Does anyone know the name of the company that was created by the former guys who started All Star rods in Houston, Texas?

Wasn't it American rodsmiths?

I thought that was the Kistler people. Seems I remember reading on their website on the tab "about us". Not 100% but confident. Nope I was wrong. You got me curious so I looked it up and the Castaway people started Kistler.

It was Castaway

I don't think Billy Kistler was a founder of Allstar. He came in later as a partner and left to form Castaway. His son Trey came to work for Castaway. When they left he started Kistler.

One of the original Allstar founders started American Rodsmith. Think his name was Morgan.

A couple of guys that used to work for All Star went to work for American Rodsmith. They later ceated their own company Tour Star.

I actually signed the commercial lease for Morgan's new building. It's Mccain High Performance Rods. http://www.mccainfishing.com/

Thanks for the input guys! For some reason Tour Star is sticking in my mind. This gives me some ideas of where to search.

Tour Star is out of Houston and their bio says that Brett was the former ownwer and innovator of AllStar. Their website is tourstarproducts.com.

I was a big fain of the old school All Stars, but the newer ones don't seem to be as high quality, I assume because they were bought out. has anybody used McCain rods? I looked at their website and they sound promising.

Just read that also.

I was a fan of the old school AllStars that were made in Houston. Still got the old Topwater Special designed by Zell Rowland and the old WR1 worm Rod. If they were longer, I would probably be still using them today.

Oddly enough I'm connected to All Star in a couple of ways, so I've learned a lot about the company's history through out the years. My old tournament partner's dad was on pro staff for Brett at All Star. Brett took over the company after Morgan McCain sold the company in the
mid 90's. Brett eventually sold to Shimano who later sold to Pure Fishing. Morgan was the original founder back in the 80's and came up with the idea for technique specific blanks and was one of the first to start using cork handles instead of the old pistol grips. After pursuing ventures out in the oil field and home building, he's back in the rod business. Really neat guy to talk to. Tour Star, Kistler, Castaway, and American Rodsmith were off shoots of All Star, founded by former employees after Morgan left the company, although I am almost positive Castaway changed hands about 4 years ago.

Thanks Tyler, great info!

With all these guys coming from a single source to form other companies it makes you wonder if rods are all the same except for the name.