Saturday's portion of the Bamboo Rod Gathering in Dunsmuir was conducted under sunny, perfect weather. Over 50 builders and fanatics made the trip, and if you ever wanted to cast a lot of bamboo rods, this was your chance.


Most unusual rod was the solid greenheart (wood) rod built by Larry Tusoni of High Sierra rods.

The second Dunsmuir Edition of the Great Western Bamboo Rod Gathering was a success by most any measure. I showed up late Saturday morning and found better than 50 people talking rod building, test-casting rods, and just generally being bamboo rod geeks.

There were a lot of truly interesting rods to cast, including a solid wood rod built by Larry Tusoni of High Sierra Rods. It was on the heavy side, but cast far better than I expected.

A real looker too.

The other rods ranged from a slower one-piece quad that would easily throw a 7wt line past 70 feet to some willowy 2wts.

I got to cast some extremely nice hollowbuilt rods, and also saw more bamboo ferruled beauties than last year.

In truth, there were too many rods to cast, and they tended to blend together after the first dozen rods.

The shorthand that worked earlier in the day (did you cast that fast 8' 5wt?) broke down completely in the blur of varnished grass, and more than once I found myself casting the same rod twice, recognizing the feel better than the cosmetics.


The casting ponds in Dunsmuir. Bamboo by the truckload.

The Gathering runs through today, where the assembled builders are going to create a rod in a day before donating it to the Casting for Recovery folks for auction.

I was planning to witness that part of the show, but...

Wally the Wonderdog Tries to Fly. Can't.
Those who've met Wally the Wonderdog know of his considerable "zest" for life. I could attach a lot of other adjectives to it, but "zest" is safe.

No sooner had I returned home from the Gathering on Saturday than I received a phone call from the LT Nancy.

She and a friend had hiked to the summit of Mt. Eddy (a relatively safe undertaking), and Wally the Wonderdog - not content to enjoy the view - bounded over to a steep ice field to "play" in the snow.

What happens next is the stuff of a movie.

The Wonderdog hit the ice and rocketed straight down for several hundred feet, gathering speed the whole way. Unfortunately, at the bottom of the ice field lay a steep rockfield, which he hit at full speed, sending him on a cartwheeling, pinwheeling ride over 600+ vertical feet of very sharp, very hard rocks.

Michelle - an experienced mountaineer and backcountry skier - said simply that "it was the gnarliest thing I'd ever seen."

She estimated he bounced and cartwheeled in the neighborhood of two dozen times, and that the total distance of the fall was in the 800'-1,000' range.

"It was like it went on forever."
I can't imagine what it felt like to see that, but after a lengthy traverse to the bottom of the rock field, both Michelle and Nancy expected to find a dead doggie.

What they found was a battered, stunned Wonderdog staring at them.

This launched a rescue effort where Michelle - who weighs 120 pounds if you turned a fire hose on her - and Nancy resourcefully jury rigged a small daypack.

Michelle then carried the 80-pound Wonderdog back up the ohmigod-steep rocky slope (if you're handy with numbers, that's 2/3 of her body weight) while Nancy steadied him.

I'm impressed.
On flatter ground, he was able to walk (limp, actually) down the trail towards the truck, but by the time I saw him at home, he was a battered puppy.

Bleeding from a bunch of wounds, his nose, and his mouth, he'd had a tooth ripped out and the right side of his face was swollen up so bad his eye was closed. The rest of his body was in similar shape.

The battered Wonderdog at the clinic.

Fearing internal injuries, we shot down to the emergency clinic in Redding (obeying all speed limits of course) where they shot him full of happy juice, stole his soul with a couple of x-rays, and pronounced him beat all to hell but - amazingly - unbroken.

I don't know how many lives a dog gets (cats get nine), but for the Wonderdog - who was rescued from the pound the day before being put down - this is clearly Number Two.

We pick him up today, though with a doggie morphine skin patch on him (hey, can I get one of those?) and a truckload of anti-inflammatories, I expect a pretty calm day.

See you on the casting ponds at the doggie hospital, Tom Chandler.

wally the wonderdog, fall, mountain, bamboo fly rod, bamboo rod, greenheart, Great Western Rod Gathering, casting, fly fishing