Cortland Line Company:
Our Mission

With nearly 100 years of passion and experience, we remain focused on one thing: fishing. Fishing has and always will be what drives us to develop the most advanced lines offered today. Located in Cortland, NY – all of our lines are made in the USA. All of our lines share the latest in line technology - many technologies that Cortland itself pioneered for the industry. We hope to see you on the water. Or, better yet, stop by and see us – we'd love to talk fishing.

Meet Cortland

Time has been kind to the landscape outside our Cortland, NY factory. Little has changed since we started making fly lines here in 1915. The rolling hills and crystal-clear trout streams are still pretty much as they were when Cortland Line Company founder Ray Smith defined his mission to produce the world's finest fly lines. At the time, natural silk was the material of choice for quality lines. Ray developed new processes to make his lines last longer and perform better. We still use this approach, but we long ago replaced the silk with PVC, nylon, silicone and a host of other modern materials to make today's Cortland Fly lines.

Another thing that hasn't changed is the passion we put into our products. Ray Smith was a fisherman who wanted a better line and went about finding a way to make one. At Cortland Line, we're fisherman too. It's not unusual to see a Cortland employee walk down to the river during his lunch hour for "just a couple casts." Spend a few minutes in the office and you'll over hear pieces of conversation like, . . . "how was fishing last week?" . . . "talked to Frank and he said the tarpon" . . . "sounds like it's been a good year on the" . . . "fished the West Branch yesterday" . . . "Hendricksons" . . . "hot new pattern" . . . "stripers" . . . "water was up, but that QD did the trick" . . .

You see, we live to fish. And because we fish we know that the difference between success and failure on the water can depend on your line. Like you, we want to fish with the best lines available. So we build every Cortland Line as if we were going to use it ourselves. Using the finest materials and cutting edge technologies, we produce lines that out perform any other lines on the market.

Our revolutionary Dyna-Tip Technology used in our fly lines is an example of this search for better performing lines. When some of us asked for a line with a higher floating tip, our R&D department came up with an entirely new way to solve the problem. They didn't just add more "micro balloons" to the tip, they developed a whole new technology. The result is the best floating fly line on the market. Period.

On this web site, you will find the finest lines in the world, lines engineered to meet any fishing challenge. Whether the quarry is trout or tarpon, bass or bones, steelhead or stripers, we fish for them ourselves and we put that experience into every Cortland Fly Line we build. We think Ray would be proud.