I just received a new shipment of 9mm and 10mm Agate Stripping Guides for my bamboo fly rods from Joe Arguello. I use only premium quality Agate Stripping Guides with black nickel finishes on my rods, and Joe’s guides are some of the best around. The Green/Olive/Brown guides are for rods with Olive wraps and the Banded Dark Amber guides match a lot of other wrap colors very well.
I finally got out to fly fish yesterday on the Middle Deschutes River here in Central Oregon. The river is pretty spectacular, with a brief hike down into the canyon to the river. It’s small water down there, with some great nymphing opportunities. I took out my 9′ 0″ 3 wt EuroNymphing Bamboo Fly Rod for the day and wasn’t disappointed. The Salmon Fly hatch was over about 2 weeks ago but the fish were happy to take Golden Stonefly Nymphs. For the day, I caught about 15 whitefish, along with 6 rainbows and 9 brown trout. Here are a few photos from my day.
Wow, it’s been way too long since my last blog post. After a couple of months of staying at home and hibernating in my workshop, I’ve been able to get out on some of our more isolated waters here in Central Oregon. Caught some big fish…caught some smaller fish…but it has been great to get back out with my bamboo rods. With no stories attached, here are a few pictures of my exploits over the past two weeks.
I’ve always used snake guides on my bamboo fly rods that have a bronze finish. I’m not fond of a chrome finish on guides, and the bronze finish blends very well with the color of bamboo. Unfortunately, bronzed guides are no longer available so I’ve been working for the past couple of weeks to do my own bronzing on my guides. The early results are looking very promising, but I still have a little more testing to do. So far, I’ve come up with a very slight bronze color, all the way to almost black, playing around with time and temperature in the bronzing solution. Here is an example of my test samples:
I recently discovered a great new wood for reel seats on my rods. Kingwood is a member of the Rosewood family. It’s one of the hardest of the rosewoods, and as such, can be a little challenging to work with. But, with very sharp tools, it turns well on my lathe. It has a little more of a purple color than most of the rosewoods along with many black streaks in it. Once it is finished with a nice oil finish, the purple turns into a deep red color, let’s call it a “Cabernet” color! Here is what it looks like once it is finished.
