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Winston fiberglass history
under Tom Morgan's ownership
By Tom Morgan
Before I share
with you my Winston fiberglass rod adventure, I should provide some
relevant biographical background. Growing up in Montana with its
wealth of fishing opportunities would be a dream for almost any
fisherman. It certainly was for me. During the late 1940s, when I
was a kid, many of the fishermen in Montana fished with bait, and
that was how my father taught me. My first memories of fishing were
of a small, crystal clear mountain stream with an old, dilapidated
Montague bamboo fly rod and live grasshoppers for bait. Even though
these wild rainbows and cutthroats were small and rarely saw a
fisherman, they were very shy and would dart away, if I carelessly
let them see me. They taught me my first lesson in the importance of
being stealthy and keeping out of sight.
As I grew older, I
inherited a hand-me-down glass spinning rod from my brother, Jerry.
I used this rod to prowl Bear Creek, a small, brushy creek, right
behind our house that was loaded with brown trout up to three
pounds. I would sneak up above a pool, toss out a frog-colored
floating flatfish, and tease the browns into grabbing the lure.
These were my first experiences of fishing for big trout by myself
and they are still very memorable.
In 1949, when I
was eight years old, my parents built and began operating a motel
and fishing resort, the El Western Motel, just south of Ennis,
Montana. Even then, the Madison River and some of the other local
waters were famous worldwide for their great fishing opportunities.
The motel attracted lots of anglers from around the country and many
of them were fly fishermen. Growing up around the motel, I became
friends with many of these anglers and some of them eventually
became my fly fishing mentors.
My first real fly
rod was a Silaflex 7 1/2 foot 5-weight, 4-piece rod. It was given to
me by the owners of Silaflex, Herb Jenks and Lee Harter along with
Vic Williams, who was a trick caster for Silaflex at sportsman’s
shows. I was about twelve years old, and they were drawn to Ennis to
help film “Rainbow Valley”, a story about the Federal Fish hatchery
on Blaine Spring Creek and about trout fishing in the Madison
Valley. I was still a spin fisherman, but within a couple of years I
started fly fishing exclusively, and the Silaflex rod was my main
rod for several years. I have had a soft spot in my fishing heart
for fiberglass rods ever since.
The Madison River,
O’Dell Creek, and some of the other local waters were famous and
drew lots of fishermen to the El Western Motel. Even though I wasn’t
very old, I was an avid fisherman and seemed to have a sixth sense
about where to catch fish. My dad would ask me to show some of the
guests where to fish. When I got old enough to drive I started
actually being a guide. The guides around Ennis guided almost
exclusively on the Madison or O’Dell Creek. However, I guided on
those streams along with the Ruby River, Beaverhead River, Jefferson
River, Missouri River, Ennis Lake, and the many spring creeks in the
Gallatin Valley. This wide range of angling experiences on such a
big variety of waters gave me a great foundation for knowing about
rods and different angling situations.
This was a period
of transition from the traditional bamboo rods to the
newly developed fiberglass rods. Many of my clients still fished
bamboo, but I saw more and more fiberglass rods as the years went
by. One of my clients had some Pastor Rods made in southern
California that I thought were beautiful and had exceptional action.
Incidentally, this is a brand that I haven’t heard about for many
years. Shortly after seeing those rods, I bought a tackle shop in
Ennis from my brother, Jerry, in 1961. I contacted the owner of
Pastor Rods, whose name I have forgotten, to see if I could carry
them in my shop. He said I could, and I started carrying them,
selling a number of them over the three years I owned the tackle
shop. This was also when Fenwick Rods were becoming popular and they
were the other main brand I sold.
When I, along with
my partner Sid Eliason, bought the R. L. Winston Rod Co. on October
5, 1973, Doug Merrick was running the company by himself. He worked
five days a week and Saturday mornings. Obviously, it was a very
small company even though it had a big reputation as a famous rod
company with a long history of building great rods. Its great
reputation came primarily from the bamboo rods created under the
direction of Lew Stoner and Red Loskot during the 1930s. Doug joined
Winston just after the Second World War, and eventually bought Red’s
share in the early 1950s. Lew died in 1957. Doug bought Lew’s
interest from his wife and became the sole owner. Immediately
following Lew’s death he hired Gary Howells who worked for him
primarily during the winters. Gary Howells left in 1970 to start
building his own bamboo rods.
Even though its
reputation had been made on bamboo rods, anglers recognized that the
Winston fiberglass rods were also great rods. When I bought Winston,
a complete line of fiberglass rods had already been designed in line
sizes #5 and above using J. K. Fisher phenolic resin blanks. At the
time, I didn’t own any Winston glass rods, but I did own one Hardy
#6, designed by Jon Tarantino which, as I discovered, was quite
similar to the Winston glass rods in both looks and feel. I am not
sure of the design process that Doug went through in designing the
glass rods, but I do recall he said he had obtained blanks from
Fisher and had cast a variety of them. Whether they were all
different from some of Fisher’s models that they sold I was never
quite sure of.
Before going on, I
should mention that in the inventory Sid and I purchased there were
a number of Winston fiberglass rods in the large showroom rack that
were built on Grizzly blanks. Don Green, one of the principals who
started Sage Rod Company, was then involved with the Grizzly Rod
Company. These rods had a brown painted coating and Super Z nickel
silver ferrules. The rods that were left, however, were all heavy
line sizes, so I am sure they were rods that weren’t very saleable.
I discounted them heavily and finally sold most of them, although
several may still remain in the Winston collection.
Because the
original fiberglass rods that Winston used had Super Z ferrules, I
was curious who designed the spigot ferrule Winston was using on the
Fisher blanks. Recently, I contacted Jim Fisher to ask him if he
knew the history. He said that Jon Tarantino had the original idea
and that he and Joe Fisher worked out the details to make it work.
Incidentally, Jim and Joe Fisher were the sons of Joe Fisher who
started J. K. Fisher Company. I do remember that there was a solid
fiberglass spigot ferruled rod at Winston that had a groove cut
lengthwise in the ferrule with a strip of rubber glued into the
groove. That must have been one of the original ideas. The spigot
ferrule was a great innovation in composite rod design because it
allowed for a trouble free ferruling system that provided good rod
action. One of the reasons I think the Winston fiberglass rods had
such a great feel is that they were, except for the #11, cut from a
single blank and ferruled with the internal spigot ferrule. This
gave them a “one-piece feel”. The Fenwick rods, with their Feralite
ferrule system, were the start of the tip over ferrule design where
large diameter tip sections fit over smaller diameter butt sections.
This is presently the most common system of ferruling graphite rod
but it results in a mismatch between the tips and butts. This design
is great for manufacturers because it reduces both the labor to
ferrule rods and the number of mandrels required but, in my opinion,
results in rods that don’t have the great smooth action of blanks
that are the same diameter at the ferrule.
The Winston
fiberglass line of rods on Fisher blanks consisted of line size
models #5 through #12. There were two 7 1/2’ blanks, a #5 and a #6.
Except for the #11 the other rod models for the #5, #6, #8, #9, and
the #12 were single piece 9’ blanks. The #11 was a two-piece blank
that came with a light or heavy butt. I was never completely
satisfied with the looks of the #11 because the tip and butt colors
never matched very closely. To make a #7 or a #10 rod, approximately
1 1/2” was cut off the tip of a #6 or #9 weight blank respectively.
I wasn’t happy with the resulting #7 rod, so I designed a new model.
This particular rod turned out, at 8 1/2’, to be possibly the very
best fiberglass rod that Winston ever made for smooth casting. I
used to call it the “Unity with the Universe Rod”. A friend of mine
recently gave me one of these rods which I was delighted to receive.
At the time I
purchased Winston, the following fiberglass rods were available:
DT #5- 5 1/2’, 6’,
7’, 7 1/2’, 8', 8 1/2’, 9’
DT #6- 7 1/2’, 8',
8 1/2’
DT #7- 8 1/2’, 8’
9”, 9'
WF #8- 8' 9"
WF #9- 9'
WF #10- 9’
WF #11- 9', 9’ 3”,
9 1/2’ steelhead & salmon
WF #11 & WF #12-
9' salt water
Winston also
offered different rod lengths on special order but I’m sure these
models covered the majority of the rods built.
The #5 and the
short #6 rods came standard with a fixed hood and slide band over a
cork body for a skeleton seat. The standard seat for the other rods
was an anodized aluminum one. As a side note odd reel seats were
sometimes used on the rods. For example, a friend of mine has an 8’
#5-weight glass rod with one of Winston’s traditional bakelite
seats.
The standard
fiberglass price in 1974 was $65.00, the WF #11 was $75.00, and the
WF #12 was $95.00. The 3-piece pack rods were $65.00 and the 4-piece
were $70.00. In 1977 the standard fiberglass price was $90.00, the
WF #11 was $95.00, and the WF #12 was $110.00. The 3-piece and
4-piece pack rods were $92.50. In 1984 the standard fiberglass price
was $160.00, the WF #11 was $165.00, and the WF #12 was $175.00. The
3-piece and 4-piece pack rods were $162.50. During the early 1980s a
two rod travel set was added that included any pair of 2-piece rods
and its price was $250.00. I don’t have all of the different price
sheets for the various years but the prices were gradually raised
over the years to keep up with inflation and to generate more
income.
Almost immediately
after I took over Winston, I started to figure out how I could
increase glass rod production. Although we sold some bamboo rods, I
knew that glass rods would have to provide most of the rod income. I
had payments to make to Doug, a family of two children with a third
on the way, as well as a partner. Fisher was supplying most of the
new glass rods in the popular line sizes to Winston. They were
finished but without bags or tubes. Fisher had the capacity to
increase their rod production, so I ordered more rods. Doug had a
good supply of blanks on hand from which he would make up special
orders for odd line sizes or lengths or rods that happened to be out
of stock at the moment. Doug had those rods, in addition to the
bamboo, wrapped by Ken Adachi from San Mateo who would come in once
a week to deliver wrapped rods and to pick up new ones to be
wrapped. Doug coated the rods himself, installed the reel seat, and
delivered them.
Gary Howells was
still very friendly with Doug and used to come over to Winston every
Saturday morning to visit. After I bought the business, Gary
continued this tradition. Although I didn’t realize it at the time,
I had met Gary many years before when he ran the Staley Springs
Lodge on Henry’s Lake where he spent the summers. On his Saturday
morning visits, we always talked about rods and fishing in Montana.
In the course of conversation, Gary asked me what I thought of the
Winston Rods for quality. Well, in my mind I had just bought the
best Rod Company in existence, so there wasn’t any doubt that they
were the best. I had been a customer of Doug’s for several years and
owned three bamboo rods: a 7 1/2’ #5, an 8 1/2’ #7, and a 9’ #9. I
knew the Winston Rods and was very confident of their quality.
The next Saturday
Gary brought over one of his bamboo rods to look at side by side
with a Winston. I must say that I thought the Winston would easily
win hands down. I was shocked at the differences when he pointed
them out; the Winston definitely wasn’t the winner. I ate a good
dose of humble pie on that one. As it turned out, Gary, and not
Doug, was the mentor who really started me looking at Winston’s
quality or, it would be better to say, lack thereof. This was
disappointing, but I was lucky to have Gary around to help.
After that lesson,
I began to look at the fiberglass rods more closely. The first thing
I noticed was the considerable difference in quality between the
Winston Fisher rods and the Winstons that were made in the
shop. The Fisher rods used preformed grips, whereas Doug pounded on
individual corks that were much better quality, and then he turned
them by hand on a wood lathe. The Fisher rods were wrapped with the
same colored thread, but I immediately noticed that the wrap lengths
varied somewhat from guide to guide, and on each side of an
individual guide. The thread coatings weren’t quite as heavy or as
even on Fisher rods as the Winstons, so I thought that could be
improved. In addition, the guide alignment was straighter on the
Winston rods. On both rods, however, Doug was installing a very
cheap all aluminum reel seat. The aluminum tubes that he was
packaging the rods in were the cheapest Cal Air ones that had a
swell formed onto the top of the tube with a plastic cap that
snapped over the swell. The one good feature of this tube was the
cap was held on with a bead chain, so it couldn’t be misplaced. The
bags were often mismatched for lengths, sometimes with a bag perhaps
six inches too long for a given rod and in a variety of colors and
fabrics.
This was the
beginning of my long road to improve the quality of the rod
components and the execution of the workmanship. I had a strong
sense of wanting to build a quality product that I had learned at
the motel where I grew up. I knew that attention to the details was
what made the difference between an ordinary product and a great
one. I started looking at as many different rods as I could to see
what other people were doing.
One of my early
decisions was to visit Russ Peak. I knew of his great reputation as
the premier glass rod maker in the country, and I knew I could learn
a lot from him. On a trip down to visit Fisher in Los Angeles, I
made an appointment with Russ, the only way you could visit him
except on Saturdays when the shop was regularly open, and went by
his shop in Pasadena. I had never met him before, but I found him to
be a very warm and congenial fellow. We hit it right off and had a
terrific visit. Russ was very open and showed me much of what he was
doing along with a description of how he designed rods. He was very
supportive of my owning Winston and sincerely wanted me to succeed.
I learned a lot that day about what a quality rod should look like
and it gave me a wonderful insight into what I needed to do to help
improve the quality of Winston rods. It was easy to see how
absolutely beautiful his glass rods were. The color was a subtle
dark brown with dark brown thread that blended into the overall
color of the blank. The cork grips were made from almost flawless
cork while the reel seat was very well finished with polished
fittings. When Russ was finished wrapping the rods, he gave them a
final coat of epoxy that was absolutely flawless. He used a
rod-drying unit with heat lights to dry the epoxy coating. To this
day, I believe that his rods were the best-finished composite rods
ever built.
I decided to buy
one of Russ’s rods for myself to keep as a reminder of what a great
rod looked like and how it was finished. Russ had a number of rods
there to cast. I wanted a 7’ #4-weight, so he took one out to the
sidewalk for me to cast. I will never forget that he had me put on a
white cotton glove before I could cast it, so the grip wouldn’t
become soiled. I told him that I would like him to build me the
absolutely most beautiful and perfect rod that he could possibly
build. I will never forget his response: He said he would build me a
beautiful rod, but I couldn’t afford one that was absolutely
perfect. That let me know right then that even the old master
wouldn’t try to build a rod that was absolutely perfect. At that
time his rods were $250, and he was kind enough to give me a 40%
discount. As a reference, the Winston Glass rods were then $65! I
still treasure his rod today.
That was my first
encounter with Russ, but not the last. After we moved Winston to
Montana, he would stop by the shop almost every year to visit on his
annual trip to the West Yellowstone area to fish. On one of those
visits he saw the rosewood seats that Winston was building for their
glass rods line size #7-#10. He thought they were well designed and
beautiful, and he would occasionally buy some for his larger rods.
If he wanted to use our seats on his rods, I knew our quality was
where it should be.
Another beginning
step was to try and work with Fisher to get them to improve the
quality of the wrapping and coating on the rods that Winston got
from them. Joe Fisher didn’t see the importance of the differences
that I did, and, although he worked with the wrappers and coaters
who did the work on a piecework basis, they didn’t make any real
changes. I understood this because they were being paid for each
“start” on a rod. In other words, every time they started a wrap,
whether it was a guide wrap or a trim wrap, they were paid a fixed
amount and that included coating. They would actually make less
money taking a little more time to do a better job. Not the
incentive they needed. I could see the only way that the quality
could be improved would be to have control over the entire process.
Fisher could
supply more blanks, but I had to figure out a way to get more rods
finished. There was just Doug and me at the shop, so our resources
were very limited. In addition, as it was set up, there wasn’t much
room in the shop to increase production. One of the first changes I
made was to convert an old bench into a glass rodmaking center. It
was long enough so that I could lay out blanks to use a set of
measuring marks I inscribed on the bench to mark the correct cut off
point for the rod length I wanted. I could also fit a tip top and
mark the ferrule point or, in the case of multi-piece rods, ferrule
points. At this time, Winston glass rods were made on just three
different mandrels: one for all of the trout and steelhead rods, one
for the #11, and one for the #12 tarpon rod.
To ferrule a rod,
I ground the tip of the blank off about 1/8” on a disk sander that
we also used for sanding nodes on bamboo. This was done to make sure
the top of the blank was sound. Then the tip top was added to
establish the top of the rod in order to get the correct rod length
and the blank was marked to indicate where it would be ferruled. The
blank was held against a bench hook, cut off slightly long with a
miniature hacksaw and both rough ends were sanded smooth and to the
correct length on the sander. The original ferrules were solid white
fiberglass, whereas the ones supplied by Fisher in the last years
were brown. Both were fabricated in a pull-trusion process then
ground to the same taper as the rod mandrel. They came in sticks
that were about three feet long.
To get the correct
ferrule length I would then fit the internal spigot ferrule very
tightly into the tip and with a pencil mark a ring around the
ferrule at the bottom of the tip leaving a 1/4” space which again
was marked with a pencil. I would remove the ferrule and mark off 1
3/4” above the pencil ring on the ferrule. Another pencil mark 1
3/4” below the one marking the gap was made for the ferrule inside
the butt. Then the ferrule was cut off at the bottom and top marks.
The 1/4” gap would be the space between the tip and butt. The first
step in gluing the spigot ferrules was to roughen the inside of the
tip of the butt using a small rattail file. Slow setting epoxy glue
was carefully spread around the bottom of the spigot just short of
the 1/4” gap and heated briefly over an alcohol flame to make it
flow well. The ferrule was then dropped into the butt from the
bottom trying to keep it centered so it would go as far as possible
towards the tip of the butt. The butt was then slung vigorously
until the ferrule tip came out which was then carefully spun several
times as it was moved into the correct position. The ferrule was
wrapped with masking tape at the glass blank/ferrule joint to hold
it securely and stood on the ferrule, so the glue wouldn’t run back
down the blank. The last step, once the epoxy was set, was to bevel
the end of the ferrule on the sander.
Once the blanks
were ferruled, individual corks were driven on them by hand using a
wooden cylinder with a hole through the middle. Winston was buying
corks in 1 1/8” outside diameter, 1/2” thick, and in 1/16”
increments of hole size. The fiberglass blanks had a steep taper so
it was easy to fit cork rings for a handle. We were then using Duco
clear cement thinned with lacquer thinner to glue the corks
together. After a day, they would be dry enough to turn on a wood
lathe to the proper size and shape using various grits of sandpaper.
Most of the grips were half wells, but later more of them were cigar
shaped, particularly on the smaller rods. The cork at that time was
very good quality, but it still needed some filling. The filling was
made using fine cork dust recovered from the vacuum and mixed with
Duco cement. It was kept in a sealed jar. One innovation that Gary
clued me into was first using #400 and then #600 wet or dry
sandpaper to get a really smooth finish on the grips.
I now had a
reasonable blank making facility, but I was limited by the number of
blanks I could cork and turn. I needed some help. My good friend, Al
Wilson, whom I first met in Ennis in 1961, when I was running the
tackle shop, lived in San Jose, California. Not only had we become
close friends but Al had guided for me during the middle 1960s when
I was guiding in Ennis. Al had been a shop teacher at a San Jose
high school, but had to retire because of a disability that kept him
from standing for any length of time. Al wanted to work some at his
small home shop doing something on the rods, if he could. I knew
that he had great woodworking skills along with the desire to do
quality work, so he should be a natural. In addition, he already had
a wood lathe which was an essential tool for rodmaking. Al was sure
that he could cork blanks and turn the grips. It turned out that by
sitting on a high stool he was able to work comfortably. He came to
the Winston shop and learned how to do the corking and turning the
grips under Doug’s watchful eye. I started supplying him with
ferruled blanks and we were on our way. Al didn’t want to drive the
55 miles to San Francisco from San Jose during the week, so he would
come every Saturday morning to deliver rods and pick up ferruled
blanks. We continued this arrangement until we moved the shop to
Montana in 1977. For a couple of years, Al continued to receive
ferruled blanks from us in Montana, and would ship back rods with
turned grips until we got production going in Montana.
As a matter of
interest, it was Al who was responsible for my buying Winston. Doug
and Al had been friends during the Second World War in England where
they both served in bomber crews. They had kept in touch over the
intervening years. In 1973, my wife, Mona, and I were running the El
Western Motel, when Al told me that Doug wanted to sell Winston. The
El Western Motel had been sold the summer of 1973, so I was looking
for another job. I thought this would be the perfect business for
me. I immediately called Doug to see if it was true. It was! I
immediately made arrangements to fly to San Francisco to visit with
Doug about buying Winston. On the way down, I stopped in Salt Lake
City to visit an old fishing friend and guiding client, Sid Eliason,
to see if he would be interested in being my partner and helping
financially. Sid said he would be very excited to help me and to
become a silent partner in Winston. Doug, Sid, and I came to an
agreement, and Sid and I soon became the owners of Winston. Sid and
I remained partners for two years. I think it’s interesting to
mention that I paid Doug $10,000 more than he was asking for the
business. There were other potential buyers who were also interested
in buying it, so I had to make sure that I was successful.
A good amount of
my fishing in Montana had been on spring creeks or other types of
water where delicate presentations were very important. Very soon
after taking over Winston, I knew that I wanted to design a series
of lightweight trout rods. Winston was already making similar rods
in bamboo that they called “Leetle Fellers,” a name given to them by
outdoor writer Peter Schwab. Light line fiberglass rods were
uncommon, but I located some blanks and ordered them to see what
other manufacturers were providing. Much to my disappointment, they
were stiffer than I thought they should be. That is not unlike the
situation today with the average graphite rod which I judge to be
too stiff for the factory rated line size.
I contacted Jim
Fisher who was the production manager and asked how we could develop
a line of lighter rods. The current fiberglass blanks they were
making were quite large in diameter with relatively a thin wall
thickness so Jim didn’t think we could reduce the wall thickness
enough to make the lighter rods I wanted. He suggested that we use
smaller diameter mandrels like they were rolling spinning rod blanks
on. As a result of this discussion, Fisher rolled a selection of 7
1/2’ blanks for me on the thinner mandrels. They also provided
spigot ferrule stock with the correct taper for these blanks. I made
these blanks into rods and cast them at the Golden Gate Park casting
facility. After several back and forth pattern changes, I decided on
the best combinations to make the new #3 and #4 fiberglass rods.
During this process, Doug would cast the ones I thought best to help
determine the final models.
The rods were all
one-piece blanks cut at the appropriate place to make the correct
length. I used two different lengths of mandrels with the same
taper: 7 1/2’ and 9’. It ended up that #3 rods were designated #2/3
while the heavier ones were #4 weight line sizes. The #2/3 were made
in 6 1/2’, 7’, 7 1/2’, 8’ lengths whereas the #4 were made in 6
1/2’, 7’, 7 1/2’, 8’, and 8 1/2’ lengths. I tried longer lengths for
both the line sizes, but I thought the rods were too slow to be good
fishing tools.
Looking back at
the process, I wish that I had done it differently. I didn’t
actually know what the patterns were with respect to the tip or butt
pattern widths. I would communicate to Jim that a butt was too
stiff, or perhaps too soft, or maybe the tip was wrong, and he would
make changes and send the new blanks to me. Later on when I was
working with Gary Loomis designing graphite rods, I had the taper
patterns to work with, and I could keep the rods more consistent and
the design process went faster. Nonetheless, the lightweight
fiberglass rods were, and still are, a great success with anglers.
Shortly after
buying Winston, I contacted an old friend, Jerry Humpal, whom I met
in Santa Clara, California, during the winters of 1964 and 1965,
when I was working at Cope and McPhetres, a sporting goods store and
marina. Jerry was in advertising, a very good fly fisherman, and
someone I was sure would be able to help me with Winston’s
advertising. He was thrilled that I owned Winston and that he would
be able to help. The first project we did was to solicit more
dealers to help increase sales because Doug had very few due to his
limited production. The second project was to help sell the new
lightweight fiberglass rods I had designed. I got together with
Jerry at his advertising agency, and we worked on a name. I brought
one of the new rods and we went into the parking lot to cast it.
Jerry could see that it was a delicate rod for sneaking up on fish.
I don’t remember who came up with the name “Stalker”, and neither
does Jerry, but we both decided that name really fitted the rod and
how most anglers would fish them. During the time Winston made the
Stalker series of rods, they were very popular and, they still
remain so, bringing very high prices when they become available
either individually or on E-Bay.
This is jumping
ahead a bit but I would like to describe the wonderful catalog that
Jerry Humpal helped me create. When I first bought Winston there was
a very nice catalog that listed the rods and had photos with black
backgrounds but was of an older style. I reprinted it the first two
years but it didn’t have the “life” I thought it should have or
represent what I wanted Winston to become. Gary Howells had given me
an old Jim Payne catalog that not only showed and described the rods
but also had a number of articles by prominent anglers of the time.
I didn’t want to follow that format exactly but I wanted much more
than just a listing of the rods. Another impetus to change the
catalog was the introduction of graphite rods so, in any event, the
catalog had to be expanded. The other important reason that I
thought Winston needed a better catalog was we were moving from San
Francisco to Montana where all of our income would be derived from
rod sales.
Jerry and I
carefully went over the categories we wanted to include in the new
catalog. The first was an introduction talking about Winston’s move
from California to Montana. Then there was a multi-page article
about line and rod selection for different angling situations. The
categories of bamboo and fiberglass rods came next with detailed
descriptions of both along with their manufacturing processes. A
short history of Winston including some of its heritage followed.
The next category detailed the rod fittings and components. The
graphite rod description along with the models available was the
last rod category. This was the first year graphite rods were in a
Winston catalog. A care of rods category detailed the appropriate
methods to maintain rods in good condition.
From my
observations as a guide and watching anglers cast I thought that a
section on proper casting technique was needed. I must also admit
that when I first bought Winston my technical casting skill wasn’t
very good even though my fishing ability was excellent. Mel Krieger
helped me with my casting and I practiced a lot until I became a
very competent caster. This is certainly an essential for a rod
designer. Since he was a terrific caster along with being a great
teacher I asked him to cooperate with me on a casting article which
he did. I still believe that our discussion about casting was one of
the best ever.
I wrote a short
article on playing and releasing fish as the next section. From my
observations as a guide many anglers tire fish more than necessary
which can be very harmful to them. I had caught a lot of steelhead
on light tackle and knew some techniques to quickly land them prior
to their release.
The next category
discussed rod repairs and refinishing if the customer had a damaged
rod. The final category was how to order your rod.
It turned out to
be a big challenge for me to write the copy taking more than a solid
month of time. Rather than have photographs accompanying the rods we
decided to have line drawings. Jerry’s advertising agency had
a very talented artist, Bob Sleeper, working for them who did pencil
drawings of various fishing scenes we had picked out from books and
magazines along with drawings of some of the rods. In addition to
the drawings there was an insert in the center of a coated four page
sheet. On the front were pictures of Lew Stoner, Doug Merrick and
Red Loskot, Gary Howells, and a composite of me, Glenn Brackett,
Chris Warner, and Al Wilson. This photo was taken from our moving to
Montana ad. In the middle was a beautiful four color photo of a
bamboo, graphite, and fiberglass rod. On the back side was a photo
showing the different reel seats available. The color photo was
taken by Karel Bauer of San Francisco. The catalog itself was
printed on light brown stock with dark brown ink.
Jerry entered the
catalog in an advertising competition for Western catalog
publications and it won first place out of several hundred entries!
We were elated and very proud. The catalog was an outstanding
success and helped set the quality trend of the rods that were to
follow.
In the fall of 1974, knowing that I needed more help, I hired Glenn Brackett, a
35-year-old fisheries biologist. I first met Glenn on the Clearwater
River in Idaho when I was steelhead fishing during the 1960s and he
had done some guiding for me when I ran the El Western. I had also
stayed with him during the summer of 1974, in Last Chance, Idaho,
when he was guiding for Wil Godfrey on the Henry’s Fork River. Glenn
didn’t have any rod-making experience, but he was a great angler who
had fished all over the world, including New Zealand, Argentina, the
Florida Keys, and around the western United States. I was confident
that he could bring a great fisherman’s perspective as to what made
a great fishing rod, and he did. I strongly believe we made one of
the great rod design teams for fly fishing rods based on our fishing
experiences.
During the time
Winston was in California and not long after I had developed the
Stalker rods, Fisher brought out a line of #3 and #4 weight rods. I
felt strongly that they copied my idea and were using either my
patterns or something very similar. I was very upset by this and
didn’t know quite what to do. I ended up sending Joe Fisher a bill
for $2,500 for design fees for the light line rods. The next time
Joe visited us he brought the bill and asked what that was about. I
explained what I thought happened and why I sent the bill. Of
course, they didn’t pay it, but it made my point. Nevertheless,
Fisher continued to sell their light line rods.
To improve our
sales, I contacted a list Doug had of fly shops that wanted to
become dealers for Winston. In addition to those prospects, Jerry
ran a small ad in Fly Fisherman soliciting dealers. In the ad for
the Stalker Fiberglass Rods that announced the 1975 catalog we
listed 23 Winston dealers. It’s interesting to note that all of the
eighteen years that I owned Winston we always had requests from more
dealers than we could supply. I always tried to keep a balance of
good dealers with our rod supply, so we could make reasonable
deliveries.
Now that I was
improving the rod quality by using cork handles that we were turning
ourselves and controlling the wrapping by having Ken Adachi and his
son, Steve, wrap the rods, we needed to finish more rods. When I
bought Winston, everything was on the bottom floor even though there
was a mezzanine floor above the retail shop space that you accessed
when you first came into the building. At some time in the past,
there had been more rod production, and there were rod turners for
another twelve rods that weren’t being used. I set these up on the
mezzanine floor to help increase both the fiberglass and bamboo
production. During this time, a United Airline mechanic, Doug Wilson
(no relation to Al Wilson), stopped by the shop to see if he could
help us with anything. I said that he could do some rod coating for
us, if he was interested. For more than a year, Doug would come in
for several hours in the morning to coat rods. He wouldn’t take any
money for his work, so we paid him in rods and tackle.
Because I also
wanted to improve some of the rod fittings, tubes, and bags, I
immediately started using the better quality Cal Air rod tubes with
a screw top. The reel seats Doug was using were very inexpensive and
not commensurate with the new quality I wanted. Cal Air was making
very nice aluminum reel seats in two sizes, the CA3 for rod sizes up
to #6 and the CA5 for larger rods. I told Leonard Price, who owned
Cal Air, that I would like to use his seats, but, if possible, I
would like a special color. He sent us some color samples, and by
working back and forth we came up with a pale rose gold or champagne
color. These were used for a year or two on the glass.
In 1975, Chris
Warner stopped by the shop looking for a job. Winston needed to
finish more rods to keep up with the demand for both fiberglass and
graphite rods, so I hired Chris who took over the coating operation
from Doug Wilson.
The last item that
I wanted to improve was the rod bags. I decided to standardize both
the bamboo and fiberglass with a red bag. I couldn’t locate a
supplier of bags so I bought material and had them sewn locally. One
suggestion from Gary Howells that I incorporated into the bags was
having the top seam sewn on the outside of the bags. This prevented
the rod sections from catching on the seam when it was removed from
the bag. Winston had a beautiful woven label on their bags and I
continued having them added to the bags until the middle 1980s. Just
before we moved to Montana in 1976, a supplier of rod bags
approached me. He showed me some samples that were made from a
poplin cloth that looked very nice. I contracted with him for a good
supply of bags. When they arrived I was shocked. The bags he
originally showed me were made from a nice soft poplin cloth,
whereas the ones he delivered were sized with some material to make
them easier to sew. They were stiff, felt terrible, and looked bad.
I called him to complain he said that was what they had to do to sew
them and there wasn’t anything he could do about them. I ended up
using them, but I sure learned a valuable lesson.
I wanted to add
wood spacer reel seats to the rods because I thought they would look
better and increase the value. It seemed to me that a simple
solution would be to take a clear anodized Cal Air CA3 seat, cut the
center aluminum barrel out, and glue the threaded portion along with
the hood assembly onto a wooden barrel. I tried this and it worked
very well. I bought Al Wilson a Sears Craftsman lathe so he could
turn the wooden barrels for the reel seats. At first, I used
this seat on Winston’s graphite rods, but on the fiberglass rods I
continued to use the anodized CA3 seats. I couldn't use the CA5 reel
seat to make a wood spacer seat similar to the trout seats because
the design was different, so it was used just as an anodized
aluminum seat on rods #7 through #10.
Eventually, I
wanted to use a wooden spacer on the fiberglass rods with a
complementary wood color and chose rosewood. I looked in the San
Francisco newspaper and saw an ad for rosewood. Al Wilson and I went
to the warehouse where they were selling it, and we bought what we
thought was a lifetime supply for a very good price. Making the reel
seats with a wooden spacer for the fiberglass rods did present a
problem because the rod butt was too large to go inside the seat. Al
came up with the idea of using hardwood dowels and tapering them
down to fit inside the rod blank and turning them level to fit
inside the seat. This worked well because the fiberglass blanks had
enough hoop strength to support the inside plug. Al made a supply of
various sized hardwood plugs for all of the different glass rod
models, so we could just epoxy in the correct size when we installed
a seat.
The rosewood was
difficult to finish for its natural oils prevented regular varnish
from drying on it. For a time, we used an epoxy finish, but then I
discovered a way to finish both the rosewood fiberglass seats and
the walnut wood we were using on the graphite rods. I found an epoxy
made by a company in Salt Lake City that I could mix a whole gallon
of the resins, and they wouldn’t set up for about a week. However,
every day the resins got thicker and thicker. I would dip the seats
three times over three days until they were very heavily coated with
the epoxy. I then sent the seats to Al Wilson who turned the epoxy
off until it was about .010” smaller than the finished size I
wanted. I dipped those seats in our dust free spray booth with
several coats of Varathane polyethylene varnish.
During the summer
of 1976, my wife, Mona, and I purchased a house about four miles
outside of Twin Bridges, Montana. We also bought a 24’ by 32’ shop
from Paul Mantha in Twin Bridges. Chris Warner and I left for
Montana in the fall of 1976, but Glenn stayed on in San Francisco.
Chris and I started getting the shop ready for production. I hired
Paul to build a separate coating room, some benches, and a rod
storage cabinet including a shipping bench. We had brought the rod
turning equipment with us from San Francisco and set it up in the
new coating room. Al Wilson continued installing the cork, turning
the grips, and delivering rods to the shop in San Francisco where
Ken and his son would pick them up, take them home to wrap, and
return them a week later. Glenn would then send the wrapped rods to
Chris Warner and me in Twin Bridges where Chris would coat them, and
we would ship them to dealers and customers. Thus we tried to build
up an inventory of rods.
During the spring
of 1977, I designed a new shop addition on the back of the original
shop that was about 32’ by 24’ that consisted of a blank ferruling
room, two small rooms for miscellaneous operations, and a spray
booth room. Into these spaces, we moved the bamboo operation
including a gas-fired heat-treating oven, a bamboo wrap-coating
machine, a deflection board for glass and graphite blanks, along
with a tip topping area. The spray booth was used primarily for
coating bamboo rods, but it was also used to dip the final finish on
the wood reel seat spacers. A gas-fired make up unit was installed
to provide heat into the building so the spray booth could be used
in temperatures down to about 35 degrees.
Glenn moved the
balance of the equipment to Montana the spring of 1977. The shop in
San Francisco was sold, and Winston was on its own in Montana. This
was a very hard transition because the retail shop in San Francisco
brought in about $100,000 in retail sales with a very good profit
margin. In Montana, we had to rely totally on rod sales. In
addition, we didn’t have the complete infrastructure ready for
production until Glenn arrived. Glenn had developed wrapping skills
while in San Francisco; consequently we relied on him to train
wrappers in Montana. Chris continued to do the coating while I did
most of the ferruling, corking, and turning the handles. We all
worked at shipping the rods.
The original decal
labels midway between the cork grip and stripping guide was a trophy
cup with the words "San Francisco" printed on them. Shortly after
the move to Montana, the decal was changed from reading "San
Francisco" to "Montana". Later this label was changed to an oval
with the words "R. L. Winston Rod Co." I am not sure of the date of
the final change. When I first took over Winston, the fiberglass rod
tube labels were a decal. While we were in San Francisco and, later,
in Montana we used a brown die cut label with an image of an angler
crouching beside a stream.
By the time we
moved to Montana, the glass rod models had all been defined and
production had been standardized. Gradually, the quality of the rods
increased as we all learned more about getting the processes refined
and standardized. One area that required constant vigilance was the
straightness of blanks, particularly with the fiberglass. All of the
fiberglass blanks, except the #11 weight rods, were rolled on
one-piece mandrels. The mandrels were steel and, on the fiberglass
blanks, quite large in diameter at the butts. As a result, they were
quite heavy and it took considerable force to rotate the blanks and
mandrels as they went through the Century cellophane wrapper. The
model of Century wrapper Fisher used rotated the mandrel with the
fiberglass cloth wrapped around it right at the head as the
cellophane was applied. It seemed to me that this caused torque on
the resulting fiberglass/resin matrix resulting in a number of
blanks that tended to look like corkscrews. Over the years, I
returned a number of these blanks to Fisher that I thought were too
crooked. However, overall the Fisher blank quality was very high and
they were committed to making a quality product. In retrospect, I
wish I had the blanks now that I sent back for credit.
Shortly after the
move to Montana, I, along with Glenn Struble, designed a large wood
reel seat with a light bulb thread similar to what E. C. Powell used
on his bamboo rods for Winston’s line sizes #7 through #10 weight
rods. Al Talbot made a polyurethane pressure die for me to punch out
hoods using aluminum blanks. I had looked at a lot of different reel
seat hood designs to determine how reel seats held reel feet. From
my observations, most of the hoods were too straight on the sides
and top. This design would allow the foot to move side-to-side
regardless of how tightly the screw locking nut was tightened. What
positively holds the reel foot from moving side-to-side is only the
hood. In a few cases, a slot or groove in the barrel may also help.
What the screw lock nut or slide band does is hold the foot back
into the hood. The hood I designed and Al made the die for had a
7-degree slope on each side and on the top. Therefore, when a reel
foot was placed in the hood it was held on the sides and the top and
it wouldn't move side-to-side at all. I never saw a foot that the
reel seat wouldn't hold including a Pflueger Medalist.
The process for
making the hoods was quite complicated. First they were parted off a
tube at a longer length than the finished length because of the
polyethylene die. Then they were turned to the correct diameter on
the outside by holding them with an internal collet. We used 6061T6
aluminum alloy that was too brittle to punch without annealing. We
annealed them ourselves by lining up a row of about 10 pieces on an
aluminum bar and heating each individual piece with a small hand
held Bernz-O-Matic torch until there was an orange “glow” around
each hood blank. After cooling, the hoods were ready to punch.
The polyurethane
die consisted of five basic parts. It had a tool steel base with two
bolts on each side that swiveled up so they could be attached to the
top portion of the die that enclosed the actual forming die,
aluminum blanks, and polyurethane plug. To load the die, you would
insert the aluminum plug into the forming die with a small
polyurethane plug that fitted inside it. On the bottom of the blank
was a small steel disk that would be used to eject the formed hood.
After the hood blank and polyurethane plug were loaded, a tool steel
top with a hole for the pressure rod was placed over the die
assembly and secured with the two bolts on the side of the base.
Then a tool steel rod that just fitted inside the hood blank was
loaded into the top and the whole assembly was placed in a hydraulic
press. The press we used had a pressure gauge on it and the pressure
was increased to about 3000 pounds. This expanded the polyurethane
plug that in turn formed the hood blank into its correct shape. The
die was disassembled and the formed hood was knocked out with a
wooden dowel and hammer. The forming process hardened the aluminum,
so it didn’t have to be heat-treated to make it hard.
We then buffed the
formed hood to a high luster and bright finish. The hoods were cut
off to the correct length using an internal collet on a lathe. The
hoods were long because part of the blank was used to contain the
polyurethane plug. Glenn Struble provided the threaded barrel and a
locking nut. We made a small aluminum ring check that fitted between
the threaded portion of the barrel and the cork grip. An aluminum
plug that fitted inside the hood was made and faced flat on a lathe.
After all of the parts were made and buffed to a high luster, they
were sent to an anodizer to be clear anodized. When the anodized
parts were returned, they were sent along with the finished barrels
to Al Wilson for assembly. On the light saltwater rods, however, we
continued to use the Cal Air 5 seats, whereas the tarpon rods had a
very large seat that I don't remember the number of. All of these
seats were anodized.
Eventually, I
decided to change the CA 3 seats to a style similar to the large
light bulb style thread I was using on the larger wood seats. Once
again, Glenn Struble was able to make a smaller version of the
rounded thread seat I was using on the larger rods. Glenn had a
large supply of aluminum tubing from another project that was an
appropriate size to make hoods for the smaller wood seats. I made a
new die to form the hoods for the smaller seats using a rotary
table, a milling machine, and a carbide burr. When we made this
change all of the aluminum hoods were sent to a heat-treating
company to do them in a big lot rather than annealing them
ourselves.
Winston’s glass
rod sales gradually diminished as graphite took over the marketplace
not only for Winston but for other manufacturers too. Glenn, Chris,
and I continued to like the action of glass and fished them in
addition to promoting them. By the early 1980’s, almost all of the
fiberglass rods we were selling were directly to our own customers
and not to dealers. Despite the slow sales, we continued to build
fiberglass rods because we knew they were great fishing rods,
despite the popularity of graphite. Glenn and I always thought that
Winston was a fisherman’s rod company, and we would continue to sell
what we thought were great fly rods whether they were fiberglass,
bamboo, or graphite.
Then one day I
called up Joe Fisher to order a batch of fiberglass blanks, and he
told me they were no longer available. Hexcel, who had supplied the
phenolic resin cloth Fisher used, was no longer producing that
product. I was dumbfounded! I just couldn’t believe it. Not only had
Hexcel quit making the glass prepreg but also Joe Fisher had not
told me they were going to stop making it in time to allow me to
build up an inventory of fiberglass blanks. There are not many times
in my life when I have gotten really angry, but this was one of
them. This was the start of my great dissatisfaction with the J. K.
Fisher Company that eventually resulted in my turning to Gary Loomis
of the G. Loomis Company for our graphite blanks.
Winston continued
to sell from inventory what fiberglass rods we had left. There was
not enough demand at the time, however, to look for another supplier
of fiberglass cloth and to develop a new line of rods. When I sold
Winston in 1991, the glass rods had been discontinued since 1987.
That was the end of an important era for Winston rods and one we
were sorry to see end. The fiberglass rods represented some of
Winston’s greatest designs.
During the 1990s
Winston brought out what they called their “Retro” fiberglass
rods, but they evidently were not a great success because they
discontinued them after a short time. I wasn’t involved with these
rods.
In addition to the
story about the fiberglass rods while I was an owner of Winston, I
would like to add some comments about the guides. On all of our
fiberglass rods and graphite rods, we always used hard chrome plated
stainless steel snake guides. They were always on the small side and
for a good reason. We were always careful to size the rods according
to the line size that would flex them in their normal fishing
ranges. In addition, the tips on the Winston rods were always on the
supple side making the rods feel light and lively. A large part of
this feeling is the result of the tips not being loaded down with
heavy guides. From our experience smaller guides do not result in
less distance when casting; if anything, they permitted greater
distance. My personal philosophy for this reason is that the line
doesn’t slap around the rod as much resulting in the line going out
more smoothly. In addition, the size of the wire on different guides
doesn’t result in a change of friction one way or the other. I know
that many anglers would disagree with this, but I respectfully think
they are wrong. I have shaken and cast so many rods with big, heavy
guides that feel sluggish and dead that I know I am correct. I must
add one caveat to this: so many of the new graphite rods are so
stiff in the tip that a little more guide weight at least softens
them a little. The glass rods all used carbide stripping guides.
I fished
extensively with two glass rods. My favorite light trout rod for
many years was an 8’ #4 two-piece. I fished mostly small dry flies
with this rod. I found it ideal for spring creek fishing along with
fishing big rivers like the Missouri where a delicate presentation
is required. The second rod was a special one I made just for
streamer fishing. I have an unusual technique for fishing unweighted
streamers on or near the surface using a floating line. One of the
essential requirements is that the tip be very flexible so that you
can impart a very small but rhythmic movement to the fly. The supple
tip of a glass rod is ideal for this. My special streamer rod is 8’
3” in length and balances with a #6 line. To make the rod, I used a
#6 butt and a #5 tip that happened to be rolled on the same mandrel
so the ferrule fits perfectly. The rod balances perfectly at short
to medium distances where I prefer to fish my streamer technique. In
fact, despite what you might think would be an unbalanced rod, it is
one of the smoothness casting rods I ever had the pleasure of using.
If you are interested in reading about this unique and very
effective fishing technique, you may go to our web site at:
www.troutrods.com/morgantwitch.html
I hope this
history of Winston fiberglass rods has been enlightening and
interesting reading for you.
Tom Morgan 2008
©
All photos in this article by
George Anderson at
www.yellowstoneangler.com
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