Why Bamboo pt 2
Modern craftsmen and women are taking the designs and the techniques of old and added new techniques and materials. Im not saying the modern rod maker is necessarily better than, say, Garrison, Leonard or the like. In fact, we pay homage to them daily. Without them, we ( bamboo rod makers ) would not exist. We merely picked up where they left off. I have no doubt that if they had the new glues, varnishes, computers, etc, that are available today, that they would have used them.
So, why bamboo? Opinions, everybody has one. Heres mine: First its the tradition. It is the way was done in a simpler time. People with other interests collect and drive old cars, collect and shoot old firearms and fill their homes with antique furniture. There is even a fast-growing interest in traditional archery equipment. Scores of hunters have abandoned their compound bows and have taken to hunting with longbows and native American bows, a technological regression of well over a thousand years. A lot of people, myself included, feel that the new stuff just does not have the soul of the old stuff .
Secondly, when it comes to beauty, bamboo wins hands down. There is no comparison. Bamboo rods have a feel that graphite rods lack. I can feel the rod load and unload. In fact, for me, the newest of the new extremely light graphite rods are more tiring to use. They feel good at first, then they sneak up on me. My theory about that is with a super-light rod casting a mid to heavy line, say 5 weight and up, at the end of the back-cast and the rod has unloaded ( rod has straightened and the line is unrolling ), my wrist muscles also unload. There is not enough weight to keep my muscles paying attention . Then the line straightens and the weight of the line hits my unloaded wrist.
GALLERY
THE SHOP
THE FISH
THE RODS