Regular Underground poster (if any Undergrounder could be called “regular”) and bamboo rod builder Mike Shay just announced the birth of a bouncing baby Web site dedicated to the bamboo fly rods he builds and sells.
Since he’s seen fit to post largely frightening thoughtful comments here, we thought we’d give his Web site a plug – including revealing the secret link to the “Bamboo Orphanarium.”
It’s a hangout for bamboo rod geeks of the highest order (not that there’s anything wrong with that).
Is Shay a bamboo addict in addition to being a builder? You decide:
Then one day while fishing a small stream north of Los Angeles, swatting the damn black flies feasting on my blood and leaving welts that last for weeks, I cast a friend’s bamboo rod.
Suddenly…fly fishing, fly casting, made sense! I found my missing piece of the puzzle. The softness, the power, the miraculous ability to land a fly where I actually wanted it to land was…mind expanding! The heavens opened and the meaning of life was revealed!
Poor Shay laments the fact that he has few photographs of the rods he builds, which immediately aroused the humanitarian side of the Underground: build and send me a couple, Mike, and I’ll see to it they get fished to within an inch of their lives photographed in several highly scenic locations.
On the Underground, the giving never stops. Never.
See you waving cane, Tom Chandler.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for the post! I’ve been fly fishing since I was a little kid and I’ve never used a bamboo rod. I’ve thought about it a lot, but I’ve never been able to afford it! However, the older I get, the more tempting it becomes. Maybe if I just buy one and THEN tell my wife about it, it’ll work out!
Tom
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Tom: Those words peg you as a Man On The Edge of a Major-League Cane Habit.
“Just one” the addicts say – right before they start saying “just one more.
Good luck (you’ll need it)!
TC
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Tom,
Just because your demographic is starting to skew older doesn’t mean that they aren’t “regular”. If they were, wouldn’t we be getting the All Bran ads or at least more ads for Slaw Dogs.
Mudd
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If only I could score a highly lucrative bran muffin account…
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