{"id":3428,"date":"2014-10-16T11:54:05","date_gmt":"2014-10-16T15:54:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/?p=3428"},"modified":"2014-10-16T15:45:52","modified_gmt":"2014-10-16T19:45:52","slug":"bamboo-roots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/2014\/10\/16\/bamboo-roots\/","title":{"rendered":"Bamboo Roots"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"bill<\/address>\n
This article originally ran in the Spring 2014 issue of Life Refined\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>magazine.<\/address>\n

Today\u2019s bamboo fly rod makers connect anglers to the history of their sport.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

FLY FISHING IS KNOWN as \u201cthe quiet sport,\u201d said to be good for the soul. It is also a last bastion–one of the few outdoor pastimes which maintains a clear path back to its own traditions today. \u00a0After all, golf abandoned the hickory shaft decades ago. No one plays tennis with wooden rackets anymore. But in fly fishing, one can still be connected to the legacy and tradition of the sport through the exquisite handcraftsmanship of the bamboo fly rod.<\/h4>\n
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<\/h4>\n

Bamboo\u2014or \u201ccane\u201d\u2014fly rods are not now and have never been made by machines. They are each the product of hours of skilled labor by a master craftsman.\u00a0 Like snowflakes, no two are exactly alike.\u00a0 Supple, whippy, perfect for protecting the soft silky tippet that connects the angler to the fly\u2014and thus to the fish\u2014bamboo fly rods begin as an enormous grass.\u00a0 The best fly rod bamboo grows on the Gulf of Tonkin in Vietnam, where the winds blow hard and make the key material, the \u201cpower fibers,\u201d strong.<\/p>\n

Men like Georgia\u2019s Bill Oyster have studied the history of the masters; they are experts on the designs, or \u201ctapers,\u201d developed by famous bamboo craftsman in the heyday of the material, the 1920s and 1930s.\u00a0 Using mostly un-powered tools, like a \u201chand planer,\u201d the bamboo fly rod maker first selects and cuts his cured bamboo cane into strips.\u00a0 The traditional cane rod is hexagonal, and each individual facet of the rod must be carved into a taper, to give the fly rod its shape and thus its \u201caction\u201d.\u00a0 At the tip end of today\u2019s lightest rods, the individual strips may be as thin as one-sixteenth of an inch across.\u00a0 And the tapers themselves are works of mastery; each subtly different to impart a different feel to the final form.<\/p>\n

Strong, powerful tapers make good wind rods, stout enough for saltwater use on the cerulean bonefish flats of the Bahamas, where crack guides bark directions from the poling platforms of their bonefish skiffs: \u201cTwo o\u2019clock, crossing at forty-five feet.\u00a0 Three tails; see them? Lead them by twelve feet.\u201d\u00a0 Meanwhile, supple, buggy-whip tapers are perfect for small mountain streams, allowing the crouching angler to snake a cast in between the blooming flame azalea and reach a brook trout\u2019s secluded lie, where he sips passing mayflies, oblivious to the fisherman\u2019s presence.<\/p>\n

Once the bamboo is tapered, it must be glued, cured, and finished, eventually forming a \u201cblank.\u201d\u00a0 The cane rod maker then transforms his blank into a fly rod using time-honored materials and techniques: whipping brightly-colored silk thread, which wets out like stained glass, around the blank to hold on the nickel silver fly line guides.\u00a0 Exotic hardwood reel seat spacers are glued snug against the rarest, premium cork grips\u2014cork selected from the first cuts, before the wine growers can snatch it all up.<\/p>\n

Nothing this fine comes cheap, of course.\u00a0 A master bamboo craftsman\u2019s rods generally start in the four figures and move up from there.\u00a0 As with any art form, the canvas is vast, limited only by the artist\u2019s imagination.\u00a0 Leaders in the field\u2014men like Bernard Ramanauskas, who with his label Eden Cane has pioneered methods of removing the natural fibrous \u201cnodes\u201d from the cane, thereby making rods like fine musical instruments, command premium prices.\u00a0 In fact, Ramanauskas\u2019s rods are so coveted in Japan, as he explains, \u201cI\u2019ve had to set some back for the American and European market.\u00a0 I want my rods to be fished, not just to disappear into an enthusiast\u2019s collection.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"oysterGeorgia\u2019s Bill Oyster has meanwhile mastered the arts not only of cane rod construction, but also of engraving.\u00a0 After training with fine gun engravers, he set out to make his mark on the nickel silver buttplates and slide rings which give bamboo rods their heritage look.\u00a0 His engraving work (pictured) is astounding, and as a result the waiting list to buy one of Oyster\u2019s rods is lengthening by the week.\u00a0 Fortunately, there\u2019s another way to own an Oyster: one can sit at the feet of the master himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cI opened my school in 2012 and recently completed new facilities,\u201d he explains.\u00a0 That\u2019s right: in the picturesque North Georgia mountain town of Blue Ridge, the tradition of bamboo creation lives on. \u00a0His six-day class, offered several times a year in his own rod shop, will train a small group of anglers in the start-to-finish process of bamboo rod construction, for around the price of a new rod.\u00a0 The first half of 2014 is already full, but some spaces remain available for the fall sessions.<\/p>\n

There are few accomplishments as satisfying as fooling a rising trout with a fly one tied oneself, on a rod one built oneself.\u00a0 But even if time doesn\u2019t allow the pursuit of that extreme, the heritage of fly fishing\u2014the commitment, hours of dedication, and careful study of a worthy adversary\u2014cannot be better expressed than with a fine bamboo fly rod.\u00a0 They truly are like musical instruments, and in the hands of the appreciative, they sing the history of the sport.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article originally ran in the Spring 2014 issue of Life Refined\u00a0magazine. Today\u2019s bamboo fly rod makers connect anglers to the history of their sport. FLY FISHING IS KNOWN as \u201cthe quiet sport,\u201d said to be good for the soul. It is also a last bastion–one of the few outdoor …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3434,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-gear-reviews","column","onecol","has-thumbnail"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/files\/2014\/10\/bill-copy2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3428"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3452,"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3428\/revisions\/3452"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}