A good while back an old friend gave me a bamboo fly rod. He'd bought it on eBay and for whatever reason parted with it by presenting it to me.

It's nine foot, three piece and seems to cast a WFF 6 Cortland FairPlay line just fine.

But it was always a bit too big and heavy for me. So I fished it less than some other of my rods.

Then, a few months ago my friend Don (zenkoanhead) showed me some detachable butt rods. My mind began to whirl! Instead of cutting down the nine footer and permanently converting it, I could add a detachable butt and have my cake while eating it. But the whole idea of building the butt was daunting.

Then, a tragic rot breakage in a detachable butt rod made a butt section available. I tried it out, it fit fine and now I have a two piece, four weight six foot, eleven inch bamboo fly rod.


The other night, on my first outing, landed this fella


I'm told that I got really lucky the way it worked out. Well, I'm glad that it all worked out.

Makes me wonder why there aren't detachable butt graphite rods? Having a multi-use rod would be a sweet deal.