Old rod history questions

[MOturkE]

Anyone here heard of rods made from wood instead of cane or boo; i.e. walnut, maple, etc.?

I was just curious, not very familiar with rod history and seems that somewhere someone would have tried it.

If so, how do you think it would perform? If not, how do you think it would perform, anyway?

[Bamboozle]

MO:

Some early rods were built from greenheart, bethabara, hickory, ironwood, or lancewood. Split bamboo proved superior so the "wooden rods" disappeared although I believe there are still some [url=http://clanrods.com/greenheart.htm:3c389]greenheart[/url:3c389] builders out there in the UK.

[MOturkE]

Very interesting info on the Greenheart rods. Thanks Bam!

[Photojoe4]

I believe ash and cedar were used as well. Hoagy Charmichael listed off a bunch of the different woods that were used in his appearance in the "Trout Grass" movie. Definitely worth watching. Also, I seem to remember seeing an article in FR&R a while back about a fly tyer that was making his own wooden rods, as well as some brass/wood reels.

Regards,
Joe Martin
Salem, OR

[RickB]

Not exactly history but I have a rod I purchased new a few years back off of ebay. It was something the builder was experimenting with and it had a wooden butt section, hickory I think, and a graphite tip section. It was designed to be light weight and still have a slow bamboo-like action. It is a 6' 2wt and works very well for small stream dry fly fishing. I used it in those situations fairly often until I puchased a restored HI Princess last year.

[gadabout]

I think there was an article in RodMaker magazine a couple of years back about how to make a rod out of red cedar.