Our Analysis of the Shawn Combs–Orvis Situation: Trying to make sense of a confusing moment in fly fishing
- The Fly Box LLC
- Dec 28, 2025
- 5 min read
This piece is part of Sunday Cast, a weekly op-ed published in Casts That Care—our daily fly fishing newsletter. Each subscription helps support fly fishing charities, with 50% of fees donated every month. Join us HERE!
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By Kevin Wolfe | Casts That Care
When a brand tells the world it’s “returning to its roots,” doubling down on fly fishing innovation, and then the person most anglers associate with its flagship rod line walks out the door, people are going to ask the same question:
What just happened?
Shawn Combs, the rod designer widely credited with defining the modern Orvis Helios era, is leaving Orvis to join Scott Fly Rod Company as Vice President beginning in 2026. On its own, that’s a major industry move. In context, it feels bigger, stranger, and more loaded than it probably is.
And that’s exactly why it’s worth slowing down and thinking through before jumping to conclusions.
This piece isn’t about dunking on Orvis or celebrating Scott. It’s about trying to wrap our heads around a moment that sits at the intersection of product innovation, brand identity, retail reality, and the uncomfortable economics of modern fly fishing.
The timing is what makes this story hard to ignore
If Shawn Combs had left Orvis five years ago, this would still be news, but it wouldn’t feel like a referendum.
Today, it does.
Over the last year and a half, Orvis has been very public about change. Store closures. Layoffs. A shrinking physical footprint. And alongside all of that, a clear message: we are refocusing on fly fishing and wingshooting.
Not lifestyle. Not broad outdoor retail. The core pursuits.
So when the architect of your most recognizable fly rod line leaves right as you’re telling customers, dealers, and the industry that fly fishing is once again the center of the universe, it’s fair to ask:
Does this undercut that message?
Is this a sign of deeper instability?
Or are we misreading what “returning to roots” actually looks like in practice?
People leaving doesn’t automatically mean something is wrong
In fly fishing, we love tidy narratives. Someone leaves a company and suddenly it’s framed as betrayal, collapse, or a sinking ship. Reality is usually less dramatic and more contractual.
Shawn Combs is elite talent in a very small talent pool. Scott Fly Rod Company made a strategic hire. Orvis lost a key leader. Both things can be true without either company being “in trouble.”
Contracts end. Roles evolve. Opportunities arise. And if Scott came in with more money, more authority, or a broader mandate, that doesn’t mean Orvis failed. It means Scott won a recruitment battle.
Still, timing matters. And optics matter even more in a sport built on trust, reputation, and long memory.
The Orvis situation deserves a more charitable read than it’s getting
Before we judge Orvis for shutting down stores or focus solely on headline optics, it’s worth stepping back and acknowledging something important:
Orvis did not take the easy way out.
In an era where legacy brands, (outdoor brands especially) are routinely sold to private equity, often hollowed out, leveraged, and stripped of their original identity, Orvis has, so far, chosen not to do that. There’s no evidence of a private equity buyout. No announcement of outside capital taking control. No obvious pivot toward financial engineering at the expense of product and culture.
That matters.
Fixing a company from the inside without selling it is harder, slower, and far less glamorous than cashing out. It usually means painful cuts, difficult restructuring, and decisions that look bad in the short term but are aimed at long-term survival.
From the outside, Orvis appears to be trying to do exactly that: become smaller, more focused, and more honest about what it actually is.
That doesn’t make every outcome successful, but it does make the intent worth respecting.
So why does the Combs departure still feel unsettling?
Because fly fishing isn’t like other industries.
Rod designers aren’t anonymous engineers. They’re storytellers, standard-setters, and anchors of credibility. When anglers buy a Helios, they’re not just buying graphite. They’re buying confidence that someone, somewhere, knew exactly what they were doing.
Shawn Combs leaving raises three legitimate questions:
1. What happens to Orvis’s innovation pipeline?
Rod development is a multi-year process. Losing a central figure can disrupt continuity, even if the broader team is strong. Orvis now has to prove that Helios-level innovation was a system, not a single mind.
2. What does “reinvesting in fly fishing” actually mean internally?
Is Orvis doubling down on product development budgets? On talent? On manufacturing? Or is the reinvestment more about focus and messaging than headcount?
Those distinctions matter, even if customers never see them directly.
3. How does the community interpret this?
Fly fishing runs on perception. Dealers talk. Guides talk. Serious anglers talk. Even if the internal reality is stable, uncertainty alone can create hesitation, especially in the premium market.
None of this means Orvis is failing. But it does mean they’re entering a moment where execution matters more than words.
What about wingshooting?
Orvis has been clear that wingshooting remains a core pillar of the brand as well. Wingshooting, Fly Fishing and Conservation have been the three words they have been living by during this transition. And importantly, this isn’t just lip service.
Wingshooting schools, guided experiences, lodges, instruction programs, and upland gear ecosystems are still very much alive inside Orvis. What we haven’t seen is a single headline-grabbing, product-driven wingshooting announcement that mirrors the attention Helios once commanded in fly fishing.
That suggests something subtle but important: Orvis may be leaning more into experiential depth than splashy product launches in that category, at least for now.
The question everyone keeps asking: did Shawn Combs jump off a sinking ship?
Here’s the most honest answer: we don’t know, and pretending otherwise is lazy.
What we do know is this:
Orvis is changing.
Scott is capitalizing on that moment.
And fly fishing, as an industry, is in the middle of a broader reckoning about scale, growth, and sustainability.
This doesn’t look like panic. It looks like transition. And transitions always create movement.
Our opinion: What Orvis needs to do next
This is where we stop asking questions and offer a point of view.
If Orvis wants this moment to age well, three things matter:
Clarity beats spin. The market doesn’t need reassurance. It needs transparency. Calm, confident messaging goes a long way.
The next product cycle HAS to land. This is the most important product launch since Orvis invented the modern fly reel, and treating it any other way (like relying on brand stability if it goes south) would be detrimental. One strong rod launch erases a lot of doubt. One weak one amplifies all of it.
Lean into being Orvis, not everything. Orvis doesn’t need to be the biggest brand in fly fishing. It needs to be the most trusted. With the recent loss of trust in Simms and brands alike, the field is WIDE OPEN!
If they do that, Shawn Combs leaving becomes a chapter, not a verdict.
Why this story matters beyond Orvis
This isn’t just about one company or one designer. It’s about fly fishing growing up and shrinking down at the same time.
Legacy brands are being forced to choose between money and meaning. Between scale and soul. Between selling out and figuring it out.
Orvis appears to be trying to figure it out.
That doesn’t guarantee success. But it does deserve a fair, thoughtful read.
And that’s the conversation we should be having.
This piece is part of Sunday Cast, a weekly op-ed published in Casts That Care, our daily fly fishing newsletter. Each subscription helps support fly fishing charities, with 50% of fees donated every month. Join us HERE!
Read more. Think deeper. Fish better.
By Kevin WolfeCasts That Care Charity News
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