I’ll stay with bamboo…
. . . “The subtle finesse that will put a No. 18 dry fly on a quarter at forty feet. The rod is all right, I suppose. It’s got power, but power alone won’t catch trout. I’ll stay with bamboo. It has grace, a soothing touch . . .
The old men collected fly rods the way small boys collect marbles or baseball cards. Emerson had ten rods. He looked after them as though they were his children. Even cleaning them in the evening boosted his spirits. He and Albert never considered bamboo rods as things. No, they were the inanimate creeping toward life, wands as full of excitement, chance, fortune and agony as the natural world.”
-Harry Middleton, The Earth is Enough
Of brothers and fishing and bamboo…
“. . . Then from out of nowhere, my brother said, “Tell about the time you broke the tip on my new bamboo fly rod.”
-Howell Raines, Fly Fishing Through Midlife Crisis
Hope his brother likes the Headwaters rod he purchased to replace the broken rod . . .
Fishing Presidents
“The political potency of fish is known to Presidents as well as candidates. In modern times all Presidents quickly begin to fish soon after election . . . President Theodore Roosevelt, President Cleveland and myself–with slight egotism!–I think, are the only Presidents who had been lifelong fly fishermen before they went to the White House.”
-Herbert Hoover, Fishing for Fun
Just a Stick
“No matter how much attention and ornamentation we may lavish on it, a fly rod after all is just a stick.”
-Paul Schullery, Royal Coachman
Oh well, it each his own.
Spinoza the Rod Maker
“I’m talking about Spinoza the rod maker. He’s been dead seven years. Of course, the business is in charge. As a matter of fact, they still put out the best rods on the market, but the rods made by the old man himself have something–well, it’s hard to explain. They’re just different. You simply know, when you get one in your hand, that you’ve got hold of the sweetest thing that ever shot a line.”
-John Taintor Foote, Fatal Gesture
It All Started with Carpets
Sometime around the turn of the 20th century, dry fly fishing became popular and the need for a rod with backbone presented itself. The bamboo of the day, known as Calcutta from India, just didn’t have the necessary stiffness.
Enter Charles H. Demerest, an importer of bamboo, rattans, ginger, and other exotic products from the east. He also imported a raw bamboo pole, thicker walled than Calcutta, and light colored and unmarked by the burns characteristic in Calcutta. These poles were used as carpet poles. And such became the material of choice for stiffer and stronger bamboo rods–the ideal for the new dry fly angler.
Of Bamboo
Tree-grass–unique in the plant kingdom
Symbol of uprightness, chivalry and devotion
Inspiration of poets, artists and philosophers
Writing material of the ancients;
the stylus of contemporaries
Food, shelter and clothing of the people
Industrial substance of a thousand uses
Redeemer of waste places–protector of the soil
-Floyd Alonzo McClure in “The Bamboos: A Fresh Perspective” published in 1977
It was in 1925 that Floyd McClure made a field trip into the heart of “Tonkin” cane country and cataloged its true provenience and later gave it it’s scientific name, Arundinaria amabilis, the lovely reed.
From “the Suite”
“Now I knew. I knew “production rod” was a mild insult in the world of bamboo rods. It was like owning a Ford or Chevrolet in the company of people who drove Jaguars.”
-Frank Soos, Bamboo Fly Rod Suite
Ford or Chevrolet don’t mean very much today, but having a bamboo rod that you feel like fishing is something worthwhile. We hope you take the opportunity to just try bamboo. It’s something you just shouldn’t miss out on.
The 1950s Heddon Model 1000
In the mid-1950s, the Heddon Model 1000 was a gem of a production rod. With gold plated guides and beautiful walnut reelseat spacer, the 1000 could be had for $100. According to John Gierach, about a month’s pay for the average fly fisherman of the day.
Waitsap muk, Kwongning chuk…
Might sound Greek to most of us, but you’d have to be either an expert in early 20th century Cantonese or a bamboo fly rod nut to know that this is Cantonese for “for wood, Waisap, for bamboo, Kwongning.” This little jingle lead a young botanist from the US Department of Agriculture, Floyd McClure, to a place up the Sui river to find a grove of what the growers called “Tea Stick Bamboo”–the Angler’s Bamboo. He ended up calling it Arundinaria amabilis, “the Lovely Bamboo.”
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"...nothing synthetic rivals the natural look and feel of a rod made from fine Tonkin cane..."
