[quote="Tim Marchetti"]I do still have the my first bamboo rod and I did build it. However it is not the one that I recently acquired. I built my first rod in 1985 while in college on planing forms that I machined in highschool. It is a 7ft. 5wt. with one tip that start out life at 7'6" with bamboo sleeve over ferrules and copper tubing slide bands and guides off a broken rod someone had given me. The thin bamboo ferrule broke after about a year. I stripped the rod and cut it down to it's present length, installed a $3 aluminum locking reelseat and plated brass ferrules. This is still my favorite rod to fish and it has been used hard.
Tim, a tip of the hat to you Sir! That is a very impressive start for such a young man. Really like the reel seat and grip - handsome simplicity!
I have only been into bamboo for a few years now but yes, I have my first - Orvis DeLuxe, 6'6" 2/2 made in 1957. I'll be all "charlton heston" about this little gem. Great thread!
John
Forgot to say, it's the rod in my avitar
Yes. In about 1962 I paid $40.00 to Norm Thompson for an 8 foot 2/1 Asbjorn Horgaard fly rod, an Intrepid reel, and a DT8F line. I still have the rod and reel. I caught a good many brook trout in the Adirondacks on that rod, now more than 50 years old. My cousin Cindy bought the same outfit at the same time; she still has the rod and reel. Last summer I cleaned the ferrules for her and tried the rod. Earlier this year I decided to make up for the $5.00 or so I saved for not getting the 2-tip model in 1962. I bought another of the same rod on eBay (lots more than $5.00), then asked a noted Portland, OR rod builder to make the tips both work (he did it beautifully). The rod still shoots a WF7F very nicely. It's quite pretty, with light golden cane, green wraps, and half-Wells grip. I thought it didn't have enough guides, but it does shoot a good cast, so . . . Since then I have amassed more rods than I can count. Four dozen or so. No, more than that. Fly fishing is a passion, and passions have their own logic. I could not give this rod up.--Santafecino
In the beginning, I was so uninformed about bamboo, just what I could read in magazines and catalogues. I had no one to turn to. I bought my first one at a local swap meet for $200. It said “Orvis Battenkill” on the side and not much else, so I thought I had made the deal of the century. I tried for months to make it cast, but it was a beast, and the reel would not stay on. I finally had the bright idea of calling Orvis, and they were very informative. The man said, “Mister, you have yourself a nice spinning rod.”
I have recently stripped, turned a new cork grip, replaced a split ferrule and am ready to re-varnish and rewrap my first fly rod, an old worn out 9-foot Shakespeare that was given to me by my next door neighbor back in the early 70's. He was a consummate outdoorsman, stopped short by heart disease. As a teen I learned to fly fish with that rod and used it in all sorts of appropriate and inappropriate situations. I never managed to break it and have dragged it along with me ever since, though it hasn't seen the water in 30-years. I intend to fish it next summer.
Tim, a tip of the hat to you Sir! That is a very impressive start for such a young man. Really like the reel seat and grip - handsome simplicity!
I have only been into bamboo for a few years now but yes, I have my first - Orvis DeLuxe, 6'6" 2/2 made in 1957. I'll be all "charlton heston" about this little gem. Great thread!
John
Forgot to say, it's the rod in my avitar[/quote]
Thanks John
Yup. It's a 5'9" Orvis made up by me from blanks purchased from Orvis. Dates to about 1967 or so IIRC. It's a delightful taper to fish and handles either a 3 or a 4 very nicely. I've redone the grip and seat a couple of times, and it now has a nice, light aluminum cap and ring with a walnut spacer. I pair it with either a Marquis 5 or a CFO II
It was purchased during that time of inamorata with "midge" rods as popularized by Arnold Gingrich among others. I used the rod regularly on the Catskill rivers in the late 60s/early 70s; then more or less retired it during my enchantment-with-graphite years. It's been reactivated a couple of times in recent years with grandchildren, and by me when the situation is right.
Eric
A mountain is a fact -- a trout is a moment of beauty known only to men who seek them
Al McClane in his Introduction to The Practical Fly Fisherman . . . often erroneously attributed to Arnold Gingrich
four days of fun reading your nice posts is more I have expected- thanks a lot.
Once more I have realised how important taper, maker and dealer to you in the US is. The taper identification has never been important to me nor to the makers when it came to choose a rod. We simply did (or do) not have the American raw models available for comparison here. But I guess lots of (my) rods from the beginning 1990s were/are based on Garrison (through the famous book by Carmichael).
I do, too. It's a Hardy Palakona 6' for 5wt. It's a snappy little rod my wife gave me for my birthday in 1980. It's a great Catskill rod and I fished it a lot this summer.
Yes, I still have my first bamboo rod, which is also the first bamboo rod I built. Begun in 1977, it took about a year and a half from start to finish and that's how long it takes to combine every rodmaking mistake in one rod; glue lines, tear-outs at every node, cracked nodes, resourcinol glue not filed off blank well, math error on taper, horrible varnish and wraps. I love that rod and the excitement that I felt while making it is what I seek on every rod I build. When that goes away, I'll stop making rods.
Willis
Hi, first rod made or first cane rod owned? First one I made my son has, first one owned,a Ted Knott 7 1/2' # 5 that I will never part with. They both have very special memories, my sons first dry fly trout on his rod and just about any trout caught on my Knott. Ted was a gentle,gentle man. Livingstone
Yes it's a 9' 2 1/2F Heddon Black Beauty & I get it out on the water once in a while still just for fun. It handles those larger fish real well. Fished it hard in the 60's and 70's when it was the only rod I had.
Yes, the 1934 Heddon #13 9' 2 3/4 F that brought me here. It sat in a closet for close to 20 years before I looked at it and decided to figure out what I had and "restore" it.
Posted this before, but this is my first fish caught with it:
It's big, slow, and will tire your arm out after a while, but it's just "nice" to fish.
I take back what I wrote on a previous page. That was my first fishable bamboo rod. My first bamboo rod was given to me by my father-in-law. He had been a fisherman earlier in his life, mostly surf casting on the Vineyard. He gave me all his fishing tackle when I joined the family. This included a Hardy rod built in 1921 based on the serial number. He was a doctor and bought the rod from the wife of a patient who had either passed on or was no longer fishing.
Typed on a piece of tape put on the tube was:
9/4/71. This is the Hardy rod purchased from Mrs. _________. The regular tip has been shortened and the metal tip refitted. There is another tip, which broke at the butt, and a new ferrule was fitted. I would not depend on this rod.
I so wanted to fish the rod, never having fished bamboo before, but it is a real noodle. All the expert opinions I got when showing the rod came down to two words - wall hanger. If I ever get that cabin in the woods, that's exactly what I'll do.
I still have the 206 Light Trout by Art Weiler that I bought at Ray's Sport Shop in New Jersey in 1980. It carries number 27. Art was still teaching in Bound Brook at the time, and called his enterprise Heritage Rod Company. It remains straight as a pin.
I plan on putting it on Ebay, as I have replaced it with a PHY Perfectionist that I made.
