Annette McLean was born in Montana and raised on a ranch a few miles from the Madison River. Indian Creek ran through the ranch property, and McLean remembers catching big brown trout with her hands from the creek. After graduating from Montana State University with a degree in finance and accounting, McLean and her husband Bob moved to Twin Bridges, Montana, where her husband pursued a teaching and coaching career. Twin Bridges is the home of the R. L. Winston Rod Company.

In 1985, McLean approached Winston’s then-owner Tom Morgan about a possible land purchase along the Big Hole River. Morgan declined to sell the property; instead, he offered McLean a job. McLean’s first job at Winston was to buff and polish aluminum reel-seat parts before the anodizing process. Winston produced virtually all of the reel seats, and soon McLean was finishing the wood seat inserts as well as machining some of the metal seat parts. After Morgan sold the company, McLean worked customer service, then was later offered the position of graphite rod production manager. She held this position for ten years.

Along with her graphite duties, McLean became responsible for Winston’s bamboo rod program in 2006. In 2008, she became the lead designer of graphite rods. During the past four years, McLean has worked on the designs of four different rod series, a total of more than sixty rods. Over her twenty-six-year career at Winston, she has worked in nearly every phase of rod development and production.

McLean continues to live in Twin Bridges and work at the R. L. Winston Rod Company. She conducts casting clinics for women and children and has served as a board member with the International Women Fly Fishers and the Lewis and Clark Chapter of Trout Unlimited. Annette McLean and her family remain avid anglers.

Note: this text was written in 2011.