I had a similar moment once with a bamboo fly rod. I was at an annual Maine event known as "Superboo" which was traditionally held on the Saturday before the Super Bowl and involved many bamboo rod makers, collectors, owners and fans gathering in a high school gym to fondle, cast, trade and sell bamboo rods. (Sadly, it no longer takes place. It was a great mid-winter diversion.)
One of the collectors I'd met in previous years, Sante Giuliani, handed me a rod and said, "You want to cast this. It's a cannon. You might want to take it out in the parking lot because the basketball court is too small for it to do its thing."
Sure enough, I took it out and I and a couple of friends proceeded to cast and pretty effortlessly hit 60 feet, and then cast with a double haul and dump most of a 90' fly line. We were all competent casters, but not used to casting like that, even with modern graphite rods. It was a cannon indeed.
We all trooped back into the gym. "Sante, this is a great rod! What is it?"
It turned out to be by a Detroit area rod maker from the mid 20th century named Morris Kushner, who was quite famous in trout fishing circles because he made a fly rod that could cast incredible distances and gave it as a gift to a famous judge/writer/fly fisherman named John Voelker, aka Robert Traver, the name he wrote under. He wrote two fine fishing books, Trout Madness and Trout Magic, but is most famous for Anatomy of a Murder, which was made into a very popular movie starring James Stewart, and made enough money that Voelker could retire, fish, and write books about trout fishing. In one of those books was a chapter with the title "Morris the Rod Maker" about how this fellow down in Detroit made him a rod that was so much better than anything else he had ever cast that it became his favorite for big water and long casts.
As it turned out, the rod we were all banging around with out in the parking lot was THE ACTUAL ROD that Morris Kushner had given to Voelker, which our collector friend had somehow acquired from his family after he died. We all figured it was worth more than any of our vehicles and some of our houses.
Sante's view: "It was made to cast. Neither Kushner nor Voelker would be happy to have it hanging on the wall or stashed in storage." I wouldn't be surprised f Sante actually fished that rod once or twice.
I actually had a bamboo rod making friend of mine take measurements of that rod's taper with calipers with the thought that he could build me a modern version, but when push came to shove I had him build me a more traditional trout rod on a conventional taper instead.
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