• 5 fish without moving my feet. What a riot! #

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• Fishing October Caddis dries on the Upper Sac is like an Easter Egg hunt for adults! #

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Mark M. has started building his bamboo fly rod here at Raine Hollowbuilt Fly Rods.  He chose the 8 foot, 5 weight “Upper Sac Special” for his first bamboo fly rod.  Below is the slide show of his build, as it happens.  As an aside, Mark brought his own Walton Powell Hexagraph rod, built for him by Walton himself.  Mark took Walton fishing on the Bitterroot years ago, and the rod maker sent him a rod as a gift!

Notice that during the bamboo rod building process that we lost electricity!  We were working by lantern light from 11 am to 5 pm on Wednesday.  Just shows to go ya that you can build a bamboo fly rod without electricity!  Mark signed his rod and plans to give it to his father for Christmas!

Dunsmuir Rod Company Hosts 2011 Rodmaker's Gathering

Breakfast at McQuire’s Restaurant in Dunsmuir, Ca.  More images to come!

• Why some rodmaking students are better than others. http://t.co/27fr4Ysk #

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• Saw my first October Caddis of the season while walking the dogs this evening. It's gonna start getting good real soon! #
• Favorite bug. BWO combat tie. http://t.co/xySJY6mL #

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East Meets West This Month!  Two students met this Sunday for a Bamboo Rod  Building Class at Raine Hollowbuilt Fly Rods.   Will is from Maine, and Dan from SoCal.  Sunday afternoon had both students casting bamboo fly rods, trying to decide which taper fit them and their fishing needs best!
After casting the DF90, the Upper Sac Special, and the Model 100, both students decided to build the DF 90, a fine 7′ 6″ two piece rod for a 5 weight.

The DF 90 is an E.C. Powell-based B  taper, with a fairly steep slope.  It is a great choice for the fly fisherman who fishes graphite, and wants to move into a quality bamboo fly rod.  Dan and Will chose to use the Payne method of culm selection and utilization.  The only difference so far has been that Will chose a 3×3 node stagger a la Leonard, and Dan opted for the 2x2x2 stagger in keeping with E.C. Powell.  Stay tuned as these two advance through the rod making process!

Wednesday’s work day was done before 5!!  Both Dan and Will ended up with some great rod sections.   As usual, everybody had glue on their hands, so no pictures of the glue-up!  The Raine Better Binder did a great job producing straight rod sections with no twists.  The students did a great job planing out their strips, so the seams were, well, seemless!

Two friends from Texas flew in last month to build themselves fly rods.  My apologies to all for not documenting their builds with photos!  I found my camera after they left.  John and Bryce were kind enough to send me their photos.

Rods done by Saturday Afternoon!

Gary showed up last Sunday from the Tahoe area. He had a gleam in his eye, and a set of strips planed out from some 15 years ago! He did a great job getting “back up to speed” with his building. Gary’s choice of rod was a Payne 98, a fine 7 footer for a 4 weight. A medium flame was put on the culm and I must say, the rod came out just gorgeous.

The production-class Raine Better Binder got a good work out this week!  Sam flew in from Virginia to take a class here, and has made great progress throughout the week.  This is a photo essay of a few of the processes involved in building bamboo fly rods. A more complete slide show is now available. Notice the unique hand grasp that Sam selected for his first bamboo rod, the 8 foot “Upper Sac Special”!

Six of the Raine Better Binder have been completed. Straight rod sections, with no twists! A rod maker’s dream come true!