The Rod ‘O Rama is a fly fishing staple – an afternoon where pretty much every fly rod you own ends up leaning against something in the back yard, lines strung, loops formed, actions evaluated.

A stack of fly rods leaning against the rail - the inevitable result of a Rod 'O Rama

Naturally, a good Rod ‘O Rama involves more than one person, and in extreme circumstances, disagreements over rod action or desirability may be settled with dueling pistols.

Mostly, a simple “you’re a clueless bastard” is enough.

During a really epic Rod ‘O Rama, you can dig out rods you haven’t seen in years (I don’t want to own any rods I haven’t fished in years, but have to admit I do), and – in rare instances – you may unearth fly rods you forgot you owned.

In this case, I found two rods I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen before, though I finally solved the mystery on one.

It was a Raine bamboo rod tube containing a butt and mid, but – puzzlingly – no tips.

It was a model I’d never owned, but realized later he’d grabbed it out of his shop by accident when we went fishing last fall, borrowed my spare rod that day, and then forgot to retrieve the tube from my truck.

I’m wondering what a reasonable ransom looks like.

The Theme of The Day: 6 WTs

A Rod ‘O Rama theme is useful, and in this instance, Older Bro was loooking for a 6wt, which means he got to cast everything from an decades-old Orvis Superfine 6wt to sweet 14 year-old Sage DS – right up to Raine’s saltwater 6wt and the high-tech Orvis Hydros that replaced my much-missed Zero Gravity.

Initially, you try to limit the madness to one type of rod, but eventually the words “if you like that, you’ll love my XXXX” are heard, and suddenly, you’re casting four and five weights too.

Before it’s over, you’ve got everything from a 60 year-old Phillipson to a two-month-old graphite leaning against the rail – every one of which is loaded with some kind of memory.

You find yourself ankle-deep in the snow still covering the yard, false casting a fly rod, adjusting the loop size, and the memory of a rainy day on a lake washes over you.

You may or may not remember how cold and wet you were, but you do remember dropping the rod in the shallow water because you were holding a 17″ rainbow, and that its strawberry lateral line lit up the rainy, monochromatic, steel-grey environment you’d come to accept as normal.

Later, I found myself casting a 7.5′ 5wt Fenwick glass rod – the factory equivalent to my first fly rod, one I built in the mid-70s from a blank.

While the original rod met its end in a Santa Clara garage, the replacement feels similar enough that casting it reminded me of the bluegills and crappie I caught from a muddy, weedy lake better than 30 years ago.

Putting Them Away… Sorta

Ultimately, Older Bro’ found a rod he liked, and since I had a similar rod, sent him home with it.

Yet, when I put all the rod tubes away, I noticed a few – like the Fenwick – ended up a little closer to the front of the pile.

It’s not spring yet – there’s still snow on the ground and the alpine trails are months away from opening – but we’re seeing the signs.

The blue jays who nest under the front eaves came back today, and temperatures could run into the upper 50s all week.

So while I can’t fish the small streams yet (not legally), I can set aside a few rods that haven’t been fished in a while, and imagine creating new memories with them over the coming season.

See you when the streams open, Tom Chandler.

Technorati Tags: bamboo fly rods, fly fishing memories, fly fishing rod, fly rod, fly rod 'o rama, fly rods

The bugs had just started and a few trout were rising, and it was suddenly very clear I’d spent most of my summer fly fishing small streams.

Well, somebody caught something. It just wasn't me...

Fishing a small stream is gratifying, but it’s not the best preparation for throwing #22 emergers at very spooky trout – which tend to stop rising whenever you wade closer than 35′.

In other words, I was rusty.

Rusty enough that I got a little cranky with myself on the water.

That’s a bad thing, because when I’m cranky, I start cataloging my fly fishing failures, and under the impetus of an admittedly self-critical nature, that list can grow very long.

Wrong flies. Out of 6x. Every cast eight inches short. Not sneaky enough. Not piling enough tippet for a good drift. Not focused. Bad karma from prior lifetime.

It can get a little weighty at a moment in your life when a little confidence is a real asset.

The Code

Sometimes, you never do crack the code, and the bugs stop appearing and the fish stop rising, and you stand hip-deep in seriously freezing cold water and wonder why you took up this sport in the first place.

Other times you change one simple thing: tippet, fly, more reach in the cast – and the whole experience resolves itself right in front of your eyes, and the trout do their part by eating the fly.

It’s either the way things are supposed to work, or pure magic.

When that does happen, you tend to forget the first half hour or so; that stretch where some apparently immature fly fisherman would be tempted to imitate his new daughter by stamping his wading boots and whining.

(Thank goodness that doesn’t apply to you or me.)

In this case, I sorta cracked it. Barely.

Well, not really.

I was able to get fish to eat, though before it all came together, I had one actually come up under my bug while aiming for the natural right behind it.

My simply too-big #18 parachute simply slid off his broad back, and I simply stood there wondering at the unfairness of it all.

The answer, of course, is that fairness isn’t a concept often adhered to in nature, and it wasn’t the trout’s fault I was stinking the place up.

The Ugly Reality

Chris Raine – who was ironically fishing my backup rod (an 8.5′ Raine prototype) because he’d grabbed the wrong rod tube on the way out of the shop – landed two nice fish.

Sure, his fish, but MY fly rod. I claim at least half of the trout's 15 inches

Naturally, I claimed ownership of half of both trout, suggesting it was a fool’s tax for grabbing the wrong rod (an obvious symptom of advancing age).

Just as naturally, he replied with a rude gesture.

I fished an 8.5′ Jim Reams hollowbuilt (a rod I love dearly for its smooth nature, but may sell because I’m not nearly caster enough to enjoy the taper when the bugs are on the water and I get impatient and start driving casts).

I had a total of four grabs, one brief hookup, one driven-by-frustration hookset (broke him off), and missed the other two on general principle.

In other words, I kinda sucked, and because I was preoccupied with rising fish, I can’t even save this fishing report with a handful of good pictures.

It was the kind of day that shows you brief flashes of promise, yet reminds you that you’re not nearly as good at this (or most other things) as your daydreams suggest you are.

Or more accurately, I’m not always as good at this as I was on the one day I did it all perfectly – a day which somehow becomes our benchmark for normalcy, which is self-deception raised to a high art.

While I’ll eventually adjust to the demands of the BWO hatch (I’m stocking up on #20 Roy Palm biot-bodied soft hackle emergers), I’ll also embrace the concept of letting the trout win the day without assuming I’ve lost my marbles.

See you on the river, Tom Chandler.

Technorati Tags: bamboo fly rods, fishing, Fly Fishing, fly fishing bamboo fly rods, fly fishing the upper sacramento, upper sacramento river

Local bamboo fly rod builder Chris Raine is holding yet another Great Western Bamboo Rod Makers Gathering, and if your tastes run to bamboo fly rods, smoked ribs and crowds of cranky, badly-in-need-of-fiber bamboo fly rod builders, then you know where you’ll be on October 30, 31.

This, Undergrounders, is your chance to fondle, cast, and fall in love with a bamboo fly rod you can’t possibly afford, and that you do so against the backdrop of the October Caddis hatch should make for a few interesting discussions around the dinner table (but honey, all the other guys are doing it…).

Test casting a bamboo fly rod at a previous Great Western Gathering

In his typically flowery, detailed writing style, Raine gets the details down (Chris, we love ya, but try using an adjective every once in a while):

Save this date:  October 30 and 31.  Friday night at Raine Hollowbuilt Fly Rods.  Saturday morning at the Community Building next to the Ball Field.  Saturday evening at the Lions Club, next door to the Community Building.

Friday evening will be smoked ribs and chicken, along with some beans.

Saturday meals will be on your own.  Coffee and pastries in the AM.

No notice posted yet on Raine’s rod building blog, but expect something soon.

Technorati Tags: bamboo fly rod, bamboo rod, bamboo rod builders, building bamboo fly rods, chris raine, great western bamboo rod gathering, hollowbuilt bamboo fly rodws, hollowbuilt.com

We’re all about “green” here (our name probably should be the “The Extreme Sustainability Underground”), so when somebody comes up with a harebrained use for bamboo (which grows really, really fast), we’re duty bound to report it.

That’s why these bamboo tent poles caught our eye – especially since they’re being aimed at the ultralight backpacking crowd, who – believe me – make fly fishermen look like dilettantes when it comes to gear.

From the Gear Junkie:

The plan is to bank on a bamboo variety called Tonkin cane, which is sometimes dubbed “steel bamboo” for its dense fibers and long sections between nodes. Working with an Alaskan fly rod maker, NEMO’s prototype poles — which I handled and flexed at a recent press meeting — click together like any typical tent pole and whisk into nylon sleeves to support a shelter that might be put to endure hurricane-force winds.

But initial tests at NEMO (www.nemoequipment.com) give bamboo a green light for its strength and performance under pressure. “The benefits of bamboo are that it is lightweight, flexible and highly elastic,” wrote Kate Ketschek, the company’s director of marketing, in an email interview. “Fishermen have been using bamboo for its strength and flexibility for over 100 years and NEMO believes that these benefits will correlate with the essential properties of tent poles.”

Note the use of Tonkin Cane in the tent poles – the same bamboo used to make bamboo fly rods.

Note also the fact that the bamboo pieces are hollowbuilt, though I don’t know if they’ve got dams in them or are hollow from tip to butt.

See you setting up the tent, Tom Chandler

Technorati Tags: bamboo fly rods, bamboo tent poles, gear junkie

My last small-stream fly fishing trip unfolded without a camera, so this, time I’m doubling up on the photographs. (See? The Underground takes care of its readers.)

The catch? I’m too busy to write a lengthy report (like last time I skipped out and ran to Stream X). Instead, I’ll hit the highlights in between the pictures.

Spring Creek? Brown Trout? Dry Flies? Sign me up.

Stream X is a small, alpine spring creek, and it’s the kind of place the enforces a certain intimacy between the fly fisherman and the trout.

It’s nicely populated with wild brown trout (and the odd rainbow & Brookie), but features rough roads and enough mosquitoes to suggest the existence of a vengeful god.

Like all small streams, the trout aren’t particularly selective, but they are damned spooky, and this – simply put – is not the best stream for a novice, but I brought my relatively new-to-fly-fishing brother there anyway (suggesting the existence of a vengeful brother, bent on payback for the emotionally scarring cherry incident of my childhood).

Think sneaky. Sneaky is good.

Unlike my last visit, the stream was running at normal levels, but the weather was eerily similar; it started raining the minute we arrived (after a lot of bouncing around on some auto-unfriendly roads), and alternated rain and sun all day.

It was also colder than I would have guessed, and once again, the Patagonia soft shell jacket proved the perfect jacket for the gig – a good lesson in packing, since I’d almost left it behind (it’s summer after all).

In fact, fingerless gloves wouldn’t have been out of place.

Welcome to the mountains.

Predictably, the early bite was slow. Equally predictably, the early scenery was stunning.

Even when the trout aren't eating, the scenery's working.

The Fishy Stuff

Later – as it warmed a bit – the bite got a little better. In the afternoon, there was even the hint of a small mayfly hatch, and (gasp) rising trout.

Almost everything you catch is a brown trout, which range wildly in coloration. Some are a burnt-butter brown while others feature a lighter, milky yellow color, and still others offer a golden metallic sheen.

Some brown trout look like golden butter - their scales would look perfect on a stack of pancakes.

Some feature slightly washed colors, others offer up bright red dotted flanks that – if found on a painting – would lead a non-fisherman to accuse the artist of artistic license.

"I'm ready for my closeup now."

Is he giving me the fin?

Every once in a while, you also come across a Brook trout (the Official Char of the Trout Underground), and yes, the Underground’s veins fill with naturally produced chemical pleasure at the sight of the Brookie, and I’m not even sure why. Maybe it’s the colors.

Underground Fave Char: the happy pappa shows off his Brookie

Why so many colors? The Brook trout continues to impress.

The Non-Trout Stuff

The first couple hours found us catching one trout each (it picked up later, and we ended up with 10 between us). Which means we had plenty of time to marvel at other things, including a couple close encounters with deer, and even a very low flying eagle.

Then there was the stuff that wouldn’t run away when you found it, including:

My brother identified this as Columbine. It's pretty.

Proof of rain?

He's hairy, and he's cool.

We found one of these- an olive stonefly

The Hard Facts About the Fly Fishing

The fishing itself wasn’t what most would call “technical,” though when you find yourself crawling towards a ten inch fish on your hands and knees – and trying to thread a backcast through a narrow hole behind you – the fishing’s plenty technical enough.

These aren’t world-weary tailwater trout, habituated to the presence of humans or sophisticated flies.

Instead, these are trout as god intended – hungry, aggressive, but wholly intolerant of a sloppy, lazy predator. Trout darting to safety from under your feet is a common sight, yet despite a fair number of fly changes, I settled on a simple Beetle Bug attractor for most of the day.

This time, I also toted along a rod nicely suited to the fish and the waters – an 8′ 5wt Phillipson Peerless bamboo fly rod.

Underground Fave: The reddish-brown impregnated Phillipsons look stunning against spring green.

It’s a rod that gets fished, and fished hard (as Bill Phillipson intended), and yes, I think little’s harder on a fly rod than a wet, brush & tree-choked environment

Somebody out there is wincing, but this remained after I released a nice brown.

The fishing was slow at first, then gradually built over the day to the point where about half the really good looking spots seemed to hold a trout.

Nicely illustrating the concept of good and evil, the mosquitoes also built as the day progressed, and while I didn’t do for the garment what the Buff Babe did, I wore a Buff like a balaclava, protecting my neck and cheeks from the evil, bloodsucking Nestle bugs mosquitoes.

I may be back later this week.

Hint: There's a decent brown trout in the middle.

See you on a small stream, Tom Chandler.

Technorati Tags: bamboo fly rod, brook trout, brown trout, fishing, Fly Fishing, fly fishing small streams, fly fishing spring creeks, phillipson fly rod

Hardcore John Gierach fans will remember his “Lost Rod” essay from Another Lousy Day in Paradise, where Gierach discovers a package containing a bamboo fly rod built by uber-builder George Maurer arrived sans the rod itself. From Gierach’s essay:

“It took a few seconds to sink in, but, sure enough, one end of the tube had been opened neatly with a sharp knife and there was nothing inside. It wasn’t a mistake and it wasn’t a joke. Maurer’s sense of humor is a little odd, but he wouldn’t do something like that.”

Later in his essay, Gierach says:

“I had thing for this rod because it had spoken to me, and because the one that had been in the now-empty shipping tube was serial number 001 of a model George calls the Trout Bum, an allusion to some old fishing book.

“So I stood on the porch, looking down into the empty tube, and after those few initial moments of disbelief, my first rational thought was, this was bound to happen.”

It’s a typically engrossing Gierach essay, and having worked with George Maurer on his rod-building Web site, I discovered exactly what Gierach meant about Maurer’s sense of humor.

A pair of George Maurer bamboo fly rods

Still, I admit to being surprised when I received an email from a man who said he had Gierach’s lost Maurer fly rod in his possession, and that he intended to auction it off to support Intermountain – a Montana children’s charity.

From his email:

A friend bought a container full of lost items from UPS and it was in there (at least 15 years ago). This friend gave the rod to his son after he learned to fly fish, but the son died in a car accident before he ever used it. The father gave it to a mutual friend – the man who taught the boy how to fly fish.

After some research, the new owner contacted Gierach to give him his famous rod, but Gierach said my friend should keep it since his friend technically paid for it.

My friend even has a letter signed by Gierach stating that he is, indeed, the rightful owner. The serial number is 001, and it’s still never been used. My friend has given it to me, or more appropriately to the charity I work for. He wants us to auction it off, with all of the proceeds going toward saving abused and neglected children.

I live in Western Montana, among some of the greatest trout streams in the World, and the current owner is the consummate fly fisherman, who also lives in this area. He already has a semi-parabolic bamboo rod that he loves, so he has no use for this rod other than for stories, which will no doubt be enhanced when he is able to add that the rod he once owned literally saved the lives of children.

Full disclosure: I haven’t seen a photograph of the rod or any evidence of the letter mentioned above, but the whole story seems plausible enough to be the real thing. I’ll continue checking as I have the opportunity.

Still, has Gierach’s lost fly rod been found? And is it about to come to market a year after Underground Fave builder George Maurer’s unexpected death?

George Maurer inspecting bamboo in China

Perhaps. And yes, I’m tempted to cast this story in terms of one of fly fishing’s most-interesting literary mysteries – involving a famous writer and one of its most-famous bamboo rod builders – finally being put to rest.

And one wonders what price the rod might bring at auction. Any guesses from the Undergrounders?

More as it happens from the Trout Underground’s Breaking Bamboo-Related News Division.

Technorati Tags: bamboo fly rod, fly rod, george maurer, john gierach, trout bum

At the Underground, we positively live for those moments when a small, local newspaper paper butchers a fly fishing related story.

Over the years, we’ve been subjected to countless “The First Time I Went Fly Fishing” stories at the hands of writers who clearly shouldn’t have gone (they can’t all be Freemans, sadly), but our favorite – nay, the very cherry on top of the reportage sundae – is the story about a local bamboo fly rod builder.

The Oregon Statesman Journal sent a reporter to interview bamboo rod builder Daryll Whitehead, who didn’t survive even the first line before being unfortunately described as the “Michelangelo of bamboo fly rods.“

Ouch.

The story doesn’t progress beyond the third sentence before we’re staggered by the Second Wince-Inducing Editorial Moment: The Dreaded Fly “Pole” Syndrome:

From a small home-based shop in west Stayton, Whitehead crafts some of
the most sought-after fishing poles in the world. His D.L. Whitehead
poles are sold on most continents and can fetch nearly $4,000 for a
used one.

Throughout the article, the writer goes on to use the “p***” word 11 times (fly fishing decency standards forbid me from printing the word again), perhaps a new editorial record.

The Underground sends our condolences to Mr. Whitehead – along with our hopes for a speedy recovery.

fly rod, bamboo fly rod, daryll whitehead, fly fishing, bamboo

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Because I played hookey and went fly fishing, I’m behind in my vowel and consonant quota. A full report after I catch up, but for now, here’s an image of the day’s basic building blocks:

Rainy day dry fly fishing on a sweet bamboo fly rod.

Technorati Tags: bamboo fly rod, dry fly, fishing, Fly Fishing

While the mortgage and (now) looming credit crisis is driving most slackers Undergrounders to the edge of the bankruptcy abyss, it seems sales of bamboo fly rods remain strong – at least for top builders.

Bamboo fly rods seem to be defying the economy.

The Boston Globe published a story about Per Branden where the writer – who was clearly not familiar with fly fishing at all – noted Branden no longer accepts orders for his hollowbuilt bamboo fly rods.

My favorite interview moment? When the interviewer repeatedly refers to Branden’s “bamboo fly poles.” (Where’s the super slo-mo of Branden’s face when you really need it?)

Also on the “not accepting orders list” is Colorado’s Mike Clark (the oft-mentioned builder in Gierach’s essays), who has frozen his list at five years, and though he’s still building, he wants to clear away some of the orders before taking more.

Wondering if I was seeing a trend, or merely a statistical fluke, I started calling some builders.

Hollowbuilding maestro James Reams (his rod profiled on the Underground here) – suggested he’s also turning over the idea of a freeze on rod orders (though his waiting list is at three years and for now, he’s still taking orders).

Even one-time Reams protege and hollowbuilder Chris Raine is only beginning to dig out from under a pile of rod orders which backed up when he suffered a few health issues.

“People are calling and asking about hollowbuilt bamboo fly rods because they’re traditional bamboo rods, but they cast and fish better” said Raine.

Rodbuilding legend AJ Thramer has also not seen a dip in orders: “Everything I build, I sell, so I’ve stopped worrying about the order book. Literally as fast as I can make them, they’re gone. The dealers keep saying “I need more, I need more.”

Interestingly, the fraction of AJ’s orders for his more-expensive hollowbuilt rods continues to climb – he now estimates that as many as 70% of his rod orders are hollowbuilts.

He’s also received requests for a higher-end Thramer rod: “I think it’s mostly collectors” he said.

Arizona bamboo rod builder Mike Shays has seen a recent upsurge in rod orders, and said “I really do think people are looking for high-end rods. I think people are afraid of buying cheap rods.”

Shay’s waiting list is also about three years.

Sure, the statistical sample is small, but the evidence seems clear; bamboo rods – at least those from top builders – are looking pretty recession proof.

Sure, the long-term sales cycle might be helping in this case, but if anything, the rodmakers report receiving more orders this year than last.

Still, lest you think these guys are raking in oil-company level profits, do the math in your head, and you’ll see it’s possible to make a living, but almost no one’s getting rich building bamboo fly rods.

Thramer summed it up beautifully when he said “Rod building is an honest poverty – hopefully you leave behind a trail of smiling people.”

I’m traveling to the Fly Fishing Retailer show in Denver next week; anyone want to take odds I hear a different story from most of the non bamboo-related fly fishing industry?

See you cutting bamboo stalks, Tom Chandler.

fly rod, bamboo fly rod, per branden, aj thramer, james ream, chris raine, mike shays, mike clark

Technorati Tags: aj thramer, bamboo fly rod, chris raine, fly rod, james ream, mike clark, mike shays, per branden

Here at the All Things Bamboo Trout Underground fly fishing blog, we support mainstream, traditional fly fishing values – like making up flattering stories about your fly fishing prowess after you return home.

And we’ve found just the thing to do it with: The Bamboo Tornado 51:

At $40, it’s a hell of a lot cheaper than a bamboo fly rod (and doesn’t use those sticky ferrule thingees).

Plus, a bamboo fly rod only makes you cool in the eyes of other bamboo fly rod users.

This little baby will help you write the outright lies ever-so-slight fabrications that will elevate you to true Master of the Craft (if not Internet Fly Fishing Expert).

After all, a bamboo fly rod’s only useful if you can cast. If you can write (and who can’t), you can be the bestest fly fisherman ever.

See you making shit up writing, Tom Chandler.

bamboo fly rod, bamboo pen, fly fishing, fishing lies

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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.

Technorati Tags: bamboo fly rod, fly rod, mike shay

The Upper Sacramento’s flows are yo-yoing up and down, and we’ve entered the stage of winter where uncertainty turns fly fishing into a local’s game.

The flows ran well over 6,000 cfs after last weekend’s warm storm, and while they’re down below 3,000 cfs, we’ve still got a lot of low-altitude snow just itching to melt.

Morning hoarfrost on my porch railing

When the low-level snow melts — the majority of the flows enter the river via the tributaries — you can still find decent fishing by running way upriver, or by searching out those few fishable-at-high-flows nooks even friends don’t tell each other about.

Later in the year — as the higher altitude snow starts to melt and Lake Siskiyou begins to spill over the dam — the real runoff event begins, and because that’s flowing from the top of the river, your fly fishing options are deeply reduced.

The difference between the two runoff events isn’t always clear, though I recall the big runoff event always seemed to start two days before the season opened in late April.

That may not be strictly factual, but I am willing to say it always seemed that way.

Life was hard in the old days.

The Dunsmuir Visit

I got a good look at the river while I was in Dunsmuir working on the Trout Underground’s Ancestral Home (back on the market, kids). Frankly, it looked high, but in pretty good shape.

Because I’d rather be casting a bamboo fly rod than working, I also stopped by Chris Raine’s rod shop where — with his hip issues largely behind him — he’s got a dozen bamboo fly rod blanks in the works.

One of those rods was his prototype 8.5′ hollowbuilt quad, derived from one of his best-selling tapers — his 8′ 5wt Upper Sac Special.

I wasn’t expecting much; the Upper Sac Special is a hex (a six sided rod), and his new 8.5′ is a quad, and the hex/quad and 8′-8.5′ conversions are hardly straightforward.

Still, the prototype was pretty damned close. I think the 8.5′ prototype was best as a 6wt and maybe the upper half could go a hair thinner, but most astonishing was the lack of weight in the hand.

You don’t buy hollowbuilt bamboo rods because they’re lighter (they usually are, but it’s about the casting action), but the prototype was very, very light in the hand, especially for a rod that threw a DT6 a good 65 feet without any histrionics.

The fly line just kept unrolling, and the only real barrier to this being the cosmic 8.5′ 6wt was the close-up casting. I think he’ll get it right.

No, the taper’s not quite ready for prime time, but the next one will be, and my mission at that point will be to distract Raine (“look, over there — away from this just finished rod“) and steal the thing.

It’s not foolproof, but it’s a plan. Man’s got to have a plan.

My other plan is to get the hell out of the house and do something later this week. I don’t know if it will involve trout or skis (or both), but you’ll likely hear about it here.

See you on the river, Tom Chandler.

Technorati Tags: fly fishing,bamboo fly rod,fly rod,fishing,upper sac,upper sacramento river

Technorati Tags: bamboo fly rod, fishing, Fly Fishing, fly rod, upper sac, upper sacramento river

We’ve heading into the deeper reaches of winter when life can start to feel a little like an Ingmar Bergman movie, and it doesn’t help when the phone rings and you find out friend and bamboo rod builder George Maurer just passed away due to a heart attack.

George was a top rod builder, and more importantly, he was a hell of a guy who ended up teaching more bamboo rod building classes than any builder alive.

A whole generation of contemporary rod builders owe a lot to George, and I will miss him.

One can only hope George is finally fishing with his good friend Harry Middleton on a stream where the wind blows small, and the trout run big.

Godspeed, George. I’ll tip one to you next time I’m on the river.

Technorati Tags: george maurer, sweetwater bamboo fly rods, sweetwater rods

Per Brandin builds some of fly fishing’s most sought-after bamboo fly rods, and he’s developed a reputation as the industry’s “professor” when it comes to hollowbuilding and rod tapers.

His hollowbuilt quads are exceptional casters, and in fact, his tournament series hollowbuilts have placed and won the accuracy division of several casting contests, shaming high-tech graphite in the process.

Despite his CEO-only prices, his waiting list has extended to so many years that he’s no longer taking orders for new rods. From his Web site:

Please note that as of October 2007 I am no longer accepting new rod orders. As of this writing (late October, 2007), I will no longer be accepting new rod orders. It is still my intent to fulfill the orders that are already on my list; I will contact you as in the past and confirm the order and current price before starting work.

In looking at the number of orders I have in my book, my limited output each year and my age, I decided it is not ethical for me to take on orders that I can’t realistically expect to fill.

That, my Underground friends, is a good example of demand outstripping supply to the tune of many, many years. I’ve even heard hollowbuilt bamboo fly rod builder Jim Reams — whose waiting list has exploded into the multi-year range — muttering about not accepting any new orders, which paradoxically increases demand even more.

Think bamboo fly rods are dead and buried? Not by a long shot…

See you in line, Tom Chandler.

Part II (Read Part I here)

James Beasley is gaining a national reputation for his wonderful bamboo fly rods, which he builds in the heart of Tennessee. (Originally written for the apparently defunct Art of Angling Magazine [who didn’t return my slides], this is Part Two in a two-part series)

 
James Beasley, pre-embargo cane, and notebooks from the Uslan Rod Company.

For some bamboo fly rod builders, unmet demand for their rods would be a good thing, but for James Beasley — who professed that building the same rod over and over was “very tedious” — it’s something of a curse.

Beasley – a bamboo fly rod builder in the classic mold — prefers to experiment with classic tapers, subtly altering them, preserving the best qualities of the original taper yet creating a rod better suited to modern fishermen.

I previously mentioned his much-in-demand Perfectionist and Midge tapers, but another example is his Leonard 50 DF Tournament taper — a butter-smooth, full-working 8′ 5wt with a bit more reserve power than the original.

It’s Beasley’s personal favorite rod — so loved by his customers that he rarely had one available for his own use.

As soon as he’d build a 50DF for himself, a customer would arrive, cast the thing, and beg him for the rod. Beasley would relent, sell it, and once again find himself fishing the experiments that didn’t work — until he’d get another 50DF built, when the cycle would begin anew.

Eventually, he took the extreme step of wrapping his personal 50DF in what he described as “a truly horrible thread color – just awful stuff,” and while the resulting “ugly rod” enchanted visitors with its action, the wraps “encouraged” enthusiastic buyers to wait for him to build a less-cosmetically challenged version.

If it’s one thing I like about rod builders, it’s that they’re resourceful.

Favorite Tapers

His other top sellers include a highly castable, medium-action version of the legendary Dickerson 8013, an unusual 7.5′ 6wt five-sided rod, and a handful of short Payne tapers designed to fish the nearby Tennessee and North Carolina Brookie streams.

Despite their lack of commercial appeal, he’s also dabbled in a handful of longer, more-powerful tapers. One is an 8.5′ 5wt – adapted beautifully from an original Orvis taper from the wonderful just-postwar 3-pc taper – which might just be one of the finest big water rods currently built.

The other is a strong 8.5′ 7wt based on a Payne Canadian Canoe taper. It’s a rod with enough backbone to handle summer-run steelhead yet still fishes beautifully for trout (I know because I own one), but because the bamboo rod market lies squarely with short, light rods, neither rod is likely to generate much in the way of sales.

The Beasley Canoe rod — a rare “blond” Beasley rod glued with resorcinol. (See the purple glue lines?)

When asked why he’d bother to adapt and refine tapers with little commercial appeal, his answer is simple: “I just like it. The first time I build a new taper, it seems like it doesn’t take any time at all. After that, it can get a little tedious.”

The Uslan Fly Rod Connection

Beasley’s rod shop is nestled in the woods behind his house, and it’s filled with a lot of carefully tended, well-used machines. Surveying them, Beasley jokes that “Many of the tools in my shop are antiques – just like me.”

One machine stands out from all the others; a wicked-looking assemblage that runs the length of the shop. It’s a rod-making mill from the old Uslan Rod Company, which produced bamboo fly rods in the 40s and 50s.

Uslan gained notoriety for their five-sided (pentagonal) bamboo rods, but like most high-volume bamboo companies, the Uslan Rod Company didn’t survive the advent of fiberglass rods or the cane embargo, and the mill, leftover cane and other equipment eventually found its way to Florida, where Beasley purchased it.

“It’s taken me two years to get the mill figured out” said Beasley, standing next to the huge machine and tapping it with his finger as he spoke. “It came without any instructions, so I had to discover what everything did – and what needed fixing.”

Beasley and the business end of the Uslan Rod Mill — which took two years to refurbish.

Beasley’s plan is clear; use the big commercial mill to reduce the amount of time-consuming hand-planing to just a few final passes on each strip. This preserves the hand-planed quality of his rods, but speeds production, freeing up time to experiment with new tapers.

It’s tempting to make a crack about Beasley being a mad rod scientist trapped in the body of a production rod builder, but the truth – minus the bad humor – is probably in the neighborhood of that statement.

In a bamboo fly rod market where even builders with little experience sometimes charge in excess of $1500, I wondered aloud why he doesn’t simply hike prices beyond his bargain $995 level, reduce production, and play more. After all, he’s retired, and rod building isn’t what keeps the groceries in the fridge.

To that suggestion, Beasley has a typically dry, self-effacing answer, wrapped in a big grin.

“I guess when you’re lovable but humble, you’ll never charge enough for your rods.”

(Read Part I here)