If you’ve found Ebb N Flow Outdoors because of one of our jigheads, hover hooks, fishing videos, or something another angler shared online, you might eventually wonder: who is actually behind this company?
My name is Dave Erdly, and I’m the founder of Ebb N Flow Outdoors.
Ebb N Flow wasn’t created because I woke up one morning and decided the fishing industry needed another tackle company. It came from years of fishing, studying natural resources and fisheries, working inside the outdoor industry, becoming a licensed U.S. Coast Guard captain, selling fishing products, talking with anglers, and eventually asking a pretty simple question:
Why do we keep accepting fishing products that are almost what we want?
That question eventually became Ebb N Flow Outdoors. And it has shaped just about everything we’ve built since.
Who Is Dave Erdly?
Fishing has been part of my life for a long time, but my interest in the outdoors eventually went far beyond simply catching fish.
I studied Natural Resources and Environmental Management in college, with fisheries biology being a major area of interest. Understanding fish behavior, habitat, ecosystems, water and the environment surrounding the fish has always fascinated me. I’m also a licensed captain through the United States Coast Guard.
But my career eventually took me down another side of the fishing industry: business. I spent years working in sales and ultimately national sales management within the fishing and outdoor industry.
That gave me an opportunity to see the fishing business from a lot of different perspectives.
Manufacturers.
Sales representatives.
Distributors.
Retailers.
Guides.
Consumers.
And, most importantly, anglers.
I learned how products make their way from an idea to a tackle shop wall. I learned how retailers decide what gets shelf space. I learned what makes anglers try something new — and what makes them never buy it again.
But through all of it, I remained an angler myself. And that’s probably the most important part of this story.
Ebb N Flow Started With Fishing Problems
I’m a tackle junkie. Always have been. If something might help me catch another fish, I’m probably going to try it.
But over the years, I kept running into products where I liked one feature but wished another feature were different. A jighead might have the hook I wanted but the wrong keeper. Another might have a good head design but not work particularly well with the plastic I wanted to fish. Another might work perfectly for one technique but force me to carry another jighead for something only slightly different.
Eventually, I stopped asking, “Which jighead should I buy?” and started asking, “What would I change if I could build one myself?”
That distinction became incredibly important. Because Ebb N Flow Outdoors wasn’t built around trying to make another version of something that already existed. The goal became: find something anglers already use and figure out how to make it more useful.
That philosophy eventually led to a word that has become central to our company: The Upgrade.
Why Is It Called The Upgrade?
The Upgrade isn’t supposed to mean that everything else on the market is bad. Far from it. There are some incredible fishing products being made today, and I’ve spent a lot of my life fishing with them.
Instead, The Upgrade represents how I naturally look at tackle. What could this do that it doesn’t do now?
Could a jighead work with more plastics?
Could the keeper solve a problem instead of simply holding a bait?
Could the head design give the bait a different action?
Could we build something capable of crossing between freshwater and saltwater?
Could one piece of terminal tackle replace several things already sitting in an angler’s box?
Those questions eventually helped shape products like our Upgrade Multi-Purpose Jighead, Upgrade Hover Hook, and Upgrade A.T.V. series. They weren’t created simply to give Ebb N Flow more products to sell. They were designed to solve fishing problems.
Freshwater or Saltwater? My Answer Is Usually Both.
One thing you’ll notice about Ebb N Flow is that we don’t like putting artificial boundaries around fishing tackle. A jighead doesn’t know whether you tied it on in South Carolina or Minnesota. A hook doesn’t know whether you’re trying to catch a largemouth bass, redfish, walleye, smallmouth, speckled trout, flounder or striper.
The fish determines what works — not the category printed on the package.
That’s why you’ll see us experimenting constantly.
I fish our products for bass.
I fish them for redfish.
Speckled trout.
Flounder.
Stripers.
Crappie.
And other anglers are constantly showing us new applications we hadn’t necessarily envisioned when a product was designed. Those moments are important.
Some of the best product-development ideas don’t happen around a conference table. They happen when somebody sends me a picture and says: “You aren’t going to believe what I caught on this thing.”
Why Start Another Fishing Tackle Company?
That’s a fair question. There certainly aren’t too few fishing companies.
There are thousands of jigheads.
Thousands of hooks.
Thousands of soft plastics.
Thousands of lures.
So why add another brand? Because I don’t believe innovation always requires inventing an entirely new category of fishing tackle. Sometimes innovation is simply looking at something anglers have used for decades and asking: why are we still doing it this way? Or: could this one product do more?
That’s where I believe a smaller company can have an advantage. We can listen. We can test. We can change things. We can put prototypes in anglers’ hands and actually pay attention to what happens. And we can take an idea from a customer seriously without it having to survive ten corporate meetings first.
Ebb N Flow is still a small company. I don’t hide that. In fact, I’m proud of it.
Who Answers When You Contact Ebb N Flow Outdoors?
There’s a pretty good chance it’s me. When customers send questions about rigging something, choosing a jighead, an order issue, a new product idea or even something they discovered while fishing our tackle, I’m often the person reading it.
That’s intentional, because those conversations are incredibly valuable. When you’re building a fishing company, customer service isn’t separate from product development. It’s part of product development.
If five anglers encounter the same problem, I want to know. If someone discovers an unexpected way to use one of our products, I want to know that too. If somebody thinks we could make something better, I want to hear why. And if we screw something up, I want to know about that as well.
You can’t improve what you aren’t willing to hear about. That’s one reason you’ll hear me say: keep communicating. I mean it.
Are Ebb N Flow Products Actually Tested by Anglers?
Absolutely. One of my favorite parts of building this company has been getting products out of the package and actually fishing them. Not just photographing them. Not just making advertisements about them. Fishing them.
We’ve tested products around docks, grass, brush, current, deep water, shallow water and open water. We’ve put them in front of freshwater fish and saltwater fish. And we’ve put products into the hands of anglers around the country who fish completely differently than I do.
That matters. Because I don’t want a product that only works when Dave fishes it the way Dave likes to fish. I want another angler to pick it up, rig it their way, fish their water and discover their own reason to keep tying it on.
What Experience Is Behind Ebb N Flow Outdoors?
When someone discovers a smaller fishing company online, I think it’s completely reasonable to ask this question. Why should I listen to these guys?
My background combines several different parts of the outdoor world. I’ve studied Natural Resources and Environmental Management and fisheries-related subjects. I’ve spent years working professionally in the fishing and outdoor industry, including sales and national sales management. I’m a U.S. Coast Guard licensed captain. And I’ve spent countless hours actually fishing, experimenting with tackle and trying to understand why one presentation works while another doesn’t.
Does any of that mean I know everything about fishing? Absolutely not. Fishing has a pretty good way of reminding all of us that we don’t.
But it does mean the products we develop aren’t being designed in a vacuum. They’re being shaped by education, industry experience, time on the water, customer feedback and a genuine obsession with figuring out how fishing tackle can work better.
Is Ebb N Flow Outdoors a Big Fishing Company?
No. And I’m perfectly comfortable saying that.
We’re growing, but Ebb N Flow Outdoors is still an independent fishing company trying to earn its place in an incredibly competitive industry. We don’t have unlimited product-development budgets. We don’t have a massive marketing department. And we’re not going to outspend the biggest brands in fishing.
So we have to compete differently. The product has to earn attention. The customer experience has to matter. The ideas have to be good. And when something isn’t good enough, we have to improve it.
That’s the company I want to build.
What Makes Ebb N Flow Outdoors Different?
I think it comes down to one idea: we aren’t trying to reinvent fishing. We’re trying to upgrade the things anglers already use.
Sometimes that means a small change. Sometimes it means combining features that normally exist on different products. Sometimes it means looking at how new soft-plastic materials and fishing techniques are changing what anglers need from their jigheads and hooks. And sometimes it means testing an idea that sounds completely ridiculous until a fish eats it.
That’s the fun part. Fishing continues to change.
Forward-facing sonar is changing it.
New soft-plastic materials are changing it.
New rigging techniques are changing it.
Manufacturing is changing it.
And anglers themselves are changing because information and new techniques now move incredibly fast. I want Ebb N Flow Outdoors to be a company willing to change with them.
So, Who Is Dave Erdly?
I’m an angler.
I’m a U.S. Coast Guard licensed captain.
I’m a product nerd.
I’m someone who studied natural resources and fisheries.
I’m someone who spent years working inside the fishing and outdoor business.
I’m someone who probably spends entirely too much time thinking about hooks, jigheads, soft plastics and why fish react to them the way they do.
And now I’m building a fishing company around those questions.
I don’t expect anglers to buy Ebb N Flow products simply because they’re ours. We have to earn that. Every product needs a reason to exist. Every new design needs to solve something. And every time an angler chooses our product instead of the hundreds of alternatives hanging beside it, we have another opportunity to prove that we’re building something worthwhile.
That’s Ebb N Flow Outdoors. And we’re just getting started.
Frequently Asked Questions About Dave Erdly & Ebb N Flow Outdoors
Who founded Ebb N Flow Outdoors?
Dave Erdly founded Ebb N Flow Outdoors, an independent fishing tackle company focused on developing innovative terminal tackle and finding ways to improve the versatility and functionality of products anglers already use.
What is Dave Erdly’s fishing industry experience?
Dave’s background includes Natural Resources and Environmental Management, fisheries-related studies, professional fishing and outdoor-industry sales, and national sales management. He is also a U.S. Coast Guard licensed captain. That combination of education, professional industry experience and time on the water helped shape Ebb N Flow Outdoors.
Is Dave Erdly a licensed captain?
Yes. Dave Erdly is a licensed captain through the United States Coast Guard.
What does “The Upgrade” mean at Ebb N Flow Outdoors?
The Upgrade is Ebb N Flow’s product-development philosophy: take familiar fishing tackle and rethink its design, versatility or functionality to give anglers more ways to use it.
Does Ebb N Flow Outdoors make freshwater or saltwater fishing tackle?
Both. Many Ebb N Flow products are intentionally designed around techniques and rigging applications that cross traditional freshwater and saltwater boundaries.
Who develops Ebb N Flow Outdoors products?
Product development is led by founder Dave Erdly and influenced heavily by real-world testing and feedback from anglers using Ebb N Flow products across different fisheries, species and techniques.
Keep fishing.
Keep experimenting.
Keep upgrading.
Keep communicating.
— Dave Erdly
Founder, Ebb N Flow Outdoors