The Eclectic Bear: The Lovely Reed: Part 1

I Pulled into Nazareth.

I was feelin about half past dead…”

The Weight, J. Robbie Robertson

“Well Joe, I guess twenty years is probably long enough to think about anything…”

E. Shelton Browder

I’ve wrapped dozens of fly rods from fiberglass and graphite blanks for most of my adult life. Most of my friends fish rods I’ve built, and I’ve sold a few too. This has left me with an unscratched itch.

The rod part of a glass or graphite rod was made in a factory, by somebody else. I have no control over how the rod casts, only over how it looks. That is not true of split bamboo rods.

Split bamboo, AKA split cane, construction involves, splitting, tapering and gluing sections of Tonkin bamboo (Arundinaria amabilis, the Lovely Reed) into a composite rod shaft of incredible tensile strength, and infinite possibility. The craftsman decides how the rod will cast, how it will feel, one rod at a time. The craft has roots in the 18^th century, and reached its apex in the first half of the 20^th century. It was eclipsed by lighter and cheaper modern materials in the 50’s and 60’s, and almost disappeared.

Almost…

Cane didn’t quite kick the bucket. It’s now the specialty of mostly one person or very small shops that preserve the skills and knowledge of the old builders. They craft the rods one at a time, investing in each of them 40 hours or so of hand work, ingenuity, insight, angling and casting experience, and pride. The builder lives on the creative edge between craft and art, moving seamlessly between them. I’ve wanted to do this for a long time. That’s the itch I’m here scratching.

George Maxwell has been building cane rods since the 90’s. His lineage runs through builders George Maurer and Tom Maxwell (no relation) back to the great builders of the early 20^th century, and he is now bequeathing it to me. I’ll be here through Tuesday, and I’ll leave here with a finished rod blank. By spring, I’ll be fishing the rod, and I’ll be acquiring the tools and equipment I’ll need to build more.

If you’d like to know more about the history and production of split cane rods, check out Thomas Penrose’s page, or Jeff Wagner’s history of cane rods.

Flaming out the moisture

Today we began by selecting and dividing a 12 foot culm of bamboo, flaming it to drive out most of the moisture. We split the sections, and worked on removing some of the irregularities left by the nodes that bracket each section of the bamboo. Pictures below!