anyone had any experience with this company (Mediasoft
Technologies)? And the individual of Samuel N. Kioi? Thanks in
advance. Bill