Fine bamboo rods are rooted in angling tradition. Names such as Leonard, Payne, Edwards, Thomas, Garrison, Gillum and Dickerson are just a few of the “classic” bamboo rod makers of years past.

Today there are only a few companies offering fine bamboo rods and their costs are high. Their rods run from $1,395 up to $3,500.

However, it is basement rod makers or small companies of one or two craftsmen who are suppling the majority of bamboo rods to the public. For the most part, their prices run from $750 to about $1,500, although you can pay much more if you want. Their lower prices reflect less investment in overhead compared to the big companies, not necessarily a reduction in quality.

Some have two or three year waiting lists, because a production of 50 rods a year would be very high. Most make in the vicinity of 10 to 20 rods each year. So just how are these rods made?

Well, there are something like 700 individual steps in completing a bamboo rod. I’ll gloss over much of the detail of the process in the interest of brevity.

The making begins with a culm (pole) of bamboo grown on a small hillside in China. The pole is 12 feet long. The butt section of the rod is made from the bottom six feet of culm and the two tips from the top six feet.

Each pole is split into 24 pieces of 1/4 to 5/16 inches in width. Six pieces are selected for the butt section and 12 for the two tips.

Six strips are placed on the workbench and the nodes are staggered. No two nodes should appear next to each other on a rod.

Next, the nodes have to be sanded and leveled. Then using a heat gun each node is heated and then flattened and straightened in a vice.

The strips are then rough planned into 60 degree angles approximately 40 thousands of an inch larger than finished size.

The strips are not tapered at this point. Then they are bound together with string on the binder, and placed in the heat treating oven. Cooking the bamboo drives out moisture and natural oils, making the strips harder and more resilient to bending.

Next the steel planing form is set for one half of the taper of the rod. Tapers are either copied from rods of the old masters or arrived at by the maker. The taper is what gives the bamboo rod its action.

Planing forms are two steel pieces joined by set screws which are opened or closed to fit the taper. A depth gauge with a 60-degree point is used to set the form to final adjustments.

Then the planing begins. Using Stanley block planes with a special blade hardened for sharpness, each strip is planed to the level of the forms.

The strip is then measured every five inches with a dial indicator calipers to make sure that the target numbers have been met. Your goal is to make each measurement to within one-thousands of an inch of the target.

When all six strips of the sections have been completed, they are put in order and hand bound with string to check for any gaps, gouges or planing mistakes which would result in a glue line in the finished rod. Problems strips are marked and worked on. If the strip cannot be fixed, the maker must select a new strip and start the whole process over.

Surprisingly tip strips are easier to plane than butt strips, even though the strip at the tip will measure as small as 1/16th of an inch.

When all strips are finished they are laid out on the workbench and glue is applied. Then the section is bound with string in a binder, straightened by rolling on the workbench and hung up to dry. It’s best to get all sections straight in the string, although further straightening will probably have to be done by using the heat gun.

When the glue has dried, it must by scraped and sanded, taking care not to remove any of the power fibers. The blank is then given a coat of tung oil and hung up to dry.

Next special ferrules made of nickel silver are glued onto the sections. When dry, the male ferrules have to be dressed for suction fit into the female. This is done with 1,000 grit sandpaper and a lot of elbow grease.

The cork grip is then made by gluing 1/4 or 1/2 inch cork discs onto a rod and then turning in a lathe to shape the grip with sandpaper. Only the finest cork is used.

The cork grip is then glued onto the rod.

The guides are laid out in their proper placement and the maker begins to wrap them onto the rod using silk thread.

The silk is given three to six coats of varnish, depending on whether the maker is looking for a translucent or opaque finish.

Then the sections are dipped in varnish in a special tank setup. Sections are withdrawn about 3-inches per minute, by a small electric motor, which will prevent runs. Each section takes about 30 minutes to dip.

Usually each section is dipped three times to get the best finish. The finish should be without dust marks and perfectly smooth. If not, the imperfection must be rubbed out and polished or the section sanded and dipped again.

Then a fine reel seat of nickel silver, with exotic wood insert is glued and the rod is now finished.

The process of building a rod takes me from 6o to 80 hours, depending on problems encountered.

My cost for a two piece, two tipped rod fitted with the finest furnishings is about $210.

It’s not an inexpensive hobby, but it is one that will keep you occupied all winter.

And oh, yes. Don’t forget the Band-Aids. Planed bamboo is as sharp as a razor and can give you the mother of all paper cuts. Even after nearly 50 rods, I still find myself bleeding from time to time.

But that’s fitting. It takes blood, sweat and tears to make a quality bamboo fly rod.

As Harold “Pinky” Gillum used to say, “Buying a bamboo rod is purchasing two weeks of a man’s life.”

For me, it’s closer to six.

For the past 12 years, I have spent most winter evenings and a lot of weekends planing bamboo in my basement workshop.

I make split bamboo fly rods.

I begin with a culm (pole) of cane 12 feet long and cut in half. From that I split out sections roughly 1/4 to 5/8ths inches wide.

Roughly 60 to 80 hours later, I have a finished fly rod.

I began making bamboo fly rods because I couldn’t afford to buy one. Now, as I like to say, $10,000 later, I have all the bamboo rods I could want.

With borrowed tools and cane, back in 1977 I made my first rod. I worked at it for two years and then had to give the equipment back. In those days there were probably less than a dozen bamboo fly rod makers in the country and practically no published information on how to build one.

Because of a trade embargo with China, none of the cane suitable for fly rod building was imported. The cane I initially used was purchased before the embargo from Herters by Jim Stone, a friend and great fisherman who made split bamboo spinning rods as a hobby. For the next several years, my rod making ambitions languished for want of a proper planing form and other materials needed to make rods.

The trade embargo was lifted in 1975 and in 1977 a book was published which would rekindle the interest in bamboo rod making.

“A Master’s Guide to Building a Bamboo Fly Rod,” by Everett Garrison with Hoagy B. Carmichael was the book which was to become known as “The Bible” among bamboo rod makers.

I was among the first to obtain a copy and I read and reread it time and time again. Nearly 50 rods later, and, I still refer to it today.

Everett Garrison was known as a master rod builder during the 40s, 50s and 60s until his death in 1975.

He was a basement rod maker working out of his home. An engineer by trade, he made about 700 rods. Today his rods sell upwards of $7,000 each.

There currently is no shortage of information on how to build bamboo rods. Several books have been published since the 1990s and the internet is another great source.

Bamboo was first used in fishing rods back in the mid 1850s. Hiram Leonard is credited for making the first rod completely out of bamboo strips in 1871. His rods soon gained fame throughout New England. He is truly the father of the split bamboo fly rod.

Bamboo reigned supreme as a fishing rod material until 1950. There were several large production companies such as Montegue, Horton-Bristol and South Bend. These companies turned out rods by the thousands for general use.

There has always been, however, a small group of individual makers and small companies which made superior rods.

And even after the bamboo rod market crashed in 1950 due to the development of fiberglass for fishing rods, these small businesses continued to furnish rods for more discriminating fishermen.

When graphite rods were introduced in the mid 1970s, fiberglass went the way of bamboo.

Yet the bamboo craft continues stronger than ever.

Today’ I’d guess there are well over a thousand rod makers in the United States, most of them basement hobbiests, and worldwide there are many thousands more.

You can spend $3,500 or more for a good bamboo fly rod today. Prices start at about $750 for a two piece, two tip rod from makers who have not gained a big reputation and are making rods parttime.

Next week we’ll take a step-by-step look at the bamboo rod making process and why bamboo is such a good material for fly rod fishing.

And, we’ll discover why the best bamboo rods ever produced are being made today.