Almost Normal

Well, home repair and some ridiculous winds cost me a pair of fishing days this week, but I felt fit for duty and would have, could have been out there every day. It seems I am just about back to normal.

I cannot claim that everything is top shelf, for it seems my mojo has been severely depleted. My searching has been turning up very few trout. We all have dry spells, but it is tougher than one of those. My spring was almost completely stolen, and summer doesn’t want to fully arrive. I am not finding bugs, and I am not finding trout. I am certainly not catching many of them.

Since my retirement, I came to be interested in some of the bamboo fly rods of the venerable H. L. Leonard Company. I have learned a few things about their history and their principal rodmakers. Well, early on, just about most of the great bamboo rodmakers seemed to have worked there. That early history defined the legend of the fountainhead of the American craft. There is some later history too, though it hasn’t been taken down by the scribes. In truth, amidst in this literate culture of angling, no one has ever written a book about the H.L. Leonard Rod Company!

A group of devotees and collectors put together a gathering in September 2018, right here at the Catskill Fly Fishing Center and Museum. There were presentations and discussions by historians and including head rodmaker and co-owner Ted Simroe and Bob Taylor. Sadly, I was right here in the Catskills that weekend and never heard a word about it.

Someone set out to video tape Mr. Simroe’s talk, a great idea, but only the first half of his presentation was preserved. I have watched it three times, the last time keeping some written notes to bolster my memory. Ted brought some innovations, new rod tapers and brought significant growth during a time that fiberglass and the new graphite fly rods had eroded the bamboo traditions of our sport. The more of I heard from and about Ted Simroe, the more I became interested in the rods he made under his name after his years at Leonard.

When I was researching a very unique Leonard, a Model 66 ACM, a friend arranged an opportunity to speak with Ted. I truly enjoyed our conversation, and I decided that I would really like to learn more of his rods and perhaps acquire one. Seventy marks quite a milestone, more so to me than it is perhaps to others, to say nothing of how that milestone was framed by the challenges of this past spring. Through Mr. Carmine Lisella, I had the chance to fulfill my desire.

The 7’6″ T.W. Simroe rod pictured above had never been fished until I took it out on the river this week. I was impressed to be sure, for Ted’s fly rod is one of the finest casting instruments I have ever had the pleasure to cast. It is smooth and crisp, and capable of placing my fly exactly where I want it with a whim. Bravo sir!

I enjoyed how beautifully Ted’s rod handled every casting task presented by the day. Of course, the story, the day deserved a pinnacle. A wild brown trout of say two feet or better would be an ideal tribute to rod and rodmaker, but as I said, my mojo has been lacking. I did take a wild brown trout, one that he gave of himself with every bit of energy he possessed. He made me smile. I did not measure that trout, so I cannot relate accurately his physical size, though I would estimate that ten inches would be reasonably correct. That was a very important ten-inch brown trout to me.

Thank you, Ted, for your craft and your place in the history of one of the great companies of the pantheon of our finest fly rod makers. Thank you for our talk, and thank you particularly for rod #834, for it is magic!