874 | How Grundéns Turned Commercial Fishing Survival Gear into Fly Fishing Essentials
Wet Fly Swing Fly Fishing Podcast
Dave Stewart
4.7 • 530 Ratings
🗓️ 23 January 2026
⏱️ 64 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Show Notes: Https://wetflyswing.com/874
Sponsors: Intrepid Camp Gear, Grand Teton Fly Fishing, and Montana Fly Fishing Lodge
Sponsors:https://wetflyswing.com/sponsors
Most fly fishing gear is built for comfort. Some of it is built for performance. But very little of it is built with the assumption that conditions can turn from "kinda crappy" to "this could go bad" in a hurry.
That's where Grundéns comes in.
In this episode, I sat down with Justin Waters, who's right in the middle of translating nearly 100 years of commercial fishing toughness into gear that guides, steelheaders, and fly anglers lean on when the weather goes sideways. We dug into why durability beats "features," what guides actually do to destroy gear, and how the best product ideas still come from the hardest fishing jobs on Earth.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Most fly fishing gear is designed for comfort. Some of it is designed for performance. And very little of it is designed for survival. |
| 0:11.7 | Grunton's didn't start in fly shops. It started in the North Sea building gear to keep commercial fishermen alive and freezing, spray heavy weather and conditions where mistakes don't get a second chance. |
| 0:22.9 | That mindset never went away. Today's guest, Justin Waters, works inside that legacy, |
| 0:26.9 | helping translate nearly 100 years of blue car fishing experience into gear that fly anglers, |
| 0:31.9 | steelheaders, and guides now trust when conditions turn ugly. This is the Wetfly Swink podcast |
| 0:37.2 | where I show you the best places to travel to for fly fishing, |
| 0:40.3 | how to find the best gear and tools to prepare for that big trip, |
| 0:43.2 | and what you can do to give back to the fish species we all love. |
| 0:47.1 | In today's conversation, we're going to talk about why durability matters more than features, |
| 0:51.2 | how guys actually destroy their gear and why some of the best fly fishing insight still comes from commercial and conventional anglers. |
| 0:59.3 | By the end of this episode, you're going to find out how Grun has made the jump from |
| 1:02.2 | crabboats to fly fishing without changing who they are, what the vector waiter was built |
| 1:07.1 | specifically for and how anglers abuse this gear. |
| 1:10.7 | We're going to find out about commercial fishing jackets, |
| 1:12.8 | how they became standard issue on steelhead drift boats, |
| 1:16.7 | and why community conservation and showing up, |
| 1:19.5 | or it matters most in marketing. |
| 1:21.0 | If you ever wondered what fly fishing looks like |
| 1:23.3 | when it borrows its toughness from the hardest fishing jobs on Earth, |
| 1:27.1 | this episode is going to |
| 1:28.1 | connect the dots uh here he is jesson waters you can find him at grundins dot com how you doing jesson oh |
| 1:35.1 | real good man i'm stoked to be here yeah yeah me too it's going to be fun conversation i always |
... |
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