Outdoorsmen Adventures.com

Reprinted from the Sioux City Journal.

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.