L KENNEY FLY RODS - A Productive Collaboration

You might remember a post from early spring that was titled "A Time for Change" and it explained, in rod maker Larry Kenney's words, what the future holds for L Kenney Fly Rods with his international partnership with Bill Higashi and Katsumi Harada.

The other day, a "Spinoff Model" demo arrived from L Kenney Fly Rods, specifically a beautifully appointed Model 793-S 7’9” 3-piece 3-weight, and I look forward to getting it out on the water for a review soon.  In the meantime, Bill and Larry graciously give more background and story on their collaboration along with some hints on the making of the Model 793-S.  It is well worth the read.

 

Bill Higashi in Yokohama, Japan wrote...
I knew of Larry forever as the first employee of Scott founded by Harry Wilson, but I got to know him in person in Patagonia, on a mothership operation called Nomads of the Seas. I think it was around 2000. Fishing was great.  

I was the Japanese translator of all Mel Krierger’s books and videos since the early 90s. I co-hosted clinic tours in Japan for over a decade, and Mel introduced to me key people in West Coast angling centering GGACC.  Jim Green, Nelson Ishiyama, the Rajeff Brothers, Mike and Christine Fong are among them. As a caster I am in that context.

I was a user of Larry Kenney rods since he launched it.  I think I bought half a dozen rods and used them heavily, as well as vintage and modern Scott sticks.  I think the original LK designs created highly sophisticated, rather long progressive rods using E-glass.  The original designs have light tips and beefy
butt, which I love.  However for controlling long tippet (up to 8-foot) I wanted the rod to be bent for a longer time by incorporating a bit stiffer tip and a little more bendy butt.  In fishing free stone streams in Japan and the fish are not rising, we need to drift flies for a long distance.  We also want to dead-drift flies
in the back eddies, which chars love.  For such purposes we need long tippet, minimum 5-foot.  We change the cast tempo a bit to achieve constant tension in the whole system for full control. Bamboo, low-modulus graphite or E-glass are great materials for slower-action rods, but we do love the toughness of
glass material.  Glass rods simply don’t break, and it is a great advantage to fish the unfamiliar waters that might require a bit of rock-climbing or bush whacking.  Another advantage of slower action rods lies in the mendability because rod tips move rather big with a flick of a wrist.

For developing “S” models that are slower, we used the original 794 taper as the starting point.  When we came up the basic S design we applied it to other models.  We created several tips, mids and butts, then mixed them to find the best combination.  To finalize the 794S design we made eight versions (A – H).  They traveled long distance over the Pacific to be cast and fished in the USA and in Japan.

We need to mention our creative hands, Katsumi Harada.  I got to know him in the late 90's as an individual bamboo rod maker living in Osaka.  As a totally self-taught artisan he used to use Tonkin cane, but later switched to Madake, which has lower modulus.  His material preference lines up nicely, with Madake and E-Glass.  Katsumi studied French philosophy, I majored in Post-modern American literature of the 60s and 70s, and Larry holds a master’s degrees in Rhetoric.  It seems we have something in common.

Larry Kenney in San Rafael, California wrote...
As Bill mentioned, we first met on a fly fishing industry junket in Chile, though we knew of each other before that: me through my connection to Scott rods, and Bill as editor of Japan’s premier fly fishing magazine, The Fly Fisher.  When disagreements with my original blank fabricator led me to look for a new fabricator, I reconnected with Bill for advice.  I’d long been impressed by the Japanese tradition of craftsmanship and attention to detail, and I knew that a few Japanese fly rod builders were having blanks made in their own country.  Bill soon discovered a small fabricator willing to work with my mandrels and
tapers and roll my designs. No stranger to building rods himself, Bill acted as an invaluable go between and consultant.  And when age – I’m 79 – made it clear that I needed to slow down and perhaps look for someone to take over my glass project, Bill jumped at the chance.  

Bill and I also share a background in the casting styles and rod designs of the West Coast fly rod tradition, a tradition informed by the wide variety of fishable Western waters, from big Western steelhead streams to the tiny creeks of the Sierra Nevada, and by the tournament fly casting innovations developed at fly casting clubs like the GGACC in San Francisco.  The progressive action rods developed by talented Western angler/builders like EC Powell, Lew Stoner, Doug Merrick and Jim Green - winners on the tournament platform and proven performers on Western waters - are the foundational designs of that tradition.  My own work, first with Harry Wilson and Scott rods and later on my own, is to a great extent an extension and an homage to that tradition. But reverence for tradition can be limiting and for me the most interesting thing about building fly rods is responding to new challenges.  

The streams that Bill and his Japanese colleagues fish required a slightly different kind of rod than what I liked to fish. Bill describes it as being softer in the bottom end and stiffer in the top and middle of the rod and thus better suited to a variety of slack line casts using extremely long tippets.  After a bunch of years of testing I can see how that works. Bill first sent me a handful of rods built for the Japanese market, none of which we thought was quite right, so we started developing our own.  It took a handful of years of sending tests back and forth across the Pacific but I like what we’ve done.

Cosmetics and appearance is the other side of rod building and I’m delighted that Bill and Katsumi Harada share my tastes. I’m also delighted that Katsumi can execute our aesthetic better than I.  It’s no secret that the early Scott rods, both glass and graphite, were more revered for performance than appearance.  Harry Wilson wasn’t looking for pretty.  I like to think my L Kenney rods acknowledged both performance and appearance, but Katsumi has taken things up a notch over my best efforts.  His cork, wrap and finish quality are exceptional, better far than what my aging eyes and fingers can achieve.

So, we’ve got feet in two camps, with a half a dozen proven progressive action designs and a growing handful of softer butted, stronger tipped ones.  I suppose some will say the new models we developed are only variations of the kind of rod that mid 20th century angling writers like A.J. McClane and John Alden Knight called parabolic or semi parabolic.  Perhaps.  And then again what’s wrong with that? How can you go wrong with one foot on EC Powell’s shoulder and the other on Paul Young’s, while working out your own conclusions about what sort of action aids the kind of presentations your angling requires?

Learn more on the L Kenney Fly Rods website and if you have questions, reach out through their contact page.