Our Story
Our Headwaters Story
Headwaters Bamboo | Founded 2002
I grew up in Oregon. Spent the better part of my life there — raised my children there, fished its rivers for decades. If you know the state the way I do, you know that water is never far from anything that matters.
The name Headwaters came from the Metolius. If you haven't stood at the source, it's worth making the trip. The river doesn't begin the way most rivers do — no visible watershed, no trickle becoming a stream. It simply emerges, full and cold and purposeful, from the base of Black Butte. A spring that seems to come from nothing. That image stayed with me. Something essential rising from the ground already fully formed.
That's what I wanted Headwaters Bamboo to be. Not a new idea, but a return to something essential. The great classic tapers — Dickerson, Payne, Paul H. Young, Granger, Phillipson — already existed. The craftsmanship tradition already existed. The only thing missing was a way to bring them to anglers who couldn't spend four thousand dollars or wait two years.
I started Headwaters in 2002 to solve that problem. Twenty-four years later, we're still solving it.
The tapers are the reason.
Every Headwaters rod is built to original taper specifications. Not inspired by. Not adapted from. Built to.
The action you feel in a Headwaters Beaverhead is the action E.F. Payne designed into the 98 taper. The authority you feel in a Headwaters Deschutes is what Lyle Dickerson built into the 8014. These men spent their lifetimes refining their designs on real water, with real fish, in conditions that demanded performance. The tapers they left behind are among the finest achievements in the history of the sport.
We don't change them. We honor them.
Where the rods are built.
In 2009 I traveled to the Sui River valley in southern China with one of my suppliers. I walked the hillsides where the Tonkin cane grows, watched the harvesting crews work through the culms, and followed the process through drying and straightening. I visited the workshops where bamboo is processed — rudimentary by modern standards, skilled by any standard that matters. It was a place where the material was still understood the way it always has been, by hand and by eye.
Tonkin cane — Arundinaria amabilis — grows in one place on earth with the density and fiber structure required for a truly exceptional fly rod blank. That valley is it. Building at the source means direct access to the finest raw material, hand-selected culm by culm for node spacing, straightness, and consistency. I've seen that selection process firsthand. It's not a marketing claim. It's a practice.
We have worked with the same artisan workshops for over two decades. That relationship is the foundation of everything — consistent quality, exacting standards, and a price point that makes these rods accessible rather than aspirational. No dealers, no middlemen, no retail markup. The rod goes from the workshop to our Utah-based warehouse to your hands. That's how Maker's Price works.
Proven on the water.
Since 2002 we have put thousands of rods into the hands of anglers across the country and around the world. Seasoned bamboo devotees and first-time cane fishermen. Anglers chasing wild trout on backcountry creeks and steelhead on big Western rivers. Every one of them fishing a rod built on a taper that was proven long before either of us was born.
Our commitment to you.
- 30-day trial. Fish it anywhere. If it isn't the rod you hoped for, send it back for a full refund. We cover return shipping.
- Lifetime warranty. For the original owner, on any workmanship issue, for as long as you fish it.
- Ships fast. Most rods ship same or next day.
- Free returns. No questions asked.
Built with care. Fished with pride. Passed down with stories.