The Ultimate salmon rod

In 1985 I upgraded to my first big guide boat, which my friends called the million dollar boat after I fished it for twenty years. I bought it from a part time guide and pretty randy character by the name of Skip Hoskins. It cost me about as much as a new motor for it would now. But this Alumaweld was state of the art equipment and as Skip worked for the phone company and could it afford it he had way better rods and reels in his guide line up that I did.....so....when we sealed the deal at the Maverick club on Friday evening I insisted he sweeten the deal with a couple of those Lamiglas Rods I knew he had. When I took delivery he had of course forgotten about the rods but after some haggling which included me letting him keep the Jack Daniels bottle I found in the boat I took possession of two pretty well used G1000 Lamiglas Kenai Killer rods. One of them I cut the trigger off of and use to fish the surf and the other is still in my daily line up 30 years later.

It's been an incredible rod and has caught literally hundreds and hundreds of King Salmon, who knows how many really. ( I have never broken a Lamiglas Rod on a fish ) ... ( of course I have 'tail gated' a few of them)  . It's the stoutest of the Lamiglas Kenai series at 9 ft. and rated for up to 3 ounce lures and 40 pound line, this baby is stiff. I tell people it was a cue stick before I put eyes on it. Lately the trend for pulling those huge Kwikfish lures has been to go with long ( 11' ) rods with a fast action but you know me, always different. Nobody that knows the Kenai will tell you Jeff King doesn't know how to pull plugs and I think this baby's stiffness is what makes the magic. It seems when I use the limper rods it kind of kills the seductive action of the plug. Through the years I've trolled up next to people and when the see the throbbing action of the rod they say " wow that rods really working"...here's a pic of the butt to show you how well used the Killer is, totally rounded off from being pulled out of the rod holder for 30 years.

I've seen this rod resting on the gunwale of the boat with a 60 pound king on the line. I've seen people hold it up high and the rod perform a ninety degree bend. But this picture here of an old fishing friend Jim Fregilias I will never forget. It was in the late 80's and we were trolling the pasture when the tide came in and killed the current. In those days we usually just went up river but we were just learning the advantages of doing the dead troll so we unsnapped the divers and put a 4 ounce sinker on to drag the bottom. We had caught a few fish this way and it was a different bite so I suggested Jim hold the rod and strike him hard....and hard it was, when he swang on that fish I could hear my Lami actually creaking, a kind of grinding sound on the hook set. We landed this fish and I inspected the rod, no worries but to this day I've never heard a rod groan like that. How's about the Alumaweld sticker on the console eh?

Now I have a couple entire line up's of Lamiglas rods but back in those days I only had a few as they cost $200.00 ....here's pic of the Killer at work, I'm certain it's the same rod. Fish on, floating the high bank at the sonar counter.

Here's pic of my girl friend Libby with a gorgeous King she caught on the Killer. I would always make sure customers like Libby got the advantage of the Kenai Killers. With these heavy fish you eventually really need to be strong enough to lift that weight to the net and with the added length and stiffness the rod when loaded does a lot of the work all by itself.  Libby is a friend of Bill and Sally Brooks who have been with me since the 80's. Sally and Bill were with me when I had my medical emergency a few years back...I miss you guys...

In the last few years I've broken two Okuma brand surf rods, they just don't seem to be made for the kind of use that Team X demands.  I've broken a Berkely brand caster and a couple Okuma brand spinning rods so....for Mexico I see a Lamiglas Ron Arra signature in my future...And oh one more thing about the brand. A few years back I bought several blue Lamiglas spinning rods for gifts in Mexico and was a bit disappointed when I unloaded them there and realised they were made in China.  Well the guys I gave them to are hard fishing for sure and they're still being used today. My friend Alejandro considers it his favorite rod and has caught everything that swims the surf on it. So when I related that story to the guys at the tackle store where I buy them they responded , " well Jeff, it's that same graphite formula as the old Kenai series G1000 ".  Made in Woodland Washington, USA.