Fly Fishing Insider Podcast
Meat Market Flies is a streamer-only fly company started by a northern California family who wanted to buy a drift boat. The five tiers took more than 200 orders in their first year, roughly 210 of them online, and bought both a drift boat and a jet boat. The Pig Sticker pattern appeared in nearly every order.
Hunter Derrek is a high school senior in northern California and one of five tiers behind Meat Market Flies, the streamer-only fly company he runs with his father, his brother and two friends.
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What is Meat Market Flies?
Meat Market Flies is a streamer-only fly company run by five tiers, selling through its own site and a handful of shops. Meat Market Flies deliberately skips nymphs and dry flies because the crew fishes streamers for stripers, rainbows, largemouth and smallmouth, and ties what it actually uses. The name comes from streamer slang: a fish that takes a big fly ate meat.
How did wanting a drift boat start a fly company?
Meat Market Flies began on the Sacramento River, watching two anglers in a drift boat double up in water the crew could not wade to. The plan was to tie and sell streamers until there was enough money for a boat. Within the first year Meat Market Flies had taken over 200 orders, about 210 of them online, and the proceeds bought a drift boat for one member and a jet boat for another.
Why does the Pig Sticker outsell everything else?
The Pig Sticker was created by Hunter Derrek's father and then handed to Hunter for production tying because he had the time. The Pig Sticker shows up in nearly every Meat Market Flies order, usually as a four-pack rather than a single fly, and sales of it and one companion pattern run well over a thousand. Neither fly has slowed down enough for the crew to stop tying it.
What made Meat Market Flies upgrade its hooks?
In the company's first month, a shop-grade streamer hook straightened out on a big fish, and Derrek's reaction was that a customer who had that happen would never buy from the company again. Meat Market Flies switched its entire production over to a stronger, sharper streamer hook the next day, and changed thread brands after the original thread kept breaking. Hooks and materials are the one place the company refuses to cut cost.
Why send production overseas if quality is the priority?
Between school, two jobs and children in three of the five tiers' households, Meat Market Flies had reached the point where tying was eating into fishing time and orders were getting hard to fill. The plan is to ship the exact hooks and materials the company already uses overseas rather than let a contractor substitute, and to film tying videos so the pattern is reproduced the same way. Getting production off the crew's own vises is also what would let Meat Market Flies stock more than the two or three shops it was in.
How does a five-person tying crew divide the work?
Meat Market Flies splits its catalog by what each tier does best: one handles steelhead and classic patterns from Oregon, one is the all-around tier who makes patterns visually distinctive, and Derrek's father ties game changers and feathered game changers. Derrek himself covers stripers, largemouth, smallmouth, trout and steelhead, and creates roughly one new pattern a week. His younger brother has a few bass and trout patterns but has slowed down for three seasons of school sports.
What does a private tying group do for a fly brand?
Meat Market Flies runs a private Facebook group called the Butcher Block where customers who also tie post their own work and critique the company's patterns. With five people watching one account and one group, questions typically get answered within about ten minutes. The group also shows the crew what customers do with their patterns, since many mix a Meat Market fly with something else and create their own version.
Key takeaways
- Meat Market Flies took more than 200 orders in its first year with roughly 210 placed online, which funded a drift boat and a jet boat.
- The Pig Sticker sells in four-packs rather than singles and appears in nearly every order the company fills.
- One straightened hook on a big fish was enough to move the whole catalog onto stronger, sharper streamer hooks within a day.
- When outsourcing tying, ship your own hooks and materials and film the pattern being tied, rather than trusting a contractor's substitutions.
- A private group where customers critique patterns produces faster feedback than any survey - five admins answered questions in about ten minutes.
- Derrek planned to get his California guide license on February 1 and applied to nine Alaska lodges for the summer; his mentor told him building a guiding career takes four to five years with a side job.
