DANNY KADOTA

Founder, Semper Fishrods

Dan Kadota, founder of Semper Fish Rods, has been fishing since he was 4 years old. His grandparent’s fished every weekend and it was Dan’s father who instilled the incentive of having good behavior (and eventually good grades), would allow him to fish every Saturday with his grandparents. Because of those incentives, it put him on track to excel in school and eventually attend UCSD, placing him in a location which would allow him to fish trout, bass and saltwater whenever the fish were biting. (This choice of university was strategic on Dan’s part!) Upon graduating with a degree in economics and sociology, his father asked what he intended to do for work. Dan told him he was going to be a deckhand on the Mustang, a sport fishing boat operated by Taka Tanaka. Of course his father thought he was joking but when he told him he was serious about this, he couldn’t stop laughing!

Dan pursued his deckhand career and immediately got his captain’s license. After several years, he purchased the Mustang from Taka and shortly after that, purchased two more boats, the Fortune and the Cherokee Geisha. On his days off from running the sportfishing operation, he became serious about pursuing trophy largemouth bass. In 1988, he caught his first big bass weighing in at 18.75 pounds which awarded him first place in the IGFA contest. The next year, in 1989, he caught a line class world record which was 19.04 pounds. That same year, he won the first big bass world championship contest with a 15.25 pound bass. After several of these accomplishments, Dan retired off the boats, got married to the love of his life, Gale, and began working with G. Loomis and a number of other tackle manufacturers. Dan has always pursued the highest performing fishing tackle and innovations within the fishing industry which has evolved into building his own rods and now his own company, Semper Fish Rods.

Dan has been blessed by being surrounded by some of the greatest innovators in the tackle industry which allowed him to participate in developing some of the very best tackle made. Dan looks forward to introducing the serious angler to the newest technology in fishing rods and handle system. Semper Fish Rods is implementing a handle system that determines the actions of the fishing rod which is the first time the rod action can be structured around a handle system. Dan looks forward to this continual evolution of developing the highest performing tackle!