max yerxa
Max Yerxa was a prune farmer from Colusa, California who worked for a time in EC Powell's Marysville shop. Max's uncle Wood Yerxa was a good friend and fishing mentor to EC Powell. EC even built some rods with what he called the "Yerxa" taper based on Wood Yerxa's prefernece for a rod with essentially an A taper tip and B taper butt. Max and EC had a lifelong friendship and working relationship. Max started his own shop and built bamboo rods out of Colusa. Max never quit farming and the rod shop was an additional project so his production was never large scale. Max built beautiful rods that are a joy to cast and fish.
I'm working now to establish some good dates and time frames for Max's work in bamboo rods. Max worked as a shop-hand and assistant rod maker in EC Powell's shop in Marysville, CA from 1948 to 1954. At some point after that Max started building rods in his own shop. I know he built rods until the late 90s when his health began to fail and his son Dan took up some of the work but for how long I don't know. If you happen to have information regarding any of Max Yerxa's production period I would love to hear from you at rich@classicpowellrod.com.
Here is what I do know of Max Yerxa's rods:
All of his rods were of semi-hollow construction. Throughout his production Max had four models of trout rod: 7'6" 3-4wt 8' 4-5wt 8'6" 5-6wt 9' 5-6-7wt And two models of steelhead rod: 9' 8-9wt 9'6" 8-9-10wt Max built rods on EC Powell's three primary tapers but his production rods did not utilize the A taper. All his standard trout rods were B tapers and his steelhead models were both C tapers. He would build A taper rods to order and I have seen one of his 8' trout rods with a modified A taper. Max did do a fair amount of custom work and did build quite a few companion rods to order as well.