WHILE THE YEAR 1929 is a rather infamous date in financial circles, it
is cherished by anglers worldwide. For that is the year, following the
stock market crash, that Robert Winther and Lew Stoner acquired the Western
Fishing Rod Company of San Francisco. Almost immediately, the bamboo rods
these two men built earned a reputation for performance and exceptional
quality. These rods were called "Winstons", a contraction of
the two men's last names.
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. In the next few years, rods using this design would shatter
a number of world distance casting records.
In 1945, Doug Merrick took a job at Winston. In 1953, he purchased Red
Loskot's interest. When Lew Stoner died in 1957, Merrick became sole owner.
The 50s are also when Winston began using a new material to build rods:
fiberglass.
The tradition of rodbuilding excellence continued in the 60s, when renowned
angler and hotelier Charles Ritz, President of the International Fario
Club in Paris, presents Merrick with a medal for "Outstanding work
and knowledge pertaining to split bamboo rods."
The 1970s were years of change at Winston. Tom Morgan purchased the company
from Merrick, and a year later Glenn Brackett became a partner. In 1975,
Winston began building rods from graphite and 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 IM6 graphite, which is still used in our WT trout rods.
David Ondaatje bought Winston from Morgan and Brackett in 1991. Under
his leadership, the company began rolling its own blanks, moved to a larger
rodbuilding facility in Twin Bridges, and introduced such groundbreaking
rod designs as LT 5-piece trout rods, the Joan Wulff Favorite and BL5
and XTR rods, both of which utilized advanced boron/graphite composite.
In 2004, we introduced our Boron IIx rods, a lightweight, very powerful
fast action series. Using the newest advances in 2nd generation boron/graphite
technology, they feature the widest casting range of any rods we've ever made.
2006 saw the launch of our Vapor and Ascent rods. These two rod series offer
entry-level anglers Winston quality at a very affordable price. 2007
saw the advent of the Boron IIt, extraordinarily lightweight rods that combine
the powerful, highly responsiveness of Boron II with the legendary smoothness
and delicacy of our more traditional action rods.
NEW for 2008 is the Boron II-MX, our third rod series to feature the
unique Boron II technology. MX stands for maximum power, distance
and fish fighting capability. And though fast and powerful, our Boron II
technology allows the Boron II-MX to be amazingly lightweight and responsive.
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