Alexei Shanin Absolute World Champion trout & boat fishing

Armon Ikramov

Kirill Gushchin

"Norstream" - new tackle brand came from Russia

It's all started in the mid of the 90th in Moscow city. While most of the Russian people were adopting themselves to the newly came "Glastnost" & "Perestroyka" - freedoms offered by the softened communist regime, a group of fishing enthusiasts was preoccupied with the idea to introduce to fellow anglers in Russia the top class fishing tackles, as "the wind of changes" had made it possible to deliver the goods to the country by the private initiative.

That is how the Russian legendary "Fisherman's World" company was started. Why legendary? Just because it was among the very first companies set up in Moscow for tackle trade. From the very beginning the company concept was to get the best product, to offer the best services and to train the best experts on the market. Stuff of many currently existing tackle trading companies in Russia often and proudly declare the fact of employment by and/or co-operation with "Fisherman's World" in their CV's. The big idea behind the company was specifically to introduce to Russian anglers the products of Daiwa Seiko Inc., Japan, positioned as the best available tackles. Of course, that time some of the tackles had prices ten times higher, then an average monthly wage in Moscow. In order to sell, there was a need to explain a lot about modern tackles and nuances of their performance, so people in "Fisherman's World" often felt as missioners, delivering the fruits of civilization to locals and overcoming all the thorns and obstacles related to this mission. First "Fisherman's World" retail shops in Moscow resembled Jeweler boutiques with the private guards on duty, rather than normal tackle shops loaded with terminal tackles, lures, ground baits and all other staff. Years of continues cultivating of a new culture of angling and the best quality tackles among Russian anglers, tightest co-operation with one of the world market leaders, who was and still is truly committed to the total quality in every aspect, finally realized in a few series of spinning rods designed precisely for the Russian anglers and developed mutually by Russian "Fisherman's World" experts and Japanese Daiwa Seiko Inc. engineers. The successes of those spinning rods on the market was absolutely outranges.

After the obvious success of the new spinning rods, which formed the beginning of the Daiwa's special Russian range of the products, both companies concluded that the market is ready for a bigger scale business. Daiwa Seiko Inc. introduced four more dealers in Russia. "Fisherman's World" rejected to continue developing the spinning rods for Daiwa, because of the introduction of new dealers and started to advance the product development alone. First independent steps were very scaring, as for ten years the company was dealing with Daiwa only (it was Daiwa's condition) and could not imagine its own product without any more or less established brand name on it. At first there were negotiations with Polish "Robinson", but later on Mr. Dan B. Johannessen from Norwegian company "Norstream" made the proposition, no one could resist. He offered to use the brand name "Norstream" free of charge and his co-operation for product development. In fact his assistance on the initial stage of the development of "Norstream" brand in Russia was rather helpful.

Within the years of commercialization in Russia 2006 - 2007 "Fisherman's World" developed the sales of "Norstream" branded products in Russia up to 1 mln USD per year and advanced a lot in sophisticated job of rod development.

The specialization in product development is always with spinning rods. The secret behind "Norstream" success in Russia is very simple. Concentration when developing on such issues as rod's weight, and precisely weight of top sections. Sensitivity of blanks and accuracy in rod performance when retrieving are other strong sides of "Norstream" spinning rods everybody appreciate. "I just clearly know in what way, for what fish and under which fishing conditions the new rod might be applied the best. After, it is just the feeling of proportions, knowledge of materials and skilled personal we only entrust to assemble the rods for us" - says Mr. Kirill Gushchin, Chief rod developer. "The materials used for construction of blanks of our top range rods are high modulus and super high modulus sophisticated graphite composition of 30 to 56 ton original Mitsubishi carbons allocated together under the UTC technology, which allows the maximum bonding of graphite layers while caking at the micro level. The main concepts of our rod construction is combining of such rod characteristics as butt stiffness and power with elastic and stiff enough middle part and finally with the maximum light weighted top. The above characteristics permit an angler to control the fish totally, easy and long cast and high sensitivity." All-Russia tackle technical guru Mr. Peter Motolov says: "Norstream rods achieved these unique characteristics through application of the latest developments in carbon treatment and careful tuning of all the factors that affect rod conduction of lure vibrations through the line, through the guides, on to the reel-seat and finally to the hand of an angler".

During the years 2007-2008 the top Russian sportsmen won a lot of international fishing competitions and championships with the "Norstream" spinnings in their hands. "Norstream" series of STAGE spinning rods got the popularity among the many European professional and recreational anglers. Visiting different international fishing competitions and championships sportsmen from national teams of Russia, Ukraine and Slovak Republic demonstrated the performance of Russian "Norstream" rods. Those provoked an interest to our products from some European companies and lead us to the conclusion that it is high time to show our rods to the entire Tackle Trade World. An occasion came as TTW Fair in Amsterdam.

It was a new and significant stage in business development; a Russian cultivated spinning rod brand became internationally represented. Canada, Ukraine and the Czech Republic are now the countries where "Norstream" products are commercialized.

Northern character with the Russian drive in performance, new technological stage of the uncompromised quality criteria, the stream of the new ideas of the team of keen Russian fishermen and engineers - all this is the very debut of "Norstream" - new tackle brand came from Russia.

Peter Motalov