Why on Earth Would You Want to go to All That Trouble?

Remember the first trout you caught on a fly that you tied? It was a pretty good feeling, right? It's even more satisfying to catch that first trout on a rod you made. I know it was for me, anyway. It didn't matter that the trout was four inches long. I remember it better than any four pound fish I've caught.

Maybe the thing I remember most was that it was winter. February in Colorado can be cold, and it was on this day. This was the kind of day that makes your fingers hurt. This was the kind of day where the pale sunlight wasn’t much help. But it didn't matter. I was standing on the bank of the river with the first bamboo fly rod that I made. It was so shiny and new, you could still smell the varnish. Red silk thread wraps covered light blonde cane. It was a beautiful six foot three inch Paul Young taper with a fat little cork grip. The rod couldn't have been more than two days old. I put the “good” tip on. The other tip, the first one, didn’t turn out so well. It was usable, but the six splines used to construct it were inconsistent due to my inexperience with the block plane. By the time I made the second tip, I pretty much had it figured out. I’d thrown a line with rod a few times in the back yard. The action was light and crisp, yet surprisingly powerful. It’s the kind of feeling I came to realize is unique to a bamboo fly rod. I was happy and relieved. All of the work had paid off.

I stumbled along the bank until I found a decent spot to fish. “Decent” is a relative term since the river was mostly frozen and the flow was very low. I managed to get into the water. I figured it was safer than sliding felt on the ice. Just then, I noticed some movement in the shallow water about fifty feet upstream. I waded across the liquid portion of the river and made a cast. The little blue-winged-olive dry fly landed lightly on the water about a foot downstream from the rise. I realized I had misjudged the distance. Maybe it was because I was still using the same beat-up old leader that was on the reel from last fall. It was shorter than it should have been.

I was about to lift the rod to cast out just a bit more when the fish took the fly. I set the hook. The fly line, the fly and the poor little four inch rainbow trout flew out of the water and slid across the ice in front of me. It happened, sort of, in slow motion. I picked him up, apologized for my enthusiasm, and tossed him in the river.

After the release, I stood up, looked around, and the world came back to me. I remembered that my fingers were frozen; I remembered that I had to go to work the next day, and I remembered that I was holding a bamboo fly rod. How could I forget that? That was the reason I was there in the first place. Since then I’ve learned that a good bamboo fly rod will make you forget that you’re casting a fly rod at all. The good ones I call "thinkers". All you have to do is think about where you want the fly, and through some bamboo magic, the fly just appears there.

Starting the process of making a fly rod out of bamboo can be slow and frustrating, but for the few that get it right, the payoff is wonderful. If you do get it right, you'll garner respect and unsolicited inquiries from your fishing buddies and people you meet on the river or at the local fly shop. And, of course, you'll have a fly casting tool of unmatched grace.

But that's not why I started. All of that stuff comes later. I started because of the folklore associated with bamboo fly rods. I read stories about the "old dead guys": Leonard, Payne, Young and the boys. I wanted to cast the rods I read about. I couldn't afford to buy any of those rods, and I didn't know anyone at that time that owned any. So I decided the next best thing would be to build my own. For the cost of an average new bamboo fly rod, I estimated I could buy the tools and supplies necessary to build one. I was right. Sort of.

A bit of a vocabulary lesson is in order. I tend to use the words "bamboo" and "cane" interchangeably. Sometimes one word sounds better than another. For instance, "Tonkin cane" sounds better than "Tonkin bamboo", while "bamboo fly rod" sounds better than "cane fly rod".

"Building", or "assembling" a rod means taking a pre-made blank (be it bamboo, graphite, greenheart, boron, glass, etc.) and gluing parts to it. I know I slip up on this occasionally; sorry. So, for example, you're only building a graphite rod if you weren't the one to roll the fabric on the mandrel and bake it.

A rod "maker" works at a deeper level. Starting with the raw materials, the rod maker will construct every aspect of the fly rod. This happens to varying degrees, however, depending on what the definition of "every aspect" is. For example, I don't make my own snake guides, but some rod makers do. I do make my own handles out of cork rings, but I don't fly over to Portugal to harvest the sheets of cork. Regardless, the rod maker is the only one who can craft a truly custom fly rod. The blank--the interesting stuff--is the primary focus of the rod maker.

Honestly, I believe I'm a better rod maker than builder. There are plenty of rod builders out there who have elevated their craft to an art form. I don't state that lightly. A few people have said that they like my work. I try not to let that go to my head, so I never stop pushing myself to improve. I just like to make fly rods. It's part of the experience.