Raising Cane

This winter seems colder and snowier than last, and it is certainly quieter for me. Last January I began a journey on what would become a very long road, a trying project for me, the making of my own split bamboo fly rod. My friend John had invited me to join him in the Catskill Rodmakers Workshop at CFFCM to see if I could learn to transform an internode of Vietnamese Lo o bamboo into a classically styled three-piece trout rod.

Winter weather kept us away from the rod shop on many weekends, and there were other events on some of our work days that challenged my concentration. I discovered some new pain centers in my hands, wrists and shoulders, thanks to the repetitive motions required to plane twenty-four strips of bamboo with a hand plane and steel planing form.

There were setbacks thanks to the learning curve, and though John remained positive, my enthusiasm was dealt a few blows that made success seem very unlikely at times. The rod was completed, though not for the spring fishing season as originally envisioned. Eight months were required to log some eighty hours of shop time, but I walked away with an even greater respect and appreciation for my rodmaking friends and acquaintances, and a very nice 7’9″ dry fly rod.

When my thoughts turn back and cast through those eighty hours, I wish I could do it again and again. It was a great feeling to finally slip a favorite reel into the reel seat and thread a fly line through the guides. An even better feeling to cast the rod for that first time, my smile beaming across my face. Ah, to be a much younger man with time on my hands and a suitable shop of my own!

The negative side of the experience involves those new aches and pains, particularly the “moderately severe” arthritis which now resides in the wrist of my casting hand. Rod work wasn’t solely responsible for that, though it certainly did advance it to the point that I sometimes fear my casting may go before the rest of me does.

That arthritis makes it clear that there will not be another rod project in my future. That doesn’t mean that I won’t still hang around and watch the craft, or talk with rodmakers, or read about the history of the great Catskill rodmakers. Getting a taste of the work itself makes everything I love about cane rods and fly fishing even more enjoyable, and I will never regret that.

It would be great to see some young medical researcher come up with a quick and inexpensive method of dissolving arthritis deposits on our joints. I would be right up there in the front of that line! I expect that is very unlikely too.

My Dad and my Uncle Jim got me started in the outdoors, and the countless days I have spent out there have given me many of the greatest moments of pure joy in my life. I hope that I was able to let them know just how important those times were while they were still here beside me. I can feel their presence as I watch the late afternoon sunlight glint upon the water.

I am waiting and looking ahead to a new season upon bright water, about to begin flirting with my twilight years. I plan to put that self-made fly rod to work on many a spring afternoon, to feel it arch with the throb of life on a misty summer morning and walk with me at riverside as this next season comes to a close.