Tag Archives: bamboo

Date Night…An Evening Out….

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Mary Ann and I had to get out of the house for a few hours and managed to sneak out to the Metolius River yesterday evening for two hours. It was an incredibly peaceful evening away from the crowds down on the lower river. We both took out our 7′ 9″ 4 wt bamboo rods for the evening. A few BWOs starting showing up about 5:00 PM and then some PMDs about 30 minutes later. No fish seemed to want to come to the surface but we did well swinging PMD soft hackles…Thanks John Kreft for your great PMD Soft Hackle Pattern.

waiting for the evening hatch….
Mary Ann working a nice riffle.
A Nicely Colored Rainbow
John Kreft’s #16 PMD Soft Hackle

Molly Semenik Casting Bamboo

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I built a bamboo rod for a dear friend, Molly Sememik, last year and she sent me a photo of her fishing it last week. Molly is a world-class fly casting instructor and she certainly demonstrates how to throw a nice loop with her new rod. I couldn’t help posting this photo here in my blog, as well as an older photo of her fishing her rod with me on the Metolius River last year. And thanks to Heather Hodson for the great casting photo of Molly. Enjoy.

Molly Casting her new bamboo fly rod.

My Bamboo EuroNymphing Rod on the Lower Deschutes River

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I got out on the Lower Deschutes River yesterday for a day float with Mary Ann, and our good friends Alice and Mike, who are both guides from West Yellowstone, MT. Mary Ann, Alice, and Mike took out their two hand rods and chased steelhead for the day. But, I was more interested in looking for the larger rainbows in the Deschutes River with my 9′ 0″ 4 wt bamboo EuroNymphing rod. I had some great action with small #18 and #20 mayfly nymphs, with several fish in the 15″ to 19″ range landed. My 4 wt rod managed these larger fish very well, and I never felt I wasn’t in complete control. And the sensitivity of the rod made it easy to detect the light takes on these small flies. I even hooked a nice steelhead momentarily on one of my small nymphs, but after a few head shakes, it easily broke my 4X tippet…not sure how well my 4 wt rod would have handled that fish.! Here are a few photos of my day.

Fighting a nice fish.
First fish of the day.
Another nice one.
Colorful Deschutes River Redside.

A great Montana Brown Trout

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Earlier this year I was privileged to present my good friend, Carol Morris, with one of my new 10′ 6″ 5 wt bamboo Trout Spey Rods. Since then, she has been working on her two handed casting, and it looks her efforts have paid off. She just returned from a 3 week trip to Montana where she fished the rod a lot for some of those big Montana Brown Trout. Check out her success below:

Here is Carol with her new bamboo Trout Spey rod.
Carol’s great catch.

Router Bit for Cutting Reel Seat Mortices

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Hi Everyone,

I often get the question of what router bit I use to cut the mortices on my wood reel seat inserts on my bamboo fly rods. I’ve found one that works pretty well from Rockler (www.rockler.com), a Convex Edge Rounding Bit…Item No. 22597. I also had another question about how I hold the reel seat insert to make the router cut. I’ve come with a simple solution….I’ve routered a 5/16″ slot in a piece of melamine, and then notched out the area where the insert is held. I put the insert on a 5/16″ threaded rod, which then fits down into the slot in the melamine. The edge of the melamine can then slide on the router table fence to make the cut.

Convex Edge Rounding Bit
Finished Reel Seats
Reel Seat holder for cutting mortices on a router table.