kyledr04 said:
All star seems to have faded away recently. Used be popular, quality rods.
If by recently you mean at least 10 years, then yes.
All Star used to be locally made here in Houston up near Cypress and made some great rods. They even made a really good line of fly rod blanks. However, when the reached the point where they had to go into big box stores their warranty killed them. People would fish a rod for a year or two, decide they wanted a new one and break the old one on purpose. Their warranty policy was for a new rod, no questions asked. And they started losing a ton of money.
Then probably 10-12 years ago they sold out to the company that owns Shakespeare and sold exclusively at Academy. They still make a quality rod but they're not the hot thing anymore and their QC can be spotty (which is generally OK given the return policy at Academy). And they've not been made in the USA in a long time.
Personally, I think that for a bang-for-your-buck rod All Star makes a great choice for 90% of people fishing.
Also keep in mind that for pretty much every single high-end rod company out there not named St. Croix or G. Loomis their rods aren't truly made in America. They're only assembled in America from foreign made parts as I don't think there's any conventional rod makers in the US who cook their blanks here in the USA other than G. Loomis and St. Croix.
edit: and for the record, I'm not sure about G.Loomis anymore since they were bought by Shimano. Gary Loomis now owns North Fork Composites and there are a couple places, oddly enough all in Washington state that do bake their own blanks- the aforementioned North Fork Composites, Batson Enterprises, and Talon Components. Those shops may be supplying the higher-end rod makers like Kistler, Falcon, H&H, Waterloo, and so on but I'm not sure. There are actually more fly rod companies baking their own blanks in the USA like Sage, Scott, St. Croix (except for some lower-end stuff), Orvis (again, except for some lower-end stuff), Winston, and Thomas & Thomas.