Handcrafting Bamboo Fly Rods

Handcrafting Bamboo Fly Rods (reviewed)

Handcrafting Bamboo Fly Rods
Revised and Augmented Edition
by Wayne Cattanach
The Lyons Press, 2000
Hardcover, 288 pages, $50
ISBN 1-55821-769-X

Bamboo rods are made. Unless you are pulling your own composite blanks off a mandrel, glass, graphite and boron rods are assembled. Both require craftsmen but there is a difference. Each has its place. My synthetic vest keeps me warm but it is synthetic because the world is a bit short of eider ducks. The formula for eider down is imprinted on the DNA of the duck, written by survival on really cold, wet days. Synthetic insulation comes from a chemist in Jersey. Tonkin cane is grown in a 20 by 30 mile area in China. Composite rod materials started with a chemist in Jersey. Obviously I like to fish bamboo. I don’t really catch more fish. I just like its feel.
The recipe for planing the taper and gluing the rod was made public by George Parker Holden in 1920 in his book The Idyl of the Split Bamboo. I have a first edition and for my sins Dr. Holden’s picture as Chief of Staff at his hospital in Yonkers. Henry Van Dyke wrote the introduction for the book. The subtitle (older books had long subtitles) was "A Carefully Detailed Description of the Rod’s Building Prefaced by a Dissertation on the Joy’s of Angling...." Garrison and Carmichael’s A Master’s Guide to Building A Bamboo Fly Rod emerged as the modern craftsman’s guide. Wayne Cattanach’s book is a worthy lineal descendant.
The Garrison book took you through the masters methods, precisely as he did it, materials, tools, glues, finishes and tricks of the trade. Materials, tools, glues and finishes have changed, some in their availability others by innovation. This book is the essential update. There are a few new tricks of the trade and they are here as well. The text is cleanly written and the illustrations are excellent.
You can buy plans and tools but using them is the providence of the craftsman. Split cane rods are made by hand. The thickness of the final shavings is in thousandths of an inch. Here you have the craftsman’s secrets revealed. They are open secrets because they are so daunting to implement that relatively few will even try. My Garrison planing form is still a virgin.
If you are crafty and patient and want to try a rod this is the book. If you seek just a justification of a custom rod’s cost then read this book. For the selective few this book is very highly recommended. RWOL

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