This past weekend an email arrived in my inbox with an update from Larry Kenney on the future of his fly rod company. Larry has an incredible history over the last fifty years in fiberglass fly rod taper design and I'm excited to share what these next steps are, to include new partners in Japan and the launch of the new
L Kenney Fly Rods website. Scroll to read Larry's dispatch...
Friends
It
astonishes me when I reflect on it, but I’ve been building fly rods for
half a century: first as a university student who built from blanks
because I couldn’t afford to buy a finished rod. Next, when I joined
Harry Wilson as a stock holder and acolyte at the newly formed Scott
PowR-ply Company in 1974, a relationship that was to last for 22 years.
And finally, as a small-production fiberglass rod maker under my own
name.
I started that last venture - L Kenney Fly Rods - in the
early 2000s but didn’t get it really rolling until 2007. My goal, one
shared at that time by just a handful of other glass builders, was to
resurrect fiberglass, which had largely been forgotten as graphite rods
came on the market, as an exceptional fly rod building material. I
wanted to produce fiberglass fly rods whose performance was as good or
better than comparable rods of any material, and were built to the same
level of craftsmanship that contemporary split cane artisans were
bringing to bamboo.
Since every material has its limitations, I
chose to build glass fly rods only in the light and medium line weights
and modest lengths for which the material was ideally suited. They would
be would be 3 -pc. or 5-pc for ease of transport and balanced action,
have semi-hollow spigot ferrules for smoothness of action, utilize the
best components, and be relatively conservative in appearance.
Production would be limited to 35 rods a year so I had time to fish and
write.
Just as I was lucky to have worked with Harry Wilson
and later Jim Bartschi at what is now the Scott Fly Rod Company, I was
equally lucky to become a part of a cadre of hardcore angler/casters at
San Francisco’s Golden Gate Angling and Casting Club. Few angling
communities have as rich a tradition, as talented a membership, or as
broad a collection of fine fly rods against which to test and compare
new designs.
What I called my fiberglass rod “project” was
surprisingly successful, and hundreds of L Kenney fly rods are in play
on waters all over the world. I was often backordered as much as
eighteen months but knowledgeable anglers seemed willing to wait for a
rod. Delays like that frustrated me but I could see no way to
maintain, much less expand production, and still have time for other
things.
At 78 years of age, and with fifty years in rod
building behind me, it’s time to once make some changes. Enter my
friends Tomonori Higashi and Katsumi Harada: the former a
widely-traveled angler/writer and casting instructor based in Yokohama,
and the latter a talented and innovative artisan of both bamboo and
fiberglass fly rods based in Osaka. Both are well grounded in the
history and traditions of fine fly rods and their construction, and are
excellent casters and evaluators of fly rod action. The result of that
connection is a rewarding personal and professional relationship with
two angler/craftsmen who can take on and expand the L Kenney fiberglass
fly rod project. After March of 2025 L Kenney rods will be built in
Japan by Katsumi Harada, while Bill Higashi handles marketing and
sales. I’ll stay on as an active consultant, working with them on rod
design.
We’ve been fine-tuning this transition for months, have
already come up with two new, semi-parabolic models that handle a bit
differently than my progressive action designs, and are working on two
more models. Finally, our new company website will launch in early April
at L Kenney Fly Rods.
So.....change and continuity. I couldn’t be more pleased.
Larry Kenney
San Rafael, California
Congratulations on this new chapter of
L Kenney Fly Rods. I'm looking forward to following along.
