2006 Great Western Rod Gathering

Hello everyone interested in cane fly rod building. Well, the Great Western Rod Gathering in Dunsmuir, CA is an event you won't want to miss next year if you're in a position to go. The wife and I had a great time on Saturday, stayed about 4 hours or so, met some great builders, saw some amazing things done with cane that I'd not seen first hand before, got to cast some very nice bamboo fly rods and learned an awful lot really fast as regards building rods from scratch. Maybe I'll try splitting some...well, maybe I will someday !

I had the pleasure of meeting and speaking with fish4trout, the gentleman that posted the 'Coming Event' for the Great Western Rod Gathering. I spoke with Chris Raine, sponser of the event and owner of the Dunsmuir Rod Company (see link in fish4trout's post,take a look at Chris' beautiful looking cane rods) and from what I gathered, this, the second year of the event had double the attendance and looking around just on Saturday I'd say there were about 70 people in and out at various levels of involvement.

I cast 4 bamboo rods and I'll have to say the actions and overall feel has come a long ways...hope that's not an insult to any of the great builders, past or present...because even given my sloppy casting style, I could put them all out of the pond after a few casts. The 8 ft. one piece quad was what everyone was referring to as a 'cannon' and I could feel why. The bamboo ferruled fly rods were gems and it almost felt like one of them was casting itself with little input from me. Another, one of Chris Raine's bamboo fly rods, was a dream to cast and all I can think of to describe the fit and finish is elegant.

I'll be blocking out the entire weekend next year as this event ran Friday eve with seminars and talks, all day Saturday and part day Sunday. The final partial day on Sunday was a group effort by all the builders to put together a fly rod to give to Casting For Recovery. The representatives for Casting For Recovery were, as it turns out, from my own nearby area so it wasn't judst Chris and fish4trout that I knew there. I also ran into some of the greats from up Camp Sherman way that remembered me so all in all it was a well worthwhile trip south.

Also attending was D&K Sporting Collectibles and for some reason I brought my 'Beans LL' along to see if anyone there could ID it for me as to maker. It turns out back then some LL Bean (if not all during the era of my Bean's LL) were contracted out. D&K Sporting Collectibles took a brief look at it, did some node spacing counting and decided it was a 'Paul Young' for LL Bean. Was I pleased !

Anyway, a must attend next year for me at least. I hope to see more FAOL'ers in attendance next time ! Could even wrap a 'fish in' around the cane event as several other clubs seemed to have done. Ok, enough on this !

Cheers,

MontanaMoose