Winston Fly Rods
When I was building my first bamboo rod in Sansepolcro, during one coffe break we gathered around a TV set and watched how Winston Fly Rods were made at R.L.Winston Rod Co. , in Montana, USA. I remember that for us watching the movie the fact they were using random strips to create a rod was, well, kind of heresy. We make a bamboo rod from a single bambu culm. The fibers of a whole rod come from the same plant and not randomly after passing the first split strip in a milling machine. Does it make a difference? I don't know....I simply like the "purist" idea. But of course, this is today. In those days (1980s?) and earlier, the world was different, materials were different, circumstances were different. Rod manufacturers had to "mass produce" which only translated in using a "machine, a milling machine to be exact, which cuts labour time considerably. And they had probably to work in a chain, as I could gather from the video. Besides, also other companies like Leonard, Hardy, Orvis, and Payne were probably doing the same, in my opinion. Winston Fly Rods have been associated with two big contemporaray names: Glenn Brackett and Tom Morgan who entered as owners into the company (in 1973 and 1976 respectively) after a series of ownerships (since 1929, Robert Winther and Lew Stoner who transformed the acquired Western Fishing Rod Co into "Win-ston", i.d. Winston; Walter "Red" Lescot, Doug Merrit, David Ondatjie, the current owner) The Winston trade marks are the ferrule (made from a solid and not a from a tubular stock) and the flute hollowing. A nice interview with Glenn Brackett is in the book Splitting Cane: Conversations With Bamboo Rodmakers Glenn Brackett (who is also a fish biologist) was in Sansepolcro during our 2009 gathering. Unfortunately I could not attend this time....I learned that Glenn and other workers (Jeff Walker, Jerry Kustich and Wayne Maca) left the company in 2006 for a disagreement in management. Glenn and Jerry and other former Wisnton employees now work together in their new company sweetgrassrods, keeping on the "80 years collective experience" that they rightly point out... Other important names of the Winston ro making history is Gary Howells who left the company to found his own operation in 1975. I met Jerry Kustich during last gathering in Sarnen (October 2009). See? The world is small...
Winston Fly Rods contact information:
R.L Winston Rod Company
From a Lang's auction 2007 catalogue New 6' R.L.Winston Trout Rod. This perfect little 2/2 rod is new 7' R.L.Winston Built for Ed Zern. This delicate, hollow built 2/1 Source:
From Winston Fly Rods to the best fishing rods webpage
|
|||||||||||||
which I read through Google books. According to this interviews (probably carried on in the late 1990s, early 2001, the book first print is in 2002) Winston still produce(d) about 100 bamboo rods each year (Brackett left Winston in 2006 reportedly). 
