Tag Archives: bamboo

Fishing my local creek in October

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I made it out to my favorite local small creek this past week with my good friend, Joe.  I fished my 6′  8″ 3 wt bamboo and Joe took out his 7′ 0″  4 wt bamboo that he built in my workshop.  This creek runs right below my house and gets almost no fishing pressure,  so we had the water to ourselves for the afternoon.  This is some of my favorite kind of fly fishing…getting out on very small local waters with light bamboo fly rods.  We found several willing native rainbows in the 6″ t 11″ range ready to take assorted nymphs and dry flies.

My favorite small rod with a classic Pflueger 1492 reel.

Joe fighting a nice little rainbow

A nice fish landed!!!

We each caught several of these colorful native rainbows.

A new custom rod I just finished

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I just finished a new rod for a customer who was looking for a fast action rod that he could travel with.  We decided on a 7′  3″  3 piece 4 wt rod.  I don’t normally build fast action rods, but I modeled one of my other rods to meet his interests.  He chose an English walnut reel seat with engraved hardware, and Royal Hunt primary silk thread wraps on the guides.  We were both extremely happy with how it came out…a great fast action rod for small streams.  Here are a couple of photos.

A great fast action rod with English walnut reel seat and Royal Hunt wraps.

A beautiful 7′ 3″ 4 wt rod.

Olivia is back in my workshop

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Olivia Elia, is back in my workshop this week.  She was with family for several days but is back in Sisters now it’s great to have her back.  It’s fun to have another builder in the shop with me to bounce ideas off of, and I think we do a great job at challenging each other in our bamboo rod building efforts. She started a new 7′ 9″ 4 wt bambo fly rod this week as a custom order from a new client.  Here is Olivia at work!!!

Splitting Bamboo Strips

 

Running the Bellinger Beveller

 

New Bamboo Rod Building Apprentice

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I would like to introduce everyone to Olivia Elia, my bamboo rod building apprentice. Olivia built her first bamboo fly rod two years ago, and has a goal of taking her rod building skills to a high level. Olivia currently lives in Santa Rosa, CA, and we’ve worked a plan for her to apprentice with me through some time with me in my workshop, as well as through virtual connectivity for the two of us. Olivia is a very talented photographer, musician, luthier, and and fly fishing angler, and you can see some of her talents showcased on her WEB site at: https://www.oliviaelia.com/.

Olivia spent a couple of weeks with me in my workshop recently working on rods. Her workshop skills are at a high level, and she has demonstrated fantastic skills towards rod building. I worked with her on three new bamboo fly rods while she was here, passing on my rod building knowledge where ever I could. It may not be too long before she is teaching me a few things about rod building. Here are a few photos of her time in my workshop:

Olivia and I with beveled and heat treated strips for our rods.
Splitting Strips
Removing nodes.
Straightening Strips with the Heat Gun.
Running strips through the Bellinger Beveler.
We’re both hand planing strips.
Ferrules, Cork, and Reel Seats are done…ready to varnish bamboo and tie on guides.

New Tool Arrives

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It’s always fun when a new tool arrives in the workshop. After years of procrastinating, I finally ordered a new dust collection system from JET for the shop, and it came this week After some assembly, it’s now ready to suck like crazy.

It’s here!!!
Some Assembly Required…
All set up and ready to run.