“Every angler knows that the toughest fish to catch are tuna and sailfish. When a tuna gets hooked, it plunges down toward the seafloor like a depth charge, pulling the rod after it. Sailfish, on the other hand, repeatedly leap out of the water and struggle to break free of the hook and line.”

A guide at Asia’s first fishing-tackle tourist factory, the ­Okuma Museum, tucked away in the ­Tanzi District of Tai­chung City, exhaustively explains the many fishing techniques and physical motions required to deal with various fish species. The visitors to the venue, crowded in like sardines, are only half listening, as they focus more on trying out their own skills using the factory’s super-realistic virtual fishing simulator.

In contrast to the noisy shouts and exclamations at the simulator, the production line itself, separated from visitors by a huge glass divider, presents an entirely different ambience: one of intense concentration. The 20-plus blue-uniformed employees, all seasoned veterans, have their heads bent over their work stations, on which are scattered complex and sophisticated gears and parts. In their dexterous fingers, elite-quality spinning reels take shape, each one an exemplar of the highest craftsmanship.

The work area, which bears a close resemblance to a Swiss watch workshop, is the main base for the world’s third largest brand of manual fishing reels, the ­Okuma Fishing Tackle Company.

The Makaira series, one of Okuma’s premier products, offers improved drag and braking, making it especially suitable for anglers who target larger species of fish.

Okuma is not a familiar name to the average Joe, but in the minds of angling enthusiasts around the planet, it is unquestionably one of the “dream brands.” The US website TackleTour.com, devoted exclusively to fishing, has ranked ­Okuma as the third most ideal brand among US anglers. And in 2011 the well-known British magazine Angler’s Mail named ­Okuma’s “Trio Series Spinning Reels”—which have been selling like hotcakes—the most outstanding fishing gear of the year.

Okuma president Charles ­Chang points out that the core technology in sport fishing equipment is the reel, which is used to release and control the line that catches the fish. When a big fish weighing as much as 50–60 kilograms bites on the hook, it struggles furiously to get free, and the angler has to rely on the reel’s “braking” feature to stabilize the fishing rod, adjust the drag, and, in the course of the struggle, exhaust the fish so as to be able ultimately to reel it in.

Reels are made up of highly sophisticated parts like toothed gear wheels and ball bearings. They must be resistant to rust and corrosion, and be extremely durable over long periods of intensive use. Moreover, a good reel must give the user the right “feel” or “play” in his or her hands, and the movements involved in letting out or reeling in line must be faultlessly smooth and glitch-free. On top of all that, when a fisherman hooks a fish, the reel must be tough enough to hold up against very strong forces of drag and friction.

The level of complexity in the manufacturing process of an elite-quality reel is very high, and the price is correspondingly elevated: from thousands to tens of thousands of NT dollars (in US dollar terms, from a few hundred to well over a thousand). It is this sophisticated little device that has been the foundational product on which ­Okuma has built an empire.

Charles ­Chang founded ­Okuma in 1986 with capital of only NT$1 million (about US$30,000); even within the ranks of Taiwan’s many small and medium-sized enterprises, it was unquestionably small fry. At first ­Chang simply intended to do what other firms already in the industry were doing—OEM manufacturing of reels for big brand-name companies. But he found that the market was already saturated, and that it would be nearly impossible to win orders out from under the established OEM makers.

Seeking an alternative path to survival, ­Chang had little choice but to create his own brand. He chose the polar bear, an expert natural trapper of fish, as his symbol, and took the Japanese word for bear—­Okuma—as his corporate moniker.

At the beginning, ­Okuma adopted the two-track strategy—well known among Taiwanese firms—of simultaneously producing items for their own label while continuing to seek OEM orders from established brands. With their own label, ­Okuma targeted small markets that were relatively neglected by big firms. As Okuma products, offering a high performance-to-price ratio, steadily gained a word-of-mouth reputation among fishermen, the company finally got the opportunity to win orders from major international fishing tackle brands.

The venerable German fishing tackle manufacturer DAM, the largest maker in Europe, took the initiative to seek out ­Okuma to do OEM work for them. Over time ­Okuma became DAM’s single largest overseas contractor, and at the peak of their cooperation ­Okuma was shipping US$6 million of DAM gear per year.

Once ­Okuma became DAM’s main supplier, downstream retailers began to consider “­Okuma” as essentially equivalent to “DAM.” ­Okuma’s reputation spread rapidly in Europe, as did the scale of its operations.

DAM was by no means happy to see ­Okuma develop its own brand, and repeatedly threatened to withdraw its orders. ­Chang kept putting them off during negotiations with delaying tactics and reassurances, while at the same time he began actively exploring the US and Japanese markets so as to have a fall-back position in the event that ­Okuma lost DAM’s business.

In 1995, ­Okuma set up a subsidiary in Seattle, formally entering the American market. But because ­Okuma enjoyed little name recognition Stateside, the company struggled to compete against the major Japanese tackle firms Shi­mano and ­Daiwa, which had been operating in the US market for many years.

With the whole project in dire straits, in 1998 ­Chang decided to go to the US himself and personally supervise the Seattle operation. Aiming to raise the brand’s name recognition and its reputation for reliability, he adopted a strategy focused on “performance-to-price ratio,” setting his prices at about 70% of those asked by his Japanese competitors while offering products of comparable high quality. In plain language, lower cost, same performance. Purchasers of ­Okuma gear would also enjoy an extraordinary service bonus: lifetime free maintenance.

Buyers for US retailers were duly impressed, and began purchasing ­Okuma products on a trial basis. ­Chang was determined to spare no effort to hold and expand these hard-won sales channels, working ceaselessly to build mutual trust with clients. It even happened that ­Okuma paid the full costs for air transport for unprofitable small orders, simply in order to ensure that no sales outlet would ever experience an interruption in supply.

After five years of effort, ­Okuma’s annual US revenues rose from a mere US$200,000 in the early days to US$10 million—50 times higher!—making ­Okuma the only non-Japanese foreign brand to successfully penetrate the American market. This remarkable achievement also created a cushion against the risk of DAM or other foreign customers canceling their orders, thereby solving that problem as well.

By 2005, ­Okuma was realizing annual revenues in the US of US$15 million. But that was the peak, as new obstacles to growth surfaced. For one thing, ­Okuma’s Japanese competitors likewise lowered their prices to counter ­Okuma’s “performance-to-price ratio” strategy. Local American brands, meanwhile, began outsourcing production to mainland China, allowing them to undercut the prices charged by ­Okuma, who did all their own work in-house. These various pressures squeezed profit margins, forcing the company to a crossroads.

In search of a solution, Charles ­Chang sought outside advice. Among the steps he took to upgrade the company was to participate in the “Total Brand Management” program offered in 2009 by the Bureau of Foreign Trade of the Ministry of Economic Affairs in cooperation with the Taiwan Excellent Brand Association (TEBA).

Acting on ideas proposed by then TEBA director Jerry Wang, ­Chang launched a major makeover of the brand. Meticulous market research showed that the idea that most consumers associated with ­Okuma was “dynamic.” The company therefore coordinated product design, manufacturing, packaging, and marketing strategies to support the characterization “dynamic.”

Okuma also began working actively through clubs and online forums to reach out to and interact with anglers everywhere, and began sponsoring professional tournaments to increase customer trust and loyalty. In 2011, moreover, they didn’t shy away from laying out the big bucks required to hire American Scott Martin, one of the leading participants on the FLW competitive fishing tour, as their official equipment tester, creating a news sensation that reverberated around the global sport fishing community.

Having escaped the vicious cycle of cutthroat price wars, ­Okuma has become one of the top three fishing tackle brands in the world, considered on a par with Shi­mano and Daiwa.

There are an estimated 600,000 sport fishermen in Taiwan, with 30 million in Japan and 40 million in the US. In mainland China, the economic boom has given people more leisure time and money, and the number of people doing some form of recreational fishing has surpassed 10 million. All in all, prospects are bright for Okuma to remain a “big fish” in the “big pond” of the global sport fishing market. For competitors trying to catch up, on the other hand, Okuma will just be “the one that got away.”