I started my first rod build on the evening of January 24th and today, June 6th, am within a few short hours of the final varnish dip and mounting the reel seat, then it is really and truly finished. That will be next week given my travel schedule. Here are the project notes of the first cast of my first rod build…
Congratulations. I remember my first build. I never did wet a line with it but, it was sold and sure the person that bought it has wet it many times over. Let us know how it fishes.
Well, here it is… what an amazing learning curve I was on for this one - fish it first time this weekend while up at Grayrock.
Nice Bob. I love the thread color and have always liked down locking reel seats. I feel it just balances off better with the reel on the end. I finally got out and cast my new bamboo yesterday. I don’t know if you got the same feeling I did but, wow what a sweet feeling. Slow and smooth and delicate. I have my new favorite rod. I hope you enjoy it. Any plans on building more?
Lovely build! But you knew you had me at the downlocking reel seat! Keep us posted on its’ first water time.
Reporting live from the upper Manistee… rod fishes great!
Browns last night at 10:30PM, almost dark. Grayrock
Rodmakers gathering was outstanding. Thanks for the
nice cooments.
For those with interest and lots of time on their hands, here’s a video tracing the build of this rod…
http://www.youtube.com/my_videos_edit?ns=1&video_id=cjCQtw3npus
Bob
Nice meeting you at Grayrock. The rod looks great. The video of the build was really great. Your choice of mentors is questionable at best though…
By the way, the PMQ is fishing great! I brought 4 other rods with me and I doubt that they will see the light of day.
Keep up the good work and keep in touch
Brad
Hey Brad - thanks for the note and it was good to meet you up there, too. As a result of hearing about your rod I was just looking at a PMQ build article this morning. After I get the hang of the hex rod I think I’ll build one to compare. I wish I had spent some time examining yours before I left.
Regarding my mentor, Mark - I may have convinced him never to take on an apprentice again!
BTW, the furled leader was a hit on the Manistee that night - worked great.
Bob
As a first rod I only got kind of close to the intended taper of Payne 98 - the tip section wasn’t too far off but the butt… well, I’ve seen butts that are beauts but this one isn’t. But then I have learned that’s more or less true of most rods built… so here is my rod blank averaged data plotted against a couple of others.
Apparently the over-sized butt section with a substantial increase just below the ferrule is the primary cause of a noticeable ripple in the line on both the back and forward casts. I can toss either a 4 or 5 weight line with it but it does a fantastic job of roll casting with a 5 wt. The bottom line is, it works.
Next up is a Garrison 202E…
I just got back from 4 days fishing in Colorado with our youngest son, Jon. We fished Cheesman Canyon on the South Platte, the middle St Vrain southwest of Lyons in Peaceful Valley (and now I kind of have an idea of what John Gierach is talking about), the north St Vrain along the Wild Basin Trail just above Allenspark in the RMNP and, best of all, the Colorado River about 15 miles south of its headwaters near the Colorado River Trail (11 miles north of Grand Lake, CO) in the RMNP. Fishing for brook trout along the Colorado River is just so much fun… more fish than you could imagine. Jon tried my bamboo rod for the first time and here is what happened:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbYpTUJgmd8
Here’s the video of the entire trip to Colorado, fishing the South Platte in Cheesman Canyon, the St Vrain and the Colorado Rivers…
Those fish landing scenes are classic, especially the first one where you lost your net. Classic
NT1, watching it in person was a real hoot - that’s our youngest son, Jon, who lives in Littleton. He forgot to secure his net to his pack. He out fished me a bunch - nothing I caught needed a net! I have a still photo of this sequence where he was holding the net upside down at one point - we both thought it was hilarious.
So I am now straightening strips for a Garrison 202E and just purchased the DVD of Garrison making fly rods. And I thought I was the only one struggling to get strips straight… at t=29:36 Garrison is sitting at his bench showing us how he straightens strips and he sights down along one he just worked on and mutters, “****, ah ****…”. My sentiments exactly!
I’m in Sweden right now and just heard from our son Jon who has returned from a weekend trip to Cheesman Canyon on the South Platte. In light of the fish-landing scene in our video I thought I’d post his report:
killed it at cheesman today, caught 4 really nice trout - all over 15" (i actually measured them this time, the largest was 18). *3 brown, 1 rainbow. *no pics - i had my phone in my backpack. *never go to cheesman without a net - i would’ve caught more if i had mine but i had to land them with my hands…tied good knots today evidently!
Just got back from a trip to Montana - of the rivers and streams we fished here is a Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout caught on Bitch Creek in Idaho on my bamboo rod… what a thrill!
You should be close to finishing the 202E by now. How’s that going?
Hey Bob!
Well, I need to get hot on that - I have been traveling all over the place this summer and it is still in rough-planed state in my shop. This one (assuming it turns out well enough) is going to be a Christmas present for our son Jon out in Colorado. My mentor Mark thinks it ought to be a Granger since Jon lives in CO but I’ve already got it in my mind to keep it a G202E since I really like the way they cast. Now that I’ve had the opportunity to use my rod in Michigan, Colorado, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming over the summer several things have occurred to me - first, I really, really like using a bamboo rod, and second, once I got over the mental hangup of trying to handle it like a piece of fine china it dawned on me that that’s all it really is - a fly rod. But a good one.