Zander: Your rods make use of a split grip design, what was the main reason you implemented this design into the MAX series?

Keith Bryan: Yes, Woody and I were doing it by ourselves for quite a while on the side in our Rancho Cordova facility. Making rods with Tennessee handles, and a few with reel seats with split grips, etc. Then in January of 2002, I actually received great input from Dave Rush and I listened to what he had to say about the split grip. Dave was single handedly the one who convinced me to use this style of grip without the fore grip on the rod blanks that I was currently producing and he deserves all of the credit for that. He said this is the grip you need to bring to the market because many folks will want this, especially if you are able to incorporate your sensitivity and lightness of your fly rod technology with the strength needed for this market. 

Keith prioritizes orders at the office

Zander: The split grip has been a big hit among bassers. Recently you expanded your MAX series with a number of new rods. Can you tell us about the development process, and how a rod goes from an idea to final production?

Keith Bryan: We have always had a certain protocol that we follow when making a new rod line or additions to a current product line. We begin by listening to customer and dealers needs and we utilize a number of fishermen to make suggestions and help create ideas and ultimately to test the rods that we design to ensure that they will hold up under the toughest conditions. Once there is an idea, we take that info to our rod design engineers and there we look at what type of material and taper is needed to achieve that specific rod action and so forth. Once we know what is needed to make that particular rod, we then do a cost analysis to ensure that we can make it within the cost parameters needed to fit it into the current product line. If we like the analysis, we then begin the development and hope we build a winner, and this is where the rod design engineers earn their money. They are the true heroes behind the scenes when it comes to designing a rod, with the material choices, mandrel taper, wall thickness, outside diameter, guide placement, and balance point to name just a few of the considerations when this process gets going. That’s the way we’ve always done it and that’s the way we will always do it. The beauty is we have 97 years of this type of rod making history so there definitely is a strong blueprint to build off of.

One of the features we like about the Powell Max rods is the open hook hanger

Zander: Now lets turn our attention to what is to come. What are your future plans for Powell bass rods are there any new lineups planned? 

Keith Bryan: We are in the process of adding rods to our current product lines where we need to make additions for 2008. Other than that, there’s not too much more planned right now except for building more and more of the current product line with these new additions because we are on such a tremendous growth spurt. I am constantly talking with our pro staff members sending them new rods to try, etc., getting their feedback. In fact, John Murray and Jared Lintner were using a few new prototype rods in some of their recent tournaments as was Art Berry and Dave Rush which will be introduced at this years ICAST show.

Zander: Will we ever see any Powell saltwater sticks? 

Keith Bryan: Again, Powell has been around for nearly 100 years and was primarily known worldwide as a high performance high end fly rod company. My goal is to make this a complete rod manufacturing company over time.  We will always look at additional facets to add on to, but right now I’m just not sure if the saltwater market is where we want to look. 

Powell has a complete line of fly rods, the Tiboron XL, teh TiMax, and Legacy Bamboo series

Zander: Can you tell me more about your different fly rods and what makes them so popular?

Keith Bryan: Currently, we make two series of fly rods, the Tiboron and the Timax which has been a main staple for a few years now. The two rods are made with a Ti-graphite reel seat and all are 4 piece travel designs made with a low profile ferruling system, titanium stripping guides and light wire chrome snake guides and are truly cutting edge technology. The two common ingredients the two rods have are “Maxumfiber” which is a proprietary high modulus high resign content graphite material made for power, lightness and sensitivity. It allows our rod design engineers to design and build blanks utilizing less material while maintaining incredible sensitivity, dampening, lightness, and maintaining strength. This is the same material we use when making our current line of “MAX” casting and spinning rods. The Timax is a Fast action fly rod series and the Tiboron XL differs because it uses additional high end ultra high modulus material as an added ingredient and is an Ex-Fast action fly rod series.

We have been building fly rods for 97 years and so many people know them or at least know the name Powell, so our job is to continue to develop products that are complimentary of this great old name. When people think of Powell, they think of high performance and high quality products with superior customer service.

Zander: I always like to ask manufacturers how often do you personally get on the water, and what is your preferred type of fishing?

Keith Bryan: Not too much right now because we are so busy, but how does not enough sound. I will fish a tournament here and there and go fun fish when I can, but seriously, I haven’t fished much since last fall. I recently fished a Clear Lake tourney and had a lot of fun. I’ll fish a tournament circuit or two down the road when the time is right. When I go fly fishing I like to catch big stripers on a fly rod, however, my preferred style of fishing is bass fishing with casting and spinning rods. I’ve done it since I was in the 5^th grade and I truly love the sport.

Keith bags some quality fish at a tournament

Zander: I'll let you get back to work so you can hopefully make some more time to actually get out on the water. Thanks very much for your time today. Is there anything in closing you would like to say to TackleTour readers?

Keith Bryan: I would like to thank God because he has truly blessed me and this company through the good times and the rocky times. I would also like to thank all of the consumers who have given Powell the opportunity to be a part of their personal fishing arsenal, thank you very much for your support. I would also like to thank all of the retailers that have given Powell such a strong vote of confidence by allowing us to do business with them. If not for them, we would not be so popular. I would like to thank our pro staff who has really helped us and I would also like to thank TackleTour for allowing me this opportunity to share the Powell story.

Last but not least, I would like to thank my family and close friends which start with my wife Karry. She has absolutely been there for me and has helped me guide this company financially over the last few years, and it is to her that I owe a great deal of gratitude.

TackleTour would like to thank Keith for taking time out of his busy day to give us and our readers a look at the past and future for Powell rods.