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Hand-crafted Bamboo Fly Rods
View Fly Rods for Sale
Fifteen years ago, I got interested in fly fishing, then later got interested in bamboo fly rods, and then even later got interested in MAKING split bamboo fly rods.
Bamboo Grove
It’s through the process of making bamboo fly rods that my respect built for the wonderful and unique attributes of bamboo - it is strong, light, and flexible. Heating it makes it pliable, where it can be formed into a shape, then cooled down, and it will hold that shape. A stronger but short application of heat will temper the bamboo, making it stronger than it was in its raw state. Before split bamboo fly rods were invented, most fly rods were make out of wood, turned on a lathe. In fact, the early hexagonal or octagonal split bamboo rods, upon completion, were turned down to tapered cylinders, to make them more acceptable to consumers who were used to round wood rods.
Bamboo Fishing Nets
This got me to wondering if bamboo could be used for landing nets, most of which are now made of wood. The answer to that question can be found on our page, where we offer several models of beautiful all-bamboo landing nets. If you're currently fishing bamboo but not using one of these light, strong, beautiful nets, you're missing out on an opportunity to fish with the finest.
However, I still have a passion for making and fishing “The Lovely Reed”, split bamboo rods. From time to time I build an extra rod, and that’s what this page is about. It will list bamboo fly rods that I currently have for sale or in some cases, show a rod that is not for sale but that I could replicate. Unless otherwise noted, each rod is completely from my hand, starting with splitting a culm, through straightening, planing, glueing, wrapping, and ending with polishing the varnish.
There isn't one particular "style" of taper that I have fixed on, but it is true that I have learned the hard way to only make tapers I have actually cast - taper appreciation is a very subjective thing. For me, the best rods aren‘t necessarily parabolic, or progressive, or dry-fly. I’ve loved some (but certainly not all) rods in each of those categories. I look for tapers that seem to have some sort of “magic” designed into them - they cast better than a rod that light should, or they just seem to want to throw that extra 12-15 feet of line out there for you, or they put the fly where you need it without thinking about the process of getting it there... Those are great tapers.
Recognizing that different people can have different appreciations of what makes a rod beautiful, on bespoke rods, I'll do everything I can to accomodate a customers wishes. But in terms of what I like to see on a rod, to me are the only ones that look right on bamboo - chrome guides remind me of a 1950's "krome-kraft" dinette set, and black guides make me think of Mike Meyers' 1980's German DJ, Dieter. I think a rod doesn't look "finished" if the wraps aren't tipped a complementary color and I think are both functional and beautiful, so I usually put them on my rods. As time goes by and I "tool up", I'm making more and more of my components: wood spacers, nickle-silver cap and ring sets, ferrules. In general, I'd like as much of the rod as possible to have come from my hands.
Time permitting, I will also be happy to discuss orders for a custom split bamboo fly rod; call or about this option.
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I currently only have 2 rods that are "extra." They are the Mitey Midge and the Seven-Four listed below. I have 3 rods in the queue right now, so no other new ones are going to show up on this page anytime soon. Given that reality, I thought I'd devote a little space and a few photos to a mini-gallery of rods I've really liked. That "Gallery" follows the 2 rods already mentioned.
Seven-Four, 7ft 4wt (click to enlarge)
Seven - Four Signature wrap (click to enlarge)
Seven - Four Reelseat (click to enlarge)
Rod # 14-05
7-foot, 4-weight, 2-piece 2-tip
This rod is based closely on Wayne Cattanaugh's taper, the Sir D. It's a 2-piece, 7-foot true 4-weight. Light in the hand, easy to cast, with a light dry fly action. A certain number of people who have tried both this rod and my Driggs prefer it to the Driggs. I disagree, finding the Driggs to be a more versatile rod, but I understand their preference - the Seven Four feels even lighter in the hand than the Driggs, and it is just a great small-stream, dry-fly rod, one that offers no penalties in weight for people switching over from graphite.
The cane is flamed an even medium brown with translucent red wraps tipped black. There is a spiral red signature wrap at the butt, tipped black. All hardware is nickel-silver, with bronze snake guides, a beautiful dark red agate stripper, and N/S strap and ring hookeeper. Cap & ring reelseat with burled redwood insert. Both reelseat hardware and ferrules were turned on my lathe. Torpedo grip.
Finished and protected with spar varnish.
Comes in a cotton rod bag, and aluminum tube with domed brass end-caps.
Price: $795
The net would be a great complement to the Seven-Four.
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Mitey Midge 13 grip & reelseat (Click to enlarge)
Mitey Midge 13 stripper (Click to enlarge)
Mitey Midge 13 signature (Click to enlarge)
Mitey midge, Peeking caddis, Brookie net = nice brown (Click to enlarge)
Mitey Midge and matching custom-wrapped "Brookie" net (Click to enlarge)
Rod # 13-05
6-foot 3-inch 4-weight, 2-piece 2-tip
"The Mitey Midge"
I called this rod "The Mitey Midge" because it is a slightly stronger version of the Paul Young Midge taper. It weighs "virtually nothing" (actually 2.8 oz), and balances with a small light reel and a 4DT line. Accurate casts of 15-40 feet are effortless. After finishing, I took the rod out for a test on our local spring creek, and it cast tight loops into the head of a pool, resulting in a "surprise" 21-inch brown this last time.
I did something different on this rod: It is flamed, but the flaming gradually fades from near-black at the butt, to pure blond at the tip. I thought about calling it "The Black and Tan." No telling how that affected action (if at all), but it casts beautifully and is a real "looker." Wraps are antique gold tipped bright red so they are lighter than the cane at the butt, darker that the tip; it has a very pretty little 8mm agate stripper banded red-white/black. Bronze guides, hookkeeper. Reelseat was made by a rod-making friend of mine, a beautiful piece of black-and-blond burled buckeye. 5-1/2 inch grip was left on the largish side, and slightly "hammer-handled." The nickel-silver ferrules are "Super Z" style, made on my lathe.
Comes with a bamboo ferrule plug, cotton segmented rod bag, and aluminum rod tube with domed brass caps at each end.
As with any of my rods, buy the rod, add a split bamboo net, and I will put a custom matching wrap on the net for free.
Price: $795
The net is the perfect small-stream complement to the Mitey Midge.
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Gallery of Rods
The last couple rods I've been working on are "experimental" rods - working on techniques and design aspects to stretch my skills a bit.
One is a 7ft 4wt Payne 98, with a bamboo ferrule. Instead of mounting nickel-silver ferrules, a person swells one side of the joint, then hollows it for the other piece to fit into. The technical challenge is to manage the fit between the 2 pieces - as with metal ferrules, the difference between "good fit" and "too loose" is "the thickness of smoke." Removing that ferrule, which only weighs about 1/3 ounce, really makes a difference in the feel of the rod. Fished this rod for the first time
recently, and it's nice! Extremely light in the hand, delicate and smooth, a more relaxed rod than many I've made, but with plenty of punch to drop to drop a bead-head nymph in the head of a pool.
bamboo ferrules
The other rod is even stranger. Instead of a standard 6-piece hex rod composed of 6 equilateral triangles of the same size, this rod glues up into a weird triangle with the tips cut off. It is composed of 3 small triangles and 3 large triangles which have their apexes cut off. Using the theory that cross-sections of equal area will produce rods with similar actions, I wanted to see if I could dredge up enough eigth-grade geometry to convert the area of 6 equal triangles into 3 small and 3 big that would fit together. The geometry is worked out, the blanks are glued up, but I have yet to cast it. I based the calculations on a proven taper, the Dickerson 8013, so I have a baseline for comparison. Here's a photo of the blank cut-offs which will show the construction.
Weird triangle pegs
The weird triangle rod is completely hollow, excluding the ferrule area and the tip where it gets too small. It's a fun-looking rod, because the guides are mounted on one of the small flats, and there is this big wide flat as the spine of the rod. Overall, the rod will weigh less than the hollow-built hex 8013. More to come when it comes out of the varnish tank.
Here's the finished rod, a close-up of the stripper which shows the bamboo flats of different sizes:
8013WT stripper
I engraved the reelseat with a hopvine pattern, then blackened it. The spacer is burled redwood. As predicted, the rod only weighs 4.3 oz. Fished it for the first time in April in whistling-wind conditions - lightest of any of the 8013s I've made, still plenty of smooth power. A winner!
8013WT reelseat
Rod 2007 is an 8 foot hollow-built Dickerson 8013, for a 5 weight line. This is another tiger-striped rod, and it features a tiger-striped hex bamboo reelseat with blued nickel-silver hardware. (See the top photo on this page.)
This rod is maybe the most "personal" rod I've made so far, given that in addition to the usual hand work on bamboo, wraps, and so one, I made the blued nickel-silver ferrules, and the rod features one of my hex bamboo reelseats. While I generally believe there's not really much new under the sun, I have never heard of anyone else making hex bamboo reelseats. Done right, they look like an extension of the rod itself, and I think that's pretty cool.
It's hard to beat the Dickerson 8013 as an all-around rod with great smoothness and power, and hollow-building it knocked about 15% off the standard finished weight. It casts like a dream.
rod 2007 tiger-striped bamboo
rod 2007 beige tipped brown and grip slightly hammer-handled
A recent rod I finished is 1907, a 7-1/2 foot Leonard 39dh, for a 4 weight line. I think the spalted ash reelseat is beautiful, and I like the unusual yellow-and-black jasper wraps on blond cane.
This rod has step-down ferrules that ever-so-slightly quickened the rod. It is still a VERY smooth-casting rod, but it feels like it has more power. The swelled butt keeps some mass down by your hand, which seems to add to that feeling of "the rod casting itself."
rod 1907 spalted ash reelseat
The first 2 rods I made were Driggs River Specials, designed by Paul Young. I lucked out, picking a great taper for my first try. One of my good friends uses one of these 2 rods, and I still get out the original, rod #1, and fish it both on streams and for bluegills.
People call this taper "parabolic", but having cast some Young Paras, as well as several Pezon et Michel parabolics, I have to say that from my point of view, the Driggs is not a true parabolic. it's not as tip-heavy as they are, and it doesn't have that same "loopy", "wait for it, ... wait for it,... OK, now go forward" casting timing that the true paras have.
Look at a graph of the Driggs taper compared to the Young Paras, and it's immediately apaprent that they are different animals. It's still got great power, and it still roll-casts like a dream, but it's quicker and easier to handle than they are. By the way, I've seen 10 published versions of the Driggs, taper, so don't assume that the one I'm talking about is the same one you might be familiar with - there's a pretty wide variance.
This rod has an osage orange reelseat spacer that has aged to a light chestnut color. As you can see, it's a near-perfect match to the wraps, which are color-preserved antique gold, tipped maroon.
Driggs River - 7ft2 4/5 wt
The Big Driggs 7-foot 9-inch rod was an experiment, stretching the 7ft2 Driggs River, and bumping it up one line weight. I love the Driggs River (see above) but sometimes on bigger water, I felt that you just need a little more rod. This one came out maybe a little heavier than I was anticipating, but I noticed that the people who picked up the rod and cast it without having that pre-conceived notion in their heads thought it was a very nice rod: easy to get the timing down, and plenty of power to punch line out.
I'm including it here because of the tiger-striped cane and clear wraps tipped black. Together, they make for a striking look. On a rack of rods, that one will be picked up and looked at early on, just because of its looks. it's not as easy as it may look to get all the tiger-stripes lined up around the rod, as you flame, plane and glue splines, but the look is worth it, so I'll be trying it again sometime soon.
Tiger-striped cane on Big Driggs 7ft9
PMQs. "Poor Man's Quad." 2 strips of bamboo, tapered and glued inside-face-to-inside-face.
They are so simple, they shouldn't cast worth beans. But they do! Not a commerical endeavour, just something to do for fun, to surprise people, or to give away. That's not to say that they are toys! This one is based on the Edwards 43, an 8-foot 5-weight rod, that is a smooth caster with plenty of power for 40- to 50-foot casts, "give" to protect tippets, but backbone to muscle bigger fish.
This particular rod, I wrapped red-and-white jasper tipped flag blue, with the butt wrap blue tipped white then red. It went to a vet.
8ft PMQ; behind it is a Peerless on a Driggs River
The Dickerson 8013, as with the Driggs River, fits into my personal pantheon of magical rods. It's 8 feet long, 2-piece, for a 5-weight line. There are lighter eight-footers, and heavier, stronger 8-footers, but for me,
few other rods find the balance of smoothness, power and "feel" that Lyle Dickerson designed into this rod. It's a wonderful tool.
Cast long and the swelled butt gives it the backbone to do it; short, it has the delicate tip to give you a great presentation. With a 5-weight silk line, this taper sings.
One of the techniques I use to avoid self-deception regarding rods I make is to pay attention to what others, particularly good casters, say about the rod. The 8013 gets frequent rave reviews.
Somewhere below here is a photo of me horsing (trying to horse, uh, just holding on to!) a big hen rainbow at Arrowhead Ranch with an 8013.
Arrowhead Ranch has been sold and I'll never fish there again, but it was a glorious day, wherein the rod cast callibaetis emergers, damselfly nymphs, hoppers, disco midges, and big black wooly buggers with equal aplomb. What a great rod!
Arrowhead Ranch and a "hot" rainbow
8013
Stripping guide on another 8013
A few years ago I read about a guy who was turning down big left-over hex bamboo sections, to make round bamboo reelseats. That got me to wondering why a person couldn't make HEX reelseats. Well, shaping the nickel-silver into hex components is why, but I got a couple tools that made it possible, and this is the result.
I've put them on a couple rods now, and they really complement a hex rod. This reelseat is on a personal rod, a 7ft9 3-pc rod based on the Dickerson 8013. It casts one heck of a 6DT line.
Hex bamboo reelseat for a hex rod
I am currently offering some rod-building components for sale, guides and agate stripping guides. Go to the for more information.
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