Haven’t seen much on these, but had a chance to fish a few and purchase afterwards. Smaller company, hand built in Texas with NFC blanks. Great feel and light weight. I was able to try a few different models and all seemed really well put together. Ended up with a few in the boat, anyone that likes the original All-Star rods these are a newer version. Will be putting them through there paces this coming weekend and will report back on a full review.
Pride is owned by Trey Kistlers father. They are basically pre 2022 Kistlers with his own input on guide spacing and handles.
Kistler rods went to using Chinese blanks to cut costs and try to increase quality control. NFC isn’t known for great QA/QC (crooked blanks, wrong rods shipped etc), it’s not too common to get a bad rod, but happens enough to where people talk about it. I personally like NFC blanks and haven’t had any issues.
1995 Ranger 481v
1995 Johnson Fast Strike 175hp
Another one to ck out is sawgrass rods .. got a couple and are nice e in hand built with nfc hm blanks and cerakoil guides
07 tracker TX 190
75 horse Mercury
999 KVD, 859 , and 798 SI HD
I really enjoyed the OG All-Stars from the late 1990s before they went overseas. The T38X/T40X/Titanium series were excellent. Once they went with cheaper overseas blanks and production the quality drop in construction, feel and fishability changed drastically (and not for the better). The same thing happened with OG Castaway, and FWIW, the offshoot rod company American Rodsmiths just didn't have the same quality blanks once Shikari was no longer available (which also affected Falcon rods).
Lots of great USA made rods went defunct in the mid 2000s due to cheaper overseas products and buyouts, including my favorite at the time, the OG Warrior Elite rods with boron scrim IIRC, it was a bit heavier, but very sensitive and incredible taper for casting/loading/hookset and had excellent fishability. Once Furnace Bay bought out Warrior rods it was the end for this short lived American rod maker.
Last edited by dragon1; 11-28-2022 at 07:15 AM.
Any update on how those rods did for you? Looking at trying a few out
Billy Kistler builds them, good rods
Reply With Quote