Different Techniques with Bamboo

[MItroutonthefly]

Hello everyone, new member here. Wanted to pose a question, with some context, about ways in which you all fish bamboo.

I’ve been fly fishing for 25 years, nearly exclusively with graphite. I have fished some bamboo rods occasionally, and some fiberglass, and truly enjoyed it. However, I have more or less only viewed them as dry fly tools. I think that’s mostly because I have become so accustomed to 9ft rods that anything under 8’6 seems inefficient to me for anything other than dries.

Now I live in Western Michigan, with the Pere Marquette and surrounding rivers being my home water. While I love to dry fly fish, I fish 2x a week year round and realistically dry fly opportunities are only available for a few months of the year. The rest of the time I am nymphing or throwing streamers.

So....for those fishing techniques outside of dry flies....are you doing so with bamboo because that’s simply what you like to use, or because you feel it can nymph/streamer fish as well as a longer graphite? I’ve always been under the thought process to use as long of a rod as I can get away with in any given situation, so I’d love to hear otherwise. I feel like it’s a hurdle I need to get over to really get into bamboo.

Thanks and sorry for the loooong first post,

Rich

[PYochim]

Rich,

Welcome to Clark's. A good rod should do a lot of things well. If I'm fishing nymphs with a bamboo rod it is because that is the rod I happened to grab as I was leaving the house. I don't get too fussy about it. I don't fish bamboo when I'm using a lot of weight. In my hands bamboo doesn't handle weight well. So if I know I'm going to be fishing weighted streamers or big nymphs I break out the graphite.

My bamboo rods are all 8' or 8'3", short when compared to the standard 9' 5 weight graphite.

Bamboo should do anything that graphite will do. Somethings it will do better and some things not as well. It depends on the rod and the angler.

[jimwright]

I swing soft hackles a lot, fish terrestrials, attractors, small streamers and occasionally dry flies sometimes with droppers on an 8' Goodwin Granger 8040 and an 8 1/2' 8642. I primarily fish streamers on a 9' 5 5/8 oz. Phillipson trade rod and on another 9' rod, a Goodwin Granger 9053. I have a Joe Balestrieri 9'2" "Steelhead/Salt" taper 8/9 wt. that I fish here for LA. redfish and have used for Belize Bonefish where I'm returning shortly. I'm old and skinny but have come to actually prefer the longer cane rods. I wade fresh and salt water and as long as I move slowly, casts even for for bonefish seldom need to be 50 or 60'.

[billems]

I'm primarily a dry fly/wet fly fisherman. If it was mainly nymphs and streamers with me, I might've just stayed with graphite rods. For my type of fishing, bamboo and fiberglass are tops.

[quashnet]

There is a strong tradition of long, bamboo streamer and nymph rods built by Paul H. Young, Bob Summers and others for use in Michigan rivers. The photo shows a Paul H. Young Co. "Parabolic 15" rod that was specially built in 1967 for its original owner, Bob Church of Mancelona, MI, to fish for big brown trout in the Manistee River. Using this rod in Maine, I landed the brook trout on a fly I tied using a brown bucktail wing plus a silver body. (Speaking of Maine, the F.E. Thomas Co. of Bangor produced a rod called the "Streamer Special" in 8'6" and 9'0" lengths, which remains very popular today).



Paul H. Young also made longer nymph and streamer bamboo rods like the 8'6" Parabolic 16, 8'6" and 9'0" Parabolic 17, and the 8'6" and 9'0" Nymph Special models. I have often fished my 9'0" Nymph Special, which was built in June 1949 for Mr. Young's best friend, Paul Cardell of Birmingham, Michigan. The photo shows Bob Summers of Traverse City, MI (who built bamboo rods at the Paul H. Young Co. for many years before starting his own rod business), casting Paul Cardell's nine-foot Nymph Special, which weighs only 5 ounces. You could fish this rod all day.

[joep]

I just bought a euro nymph rod to play with because living in the east there are times nymphing low and slowI is the way to go. I don't steelhead fish much and have a james Reid 7/8 wt rod coming, but I could see a 10' rod in my future for that endeavor as well. Nymphing in low water and/or small streams, dry dropper, wets, drys, streamers, all can be done exceptionally well with bamboo.

[cdmoore]

Welcome to the forum. Some food for thought:

For about 80 years from 1880 to 1960 bamboo was considered by most people to be the best material available for fly rods. The great majority of anglers all over the world fished with bamboo rods. EVERY technique known--dapping, spey, north country spiders, dry fly, bonefish, king salmon, even tuna--was accomplished with bamboo.

Marc Aroner's salmon rods are often under 7 feet. Traditionally they were much longer, in the 12+ foot range and often weighed more than a pound!

EC Powell thought an 8.5 foot rod wasn't a "real" rod. He recommended 9 or 9.5 feet. He and his customers caught absolutely stunning fish all up and down the West Coast. He was also a competition caster and every record set by anyone for many decades was set with bamboo. Some of those records still compare favorably to graphite.

In the end, I think the choice of blank material these days really comes down to preference.

[Doug K]

for streamer fishing I will usually pick a bamboo rod over graphite.. the problem is that streamer fishing has come to mean throwing ludicrously huge jointed flies. I blame this on Kelly Galloup..
Normal trout streamers are size 6-10 and bamboo can throw and handle these with ease..

similarly nymphing has come to mean suspending a lump of lead below a bobber, with a couple flies tagging along. If instead you think of nymphing as hopper/dropper, or using a greased leader with deep nymphs, then bamboo is just fine and dandy. It is possible to hurl the bobber/lead/fly combo, I confess to doing it, but if that's likely to happen I'd rather use a glass rod that can take the punishment..

I share your preference for a longer rod - most of my trout fishing is done with an 8 1/2' South Bend 359, 5wt. For streamers or stillwater, a 9' 359 6wt, or SB 323 9' which is a sort of 5/6wt.

[Drossi]

If I can't get it done with a bamboo rod, I likely don't want to do it anyways

I fish drys, wets, soft hackles, streamers (even small conehead ones). Now I have different rods for different applications (i.e. the T&T only sees drys and wets) but they are fishing rods, fish them! Back in the day many folks fished bait and Colorado spinners on what we now regard as classic rods.

[barebo]

I'm with Drossi 100% ! The Stone FE Thomas LIght Special blank I recently wrapped will do everything I ask of it at 8 1/2'. I can mend line with ease and have fished everything except heavily weighted large streamers with equal ease. At first, the softer tip ( 2 piece rod) intimidated me but once I found the right casting stroke it will cast in close or throw a long line equally well. Bamboo rods should act/feel like bamboo rods. The inherent joy is in the connection you make with a rod that just "does it" for you. Graphite rods are like crossbows compared to a longbow when contemplating bamboo. In the right hands a longbow is deadly. That's not to say that there aren't some faster action bamboo rods being built, but they're not comparable to the high modulus rocket launchers offered now. As previously stated, for many years the bamboo fly rod put many trout in the net and skillet by any means the angler saw fit to procure his catch.