Why Ross Reels Are Made in Montrose, Colorado

When you walk into Ed's Fly Shop on East Main Street, look up at the wall of reels and you'll see something most fly shops in America can't claim. The Ross Reels stocked on our shelves were machined less than two miles from where you're standing.

That's not marketing. That's geography.

Ross Reels has been making fly reels in Montrose, Colorado since 1973. The factory sits at 1101 Mayfly Drive, just across town from our shop. The same machinists, engineers, and quality control teams who design and build Ross reels live in this town, fish the same rivers we guide, and run their kids through the same schools. When we tell you Ross is a local brand, we mean it the way nobody else in this industry can.

A Brief History of Ross in Montrose

Cliff Ross founded Ross Reels in 1973 with a simple idea. He wanted to build a fly reel that would last a lifetime, machined from solid aluminum bar stock, assembled by hand, and backed by a warranty as solid as the materials.

That was over fifty years ago. The company has grown, changed hands, expanded its lineup, and survived an industry that has watched most American fly reel makers move production overseas. But the factory has never left Montrose. Today Ross Reels operates as part of Mayfly Outdoors, headquartered in the same building where the reels are made. Every Ross reel sold anywhere in the world is designed, machined, and assembled in our town.

That continuity matters. Local machinists who have been at the factory for years know each piece of equipment, each tolerance, each finish. When something goes wrong on a manufacturing run, the problem gets solved in a conference room down the hall from the milling machines. That kind of feedback loop is impossible to replicate when your factory is six time zones away from your design team.

What Local Manufacturing Actually Means

For most fly reel buyers, "made in the USA" is a marketing label on a box. For us, it's something we can verify by driving across town.

Every Ross reel is precision machined from 6061-T6 aerospace-grade aluminum, the same alloy used in aircraft frames. Once the parts come off the machines, they get hand-assembled by technicians in Montrose. The drag systems get tested under load. The cosmetic finish gets inspected. The reels get packed, boxed, and shipped from the same building where they started as bar stock.

That hands-on process is why Ross reels carry one of the strongest warranties in the industry. When you send a reel back for service, it goes to the same factory where it was built. The same team that machined it can rebuild it.

That's the difference between a brand that says "made in the USA" and a brand that actually does it.

The Ross Lineup We Carry

We carry the full Ross Reels lineup at Ed's Fly Shop. Here's a quick walk through the reels most of our customers and guides actually fish.

Ross Evolution LTX. The all-purpose freshwater workhorse. Light, fast, and dialed in for trout, bass, and light salt applications. This is the reel most of our guides fish. If you spend your days on the Uncompahgre, Gunnison, or San Miguel, this is the reel built for that work.

Ross Evolution R Salt. The flagship saltwater reel. Fully sealed carbon drag, oversized arbor, and the stopping power for tarpon, permit, and tuna. Built tough, built local.

Ross San Miguel. A modern click-and-pawl classic. Beautiful proportions, smooth retrieve, and the sound a fly reel is supposed to make. For anglers who appreciate craftsmanship.

Ross Animas. The reel that built the brand. Time-tested, simple, reliable. A great all-around trout reel that will outlast the rod it sits on.

Ross Cimarron Creek. Ross's newest small-stream reel. Lightweight click-pawl platform built for headwaters and creek fishing. Perfect for the Cimarron and the upper Uncompahgre.

Ross Colorado LT. Click-and-pawl simplicity in a small-stream classic. Great for anglers who fish skinny water or want a backup reel that just works.

Every one of these reels comes with the Ross lifetime warranty. Every one is built in Montrose.

Why It Matters to Buy Ross From a Local Shop

You can buy Ross Reels from a hundred online retailers. The reel that arrives at your door will be the same reel either way. But there are reasons to buy from us specifically.

We know which Ross models work best on which local rivers, because our guides fish them every day. We can match a reel to a rod from our inventory in person, with you actually feeling the balance. If something goes wrong, we'll help you walk it through the warranty process directly with the factory across town. And when you support a local shop that supports a local manufacturer, you keep the money in Montrose, where it cycles back into the community we both call home.

For us, selling Ross is not just stocking a brand. It's keeping a relationship between two Montrose businesses alive. Our shop opened in 2019. Ross opened in 1973. Both of us are still here.

Come See the Lineup

If you're in Montrose, stop by the shop at 432 East Main Street. We have most of the Ross lineup on the shelf, and the ones we don't have in stock we can usually get within a few days from down the road.

If you can't make it in person, you can browse our full Ross Reels selection online. We ship anywhere in the country.

Either way, when you fish a Ross, you're fishing a reel made in Montrose. That's something worth knowing.