is an infamous year in financial circles, yet is cherished by anglers worldwide. That year, following the stock market crash, Robert Winther and Lew Stoner started what is known today as or the R.L. Winston Rod Company. Originally calling their company the Winston-Stoner Manufacturing Co., they later combined elements from both their names, and renamed it the R.L. Winston Rod Company. Technicians at heart, they began the Winston tradition of archiving each rod with a journal entry and a serial number. Almost immediately, the bamboo rods these two men built earned a reputation for performance and exceptional quality.
In 1933, Robert Winther sold his interest to employee Red Loskot, an accomplished fisherman and member of the Golden Gate Angling Club. The next year, Stoner developed a patented hollow-fluted rod design for use in tournament casting competition. The Winstons built with this design were lightweight, very powerful, and would soon shatter a number of world distance casting records. Primo Livenais used a Winston surf rod in 1936 to break the world record with a 623 foot cast. In 1938, Marvin Hedge used a Winston to break the world fly casting record by 36 feet.
In 1945, Doug Merrick stopped by the shop to buy a new rod and also found himself a job at Winston. In 1953, he purchased Red Loskot's interest. When Lew Stoner died unexpectedly in 1957, Merrick became sole owner. Winston continued to set world casting records at the Golden Gate Anglers Club led by John "Buddy" Tarantino. In the early 1950s, Winston incorporated the casting characteristics of its famous hollow-fluted rods into a new material: fiberglass.
In the 1960's, Doug's penchant for quality and his exceptional rod building skills continued to raise Winston's standard of excellence, already the highest in the industry. In 1967, renowned angler and hotelier Charles Ritz, president of the International Fario Club in Paris, presented Merrick with a medal for "Outstanding work and knowledge pertaining to split bamboo rods." Doug took a leap evolving from strictly bamboo to building Winston's first tubular composite rods using a new material, Fiberglas.
The 1970s were years of change at Winston. Tom Morgan purchased the company from Merrick in 1973, and a year later took on a partner to learn to build bamboo rods. In 1975, Winston offered a new line of 2 and 3-piece rods incorporating a new material: graphite. In '76, the decision was made to move the company from San Francisco to Twin Bridges, Montana in order to be near the world-class trout fishing of the Beaverhead, Big Hole, and Jefferson rivers. The 1980s saw the introduction of slightly faster IM6 graphite, which is still used in our WT trout rods.
In 1991, David Ondaatje bought Winston. Faced with sourcing challenges for its blanks and limited space, David realized that the only way for the company to grow and maximize quality would be to gain complete control over all steps of the manufacturing process. Under his leadership, the company began rolling its own blanks in 1994 and a year later, moved to a new larger rodbuilding facility in Twin Bridges with state of the art equipment and a building designed specifically for building fly rods. Under David’s direction, Winston introduced a number of exciting new rod designs including the LT 5-piece trout rods, it’s partnership with legendary multiple world-champion caster Joan Wulff and Winston’s popular Joan Wulff Favorite rods, and, later, Winston’s first Boron/graphite composite fly rods, the BL5 and XTR series.
The new century issued in a new era of Winston innovation and ground breaking design with the the award winning Boron IIx, Boron IIt and Boron II-MX rods, all featuring second generation stronger, more responsive and dynamic boron/graphite composite. Boron is five times as strong and twice as stiff as steel, yet lighter than aluminum, launching Winston in a design direction which afforded anglers the advantage of ultimate performance with added strength with a minimum of weight. Boron II rods were able to full advantage of this material's amazing properties and redefine the fast-action category with their power, accuracy and responsiveness.
A new decade again launched Winston’s into cutting edge technology with the newest Boron IIIx series rods. Utilizing higher modulus third generation boron/graphite composite, Boron IIIx rods offer unprecedented performance. With an even broader casting range, they are highly responsive, powerful, yet lightweight with unbelievable feel and liveliness. And, new for 2012, Winston has just announced its Boron IIIx 5-piece specialty rods….”the ultimate 5-piece travel rod.”
A long storied history of Winston’s excellence and innovation…and it’s just the beginning!
