I started back in the shop this weekend/ I had family in for the 1st time in 6 yrs so I took a break. I am dedicating the right side of the garage and the 2 work benches to rods only. I will finish the bamboo big game rod this week and post it for ya'll. Wow I am getting 330 hits so far.

I am back, gone for a while. I was working on a secret project for my brother who has received his cigar box guitar. There is a strong link between music and fishing, Steve Martin's new album has this great song called "yellow sally" and these instruments like my wood rods are ancestral, beautiful, and have a technology all their own.

This was something I tried for my photo shoot for the rod builders calendar. It is the wood shavings from making a birch and balck walnut rod, the guides, and a fly!

Just trying to figure out how much cork I'll order form this Portuguese cork supplier I found in PowerFibers online magazine.

I saw these nets by a man who also makes wicked tackle boxes.

Well, I didn't win the calendar contest. I have to admit I was rushed to finish and didn't have the second rod ready. My wife says the main idea was to promote sales of standard plastic rods thye sell and not my natural rods I make. Next year I will be ready. The picures are the key and I didn' have the equipment.

Just another shot of the rods!!!

BEWARE!!!!!

Just got back from a seminar on creating apps using robohelp and flare. Long week but I want to share with you this sticker I got as a going away present from my last job.

Wow, been off the blog for a few days as I have been getting these collages together for the the MUDHOLE supplier catalog/calendar contest. Check out the site and see some very intersting rods. I liked the snakehead, impractical, but nice. Another one is the deer antler handle or the pistol grip. Thanks to John Lambert for his help and camera!!!

The Model Box

This is the 1930s tackle box I used as a model for my box. I have not been able to decide if I want to use the corner pieces. Probably not a bad idea but I think it make it more commercial. I have to let it peculate for awhile. I have the time. I'll finish wrapping the rod this weekend but I have to get some good quality cork. I found this Portuguese source though Power Fibers but they do not respond to my emails even in Portuguese?

I have started the wrap on the next rod, the heavier white ash/red oak version. This rod wrapper is one of the best I have worked with. It is an amalgamation of several designs. It is both light-weight, very portable, pretty in its complex sculpting and very functional. You may recognize some the design elements I borrowed. The famous wrapper from Seeker rods, Jim Upton, showed me his design at his home in Huntington Beach, CA several years ago. He was kind enough to show me how he invented his rod wrapper. He uses gravity to put tension on the thread as opposed to clamping the thread or use a spring. I can unwrap and rewrap the line if I make a mistake, like an undo button on a computer. I tried the other tensioners and found out how lazy I had gotten because I knew I could fix a mistake with my wrapper but with the clamped tensioner you must be focused and diligent. You old guys try going back to typewriter and whiteout and ditch your computer with undo, you get the picture. The wwod block is the ballast weight that hangs below the loop, like when you sprial wrap bamboo together when glueing!

I am also posting a wonderful landing net design I though was very clever.

I just love this artwork, my wife made me a quilt with 8 of these fishing pictures incorporated into the front. I have to get  her to take a picture.

Making progress this week!

Here's the rundown;
1) the tackle box is hard maple with brass hinges 9x8x14" with brass hardware and the interior tray and bottom from Alaskan yellow cedar.
2) the top rod is a 6' light casting rod with a redwood burl spaced with cork and black ebony handle (cork upper), ash lower, Ipe upper rod, wrapped in blue/grey silk with orange bands and 12 coats of varnish, chrome 1930's NIB eyes and real seat. The reel is a 1936 Vintage South Bend 790 Smoothcast Direct Drive Fishing Reel.
3) In progress rod is a 6'5" medium casting rod with a maple burl handle w/gaboon burl cap (cork upper), ash lower, red oak upper rod, wrapped in white/clear silk with purple or red? bands and 12 coats of varnish, chrome 1930's NIB eyes and real seat. I have 5 NIB 1930's reel choices here.

 

Fishing for History Project

This is my dream project, to recreate a 17th century tackle shop created as a prop house that can be taken down and shipped to various fishing shows as an education tool. It will be stocked with period books (Compleat Angler), tackle, ect. Perhaps we can get people to man it and be making the gear. The next rendition will be 18th century followed by  pre-war US shop!!!! I believe this venue will very popular and with corporate support, profitable for charities like TU. In the off season it can be sent ot Bass Pro Shops or Cabellas.

Just a few fly and big game rods I show you later.

My next project will have to this line dryer. I am sourcing some silk line and trying to figure out if a 2 weight silk will cast on my rods.

I had a great conversation with Dr. Tod and fishing for history. Kindred spirits. I am showing you some of the handles I made for my big game rods. They are copies of a rod owned by Hemmingway. A tai chi buddy of mine's father-in-law used to fish with him. He loaned the rod to me an I copied it, only I upgraded the wood from hickory to Koa, Aussie cypress, figured black walnut and maple. I also use koa in the rod laminations. It works wonderful if it isn't a little exspensive. It took me over 3 years to perfect the glueing and laminations so that it would achive the correct "spring" and remain straight and not warp. I have more than a few ? shaped prototypes. You can see the rod laminations ready to be glued up.

Before I even get started with my rod project I wanted to share a cutout of a reel built by Michael Hackney and painted by the great fish artist Karen Talbot now featured at her booth at the Laguna Beach, CA Sawdust festival. The long story about the reel is well told in Michael's book on reel making and how we met online. (reelsmithing.com)

This is going to be the interesting part of which I am going to need some help, selecting the top ten lures to make to place in my t-box. I have some line spools form the 30's to duplicate, no problem. I am ordering the cat gut leaders from a site today. Hook, got em. Some bobbers should be easy! Filet knife, done. What else?

This is a true tale.

I have always loved fishing. Some of my fondest memories are when I was a boy catching fish on the shores of Lake Michigan and Green Bay. I started out as a 9 year old crappie expert at Ironton–at-the-Ferry not far from Petosky, MI. My buddy Mark and I would round up a couple crates of empty bottles. We would take them across the Ferry to this small country store and exchange them for credit. The shopping list included one spool of mono filament line, a small bag of hooks and one of sinkers, a candy bar and maybe some penny candy. I always wanted a Coke but that was 25 cents and if I didn’t have enough you could get a bottle of Verner’s ginger ale for a dime. I didn’t like it as much but it was better than water. Now, I prefer ginger ale to Coke, time heals all. I live in southern California now and I was shocked when I saw my old friend Verner’s on the shelf one day. It was like hearing that old college song and the memories fill your head. Now, I prefer ginger ale and never touch Coke. My God, that was 50 years ago. Back to the story.  After  getting the mornings supplies we were back across the ferry to the cottages. In the ditch on the way home grew long, straight, perfectly tapered dogwood for Huckleberry Finn rods. With my boy-scout multi-knife, the one with the folding spoon, we’d have three rods ready in no time. I learned early that grasshoppers were better than worms. I filled my mayonnaise jar from the old lady neighbor’s tall grass behind her house. Fifty years later my Mom revealed to me that the old lady was Ernest Hemmingway’s sister. “How do you know, mom”? She said, “oh, she made sure everyone knew.”

Fast forward to today. Amazing enough I now still fish with wooden rods. I also make my living writing, I may move to the keys soon, been married a few times. I used to smoke cigars but I cannot drink, never could. I do like the local Hemingway's Bar, good food.

There are a lot of different types of fisherman out there. About as many as there are for car racing. You have your NASCAR, off road, rally car, dirt track, drag, and of course there is Monte Carlo! The same goes for motorcycles. In fishing you have your casting, bass-pro circuit, trolling, big game, and of course your fly fishing. I started with a stick and string as a kid. I’ll never forget my first Zebco factory made kit mounted on the colorful cardboard wrapped in clear plastic. My grandmother gave me a new $20 bill form my 9^th birthday. It burned a hole in my pocket until my dad came home from his week-long sales trip. Then it was down to the sporting goods store/gas station. He almost ruined the whole venture with , “if we wait until fall we can save three bucks!” The point was I wanted to go fishing with my dad, with the new rod. He didn’t and never would get it. Well, fifty years later I have progressed through all the variations and now find myself back with a stick and string.

The roots of the real problem is society and not the fisherman. I calculated it. I have worked  for 45 yrs x 2 weeks-vacation/yr, x 45 yrs= 90 weeks. That is less than 2 yrs. to do what I want to do-IN MY LIFETIME. That does not calculate how much of that gets eaten up by car problems or sick kids, etc. Did you hear the recent story about the women who got fired for taking 3 weeks off to donate kidney to her dying son. Do we really need to increase productivity in a world so we can fill more Dollar-stores  to the top with crap!!! So, when I am finally able to save enough up go to Baja, I want to catch fish. For the guides, people don’t come back if they don’t catch fish. Our increasing everyday pressures, created by greedy CEOs, have caused us to drag these out-of-whack values into our sports.

This is the 19th century tackle box I am copying in maple at the moment!!! Look at my earlier post to see it. The hardware has been the problem, it's like the old days where I have to order the parts from catalogs!

A small note about the blog design, I use all the organic colors of trees and the circle pattern reminds me of the end of the wood rod!!!

I have always owned motorcyles as did my dad. I am also in HOG, Harley's Owner Group. It has been reported on most websites that HD built their bikes to race. Actually they built their first bike so they could get home faster to fish everyday. I have noticed most of the ads for the older age group always include fly fishing, Holy Kevin Bacon and the 6 degrees of separation. Since Jesus touches almost everything in culture and Peter fished it is so easy to link it all.

The tackle box is almost done. For me there is nothing harder than making a square box, square anything out of wood. Plywood is very stable, that's the idea. There wasn't a lot of it around back in the 30's. I am making these tackle boxes not like a jewelry box or artwork but more like Stickler furniture, Craftsmen style. This box was thrown in a backseat or hauled through the woods! The same for the rods, something to be proud of but also something that was going to break or wear out. I made the bottom out of Alaskan yellow cedar as is the tray inside. This will keep the bugs out of the all natural materials like the line and the cat gut leaders.

Casting Rod

What I set out to do was make a 1930's era wood rod using all period correct equipment. I purchased a new-in-the-box (NIB) 1937 Shakespeare reel (actually 6 of them) and am making rods/tackle boxes/nets/and all the tackle in the box to match. That means hand carving the plugs and hammering the spoons myself. I have silk and hemp line and cat gut leaders.This rod is 6 ft. with a white ash lower and a Ipe tip. All the wraps are silk with varnish finish (about 20 coats). The guides are antique as is the reel mount.

 


Reel Art
I know this is supposed to be about rods but rods w/o reels are like a sandwich without bread This is a painting of a reel made by my friend Michael Hackney. How we met online and I taught him to make reels is well described in his book (I''ll quote it shameless later). Karen Talbot is a fine fish artist who is displaying this work at her booth at the Sawdust festival in Laguna Beach, CA.

The Great American Wood Fishing Rod

This is the start of my documenting my long journey to making or should I say remaking of the wood fishing rod. It started many millenium ago and was refined through time unitl the what I hope was not the sunset marked by the greats such as Hemingway and Zane Grey. With a little work they will not be the our last. I have held these rods and admired them for their beauty and power. Many records were set with these sylvan wonder rods. And so let's get started.......