Grass is Always Greener

In late 1999 or early 2000 (not long after I started fly fishing) I read several articles about guys who are still building hand-made fly rods out of bamboo. I found it absolutely fascinating. I'm a technology geek by nature so the idea that someone would intentionally hold onto a rod-building technique that has long since been surpassed by lighter, sturdier, and less expensive methods seemed totally crazy. But the more I read about it, the more fun it sounded. I don't believe those who claim that "grass" (i.e. bamboo) rods are better than modern graphite rods, but I've already admitted that fly fishing by its very nature imposes arbitrary restrictions on catching fish, so what's wrong with using bamboo instead of fiberglass, graphite, or carbon fibre?

So despite my complete lack of basic woodworking skills, I decided to give it a shot. I had the Internet at my disposal, of course, so I was able to find out how to source all of the zany materials required and then build or buy the various hand tools necessary to split, heat, shape, sand, wrap, and varnish the bamboo. In all, I built about 12 rods and gave all but one of them away to friends and fellow fly fishermen. It was a total blast.

My favorite part about building fly rods was giving them away. The rods I made weren't worth selling, frankly, but it was a lot of fun sharing them with other people. Other than Bill (who broke his bamboo rod in half a few months ago trying to free a snag while I stood by watching), I pretty much lost contact with the other ten guys who ended up with one of the rods. It's been seven or eight years since I built my last rod, and I'll admit to occasionally wondering how those rods held up and how much fishing they've seen. Yesterday I was looking at some digital family photos and came across these pictures I took of a few of the rods I built.

Over the years, I've also enjoyed fishing with the one bamboo rod I decided to keep. A family friend was kind enough to take me to the Green River several years back and I thought it would be a hoot to catch a 20-inch brown trout on a 6'8" 3wt bamboo rod so I brought it with me. After that, I gradually found myself using that rod less and less and eventually stopped fishing with it altogether until about a month ago.

Anyway, most of the water Bill and I are going to fish on this year's road trip is big enough that a nine foot graphie rod has a clear advantage over a dainty seven foot grass rod. That said, I'm hoping at least one of the streams we'll fish (probably on our way from Provo to New Mexico) is small enough that I can fish the bamboo rod.