Company
About us
For over 60 years, ITALCANNA has designed and built fishing rods, reels and accessories to satisfy the needs of the most demanding anglers, and in this sector it has managed to gain a worldwide reputation for quality over the years.
The modern production facility, which covers a covered area of over 4,000 square meters, boasts specialized workers with over thirty years of experience.
Each of our products is tested both in the laboratory and by expert fishermen who subject it to strict controls before being placed on the market, technical and practical tests that guarantee "Italcanna quality".
To realize all this, just take a look at the catch records achieved with this equipment.
Italcanna currently holds 21 World Championships, 13 European Championships and 66 Italian Championships.
Furthermore, Italcanna is the official distributor of the Ande and Scotty brands in Italy.
100% MADE in ITALY
Italcanna guarantees that all the rods on this site are strictly made in Italy at its production facility in Lucca, starting with the carbon fiber used internally to create each individual blank.
Made in Italy means not only choosing the best materials, but also having the certainty of assistance and spare parts even on older products.
In fact, we always keep the molds needed to make a specific item.
Made in Italy also means that the product you are using has been developed by expert fishermen for our seas, our seabeds, and our fishing techniques, and is therefore not an item that for market needs must necessarily be suitable for multiple countries.
The choice of materials
Having a direct relationship between manufacturer and user, we feel compelled to always use the best materials, because we are personally responsible for them. This is unlike manufacturers who, by reselling to multinationals, only aim to offer a product of sufficient quality at a lower price to prevent them from turning to others, and certainly do not specify the raw materials used. A clear example of this is carbon fiber, which, while having the same elastic modulus (and therefore stiffness), is available on the market with various tensile strengths. Therefore, a cursory test will not reveal any differences, but if subjected to stress, the one with the lower tensile strength will break much sooner...
ITALCANNA, legend and passion
A great passion for the sea, this is the true commercial spirit of the Italcanna brand. A passion passed down from its founder, Carlo D’Olivo, when as a boy he worked in his uncle's fishing rod factory, which already in the early post-war years employed over 120 people building rods in Roseaux, Bambou, and hexagonal Refendoux. Today Italcanna is known throughout the world thanks to excellent products that hold numerous and prestigious catch records in all the seas of our planet.
All this was almost unthinkable in the mid-sixties, when the name Italcanna appeared on the first raw barrels of rods personally crafted by Carlo D’Olivo and his wife Letizia Bianchi.
And many years have passed since 1966, the year in which the new company, still managed by the D'Olivo family, was founded.
The production unit is located in Segromigno, in the province of Lucca, a few kilometers from the Tyrrhenian Sea. Its production focuses primarily on the marine sector and offers a list of over a thousand items.
For many years, production focused on models made of fiberglass, exported first to France, then to the USA and subsequently to Australia, and already in just a few years obtaining prestigious awards such as the Quality Award in 1971 and the International Golden Hercules Award in 1981.
The 1980s were marked by extensive research into composite fibres applied to sport fishing, which led Italcanna to become one of the first companies in Europe to produce hollow composite rods.
By also using carbon fabrics for other applications, new construction and assembly methods of the various materials have been developed in order to get the most out of these fibres.
The results achieved were more than flattering, involving the entire production, further expanding it with innovative and cutting-edge products.
From these studies were born, for example, the first tubular microfibre trolling rods which immediately won an important World Championship (Madeira 1981) but also the first telescopic surf rods such as the TeleSurf or Marenostrum (trademark patent 11/11/1986) in place of the now outdated solid fibreglass rods.
Despite these successes, innovations did not stop, continuing with the patent of the TMH (22/10/1987) and the production of special rods of the highest level for technical casting.
This limited production allowed us to gain further technical insights that could be applied to the mass production of surfcasting rods. Just think of the Evoluzione rod, which single-handedly revolutionized surf fishing in Italy and Europe with the adoption of a solid carbon tip that halved the tip diameter and doubled the sensitivity.
Italcanna also produced the first surf rod without sliding guides on the tip (1998) made exclusively for an Italian customer.
More recently Italcanna patented CarboTitanium (13/12/2002) which brought further lightness and strength to surfcasting rods.
Precisely because of their reliability and quality, many fishing centers use Italcanna rods for the most demanding tasks, such as catching fish weighing over a thousand pounds at great depths, or catching sharks from the shore. This satisfaction has been rewarded with countless category records, set by loyal customers who have relied on our company's products for over thirty years.
Every Italcanna rod is capable of providing sensations, whether you are fishing with an ocean or Mediterranean rod, or more simply trying to catch one of those little fish that populate the shoreline.
But Italcanna also means “Gladiator” the trolling reel, and also the exclusive distribution of prestigious American brands such as Ande and Scotty.
The Gladiator reel is the perfect match for any trolling, drifting or stand-up rod and, like the rods, these reels also boast a prestigious level of quality in the materials and technological solutions adopted. At the same time, the American monofilament Ande, known throughout the world for the perfect dictates of the load ratings that the strict IGFA rules impose to beat every fishing record, while Scotty is a leader in the production of downriggers for boats.
Finally, let's not forget Italcanna's great commitment to the spread and promotion of sport fishing in Italy and to protecting the environment through the use of paints and products free of substances harmful to health.
The sea and fishing... an inseparable bond for the Italcanna brand, which continues its adventure towards ever new and challenging goals.
The production
With specialized workers boasting many years of experience, Italcanna produces each individual product to a very high quality standard, and the machinery itself is often the result of extensive fine-tuning and modifications to perform a specific process in the best possible way.
Despite all this, many of the processes, such as creating the fretwork on the trolling rods, are still rigorously performed by hand, as are the tying of the rings, which are subsequently fixed with an exclusive system that makes them a single body with the barrel to prevent them from loosening over time. To verify this, you just need to try removing one to realize how tenacious it is.
Regarding the blank, it is important to point out that each one is exclusively designed and produced for that type of rod and that relative poundage, thus obtaining optimal performance. Non-manufacturing companies, in order to reduce inventory, usually make cuts from the tip to obtain a different poundage.
Building a fishing rod requires extensive knowledge not only of composite fibers but also of metalworking, gluing, and painting.
Italcanna also directly produces its own self-lubricating rings (patented) with 316 stainless steel pulley and made of a scratch-resistant alloy that is highly resistant to marine corrosion, also characterised by a wide passage of the wire (the photo shows a detail of the assembly).
A value over time
Each of our new products is the result of intense design work and rigorous practical testing that always requires several months of work.
Precisely for this reason we develop each project with the intention of creating something innovative and long-lasting.
We are therefore not interested in creating ephemeral products that last only one season, nor in presenting imperfect products only to be forced to eliminate them the following season.
This is why you can find highly sought-after products developed a few years ago in stores, demonstrating that every Italcanna project is certainly innovative and designed to last over time, acquiring a constant commercial and exchange value.