Lefty Kreh gave me a TFO 9' #6 in 2 piece........

.......and tonight in my back yard in Florida I caught some Blue Gills and a nice 2 pound LMB.

He designed this rod and said it was the favorite size fly rod for him.

I loved to fish a 9' #6 line fly rod in 2 piece, most of my adult life too.

Years ago the #6 line fly rod was called the "all rounder".



A trout rod in the Greatest Generation, before World War II, was a 8'6"#7 line in 3 pc in bamboo.

A trout rod in the Baby Boomers generation, after World War II, was a 8' #6 line in 2 pc fiberglass.

Now a trout rod is a 9' #5 line in 4 pc in graphite.



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That’s just too cool- He was a great guy, got a casting lesson at an ise show years ago, asked him if he wanted to grab a beer after- nope he said, but I’ll take a cup of coffee. A really nice half hour w a down to earth legend.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bill Kiene semi-retired

.......and tonight in my back yard in Florida I caught some Blue Gills and a nice 2 pound LMB.

He designed this rod and said it was the favorite size fly rod for him.

I fished a 9' #6 line fly rod in 2 piece most of my life too.

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Very nice Bill.

Thank you for your Florida back-yard report !!!!

I'm glad to see you're able to wet a line............good mental medicine in these times.
I'm sure you remembered Lefty the whole time you had that rod in hand. :cool::cool:

And, I noticed you're a "South Paw/Lefty" too !!!! :D:D

As they say............ us left-handed people are in their right minds !!!! :D:D


Bob

I was so fortunate to be able to spend a little time with Lefty due to being in the fly fishing industry.

Had dinner after the shows with him several times with other interesting people too.

When you walk up to Lefty when he is casually talking to a group of folks at one of the sport shows and he says, "Heh, Kiene, what's

new?" it is pretty cool.

Got to fish with him for a day on Christmas Island on a special Sage Rod Company trip.

He was not left handed.

At the shows people would come up to him with a "new Joke" and he would always be able to finish it.

You can not imagine the wonderful. long life he had? He traveled everywhere and fished with lots of other special people.

He had a huge impact on fishing, especially fly fishing.

I could go on for days with stories about how he effected my life from 50 years ago reading his articles in old fishing magazines.

He touch a lot of people........


My very good old friend Dan Blanton spent more time with Lefty than most did.......

I have 7 of TFO's Lefty rods (5 Lefty signature series and 2 "Professional" models) ranging from 7'6" 3-wts to 9' 8-wts. I bought most of them from Bill's shop on Marconi. Good rods for the money and I've caught a lot of fish on them.

About 15 years ago the go to affordable outfit was a TFO fly rod and a Teton Tioga fly reel.

This was going on in many fly shop all around the country.


Actually TFO wanted to recognize their top dealers so they went to Lefty and sent those rods some of us dealers.

I was one of the very first Temple Fork Outfitters/Mangrove Outfitters dealers and suggested to many other fly shop owners to become

dealers because it was so successful back then.


When I started in the fishing tackle business around 1970 it was Fenwick fiberglass fly rods, Pflueger Medalist fly reels and Cortland

444 fly lines. That was probably 50% of the outfit market on the West coast.



The problem for little fly shops was the chain stores had Fenwick, Pflueger and Scientific Angler heavily discounted.

I first started the first real fly shop in Sacramento in 1975, the Fly Hutch, so when we sold a Fenwick rod, Medalist reel and a Cortland

444 fly line the only thing I made money on was the fly line.