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10/01/11 Bamboo Bewilderment
October 2011
Sport Fishing Magazine
FOR THE RECORD
Bamboo Bewilderment
By Tred Barta
I have always poked fun at the stereotypical L.L.Bean, Orvis, Land Rover, fly-fishing nimrod trendoids – you know, the ones with the Old Town green canoe atop their expensive British racing-green, four-wheel-drive luxury vehicle, with sales tags hanging all over their gear. You could say they are absolutely clueless, despite the one Joan Wulff class they might have attended.
Those in this supposedly elite group seem to be anti-hunting, release everything they catch and donate to everything from Save the Whales to Greenpeace to the Nature Conservancy. Generally, I have not found one who knew how to clean and prepare fish or fowl, or navigate his way anywhere without a pointand- click GPS system in his car, boat and telephone. That they purport to be outdoorsmen qualifies as a pathetic joke.
My modus operandi has always been: "Do it the hard way, the Barta way." For me, that means catching sailfish on 2-, 4- and 6-pound line, and blue and black marlin on 8- and 16-pound-test. My 215-pound bigeye tuna on 20-pound-test and my 38-pound dolphin on a 6-pound fly tippet remain IGFA world records to this day. I shoot my own homemade wooden cedar arrows from my longbow, just the way they did it in medieval times. I track my game, wind in my face, offering a fair chase.
Recently, I have read some 40 books on the subject of custom, handmade bamboo fly rods. During my research, I have cast at least 10 different bamboo rods from different manufacturers, discovering that, personally, my rod of choice is made by Bernard Ramanauskas, designer and builder of a spectacularly beautiful bamboo rod called Eden Cane.
Ramanauskas builds his rods using a labor intensive, nodeless, scarfed construction method that removes the weak and blemished growth rings from the bamboo, which can cause splitting and breakage in the finished rod, giving them far better power-to-weight ratios and less wind resistance than any other bamboo-construction method.
A 3-weight bamboo fly rod is equivalent to a 1- weight carbon-fiber, woven-graphite, techno-glass, fast-action something-or-other.
I consider casting a dry fly perfectly to a wary rainbow trout across 30 feet of fast-moving water an art form, and I love the challenge. Now that I understand what's involved, for the rest of my life I will fish only bamboo fly rods in both fresh and salt water. To start, I am soon off to Belize with 3- and 5-weight bamboo sticks for bonefish, and plan to try tempting sails and blue marlin on 10-weights in Guatemala. I even hope to pursue 500-plus-pound blue and black marlin on antique bamboo conventional tackle with custom-made linen line and wire leaders on 60-year-old reels. Wow! Am I a glutton for punishment?
With my paralysis, I needed a rod designer to customize the action of the rod, the grips, the taper and the balance. I also needed someone who believed in my quest: Ramanauskas did.
The perception by today's fly-fishermen is that bamboo rods are very expensive. Absolutely true.. But that bamboo is not strong is an absolute myth. Some anglers also falsely believe bamboo will not cast a long distance. Rubbish!
I will say one thing: Bamboo is not friendly to nimrod trendoids. A bamboo rod takes lots of skill and care to cast properly. It's like comparing a modern compound bow to a longbow. A good bamboo fly rod is like a vintage 1940s-era pickup truck, completely and lovingly restored, versus a new truck with deluxe interior and satellite navigation.
Some of you are probably muttering, "Oh geez, Tred's turned into one of those nimrods he hates so much!" Well, as a Republican just to the right of Attila the Hun, as a man who hunts, fishes, shoots and flawlessly navigates anywhere, let me dispel those rumors. I simply want to fly-fish the hard way, preserving fly-fishing history in the process.
Till next tide,
Capt. Tred Barta
PS: Join me as friend on Facebook. I would love to meet you.
Sport Fishing Magazine
FOR THE RECORD
Bamboo Bewilderment
By Tred Barta
I have always poked fun at the stereotypical L.L.Bean, Orvis, Land Rover, fly-fishing nimrod trendoids – you know, the ones with the Old Town green canoe atop their expensive British racing-green, four-wheel-drive luxury vehicle, with sales tags hanging all over their gear. You could say they are absolutely clueless, despite the one Joan Wulff class they might have attended.
Those in this supposedly elite group seem to be anti-hunting, release everything they catch and donate to everything from Save the Whales to Greenpeace to the Nature Conservancy. Generally, I have not found one who knew how to clean and prepare fish or fowl, or navigate his way anywhere without a pointand- click GPS system in his car, boat and telephone. That they purport to be outdoorsmen qualifies as a pathetic joke.
My modus operandi has always been: "Do it the hard way, the Barta way." For me, that means catching sailfish on 2-, 4- and 6-pound line, and blue and black marlin on 8- and 16-pound-test. My 215-pound bigeye tuna on 20-pound-test and my 38-pound dolphin on a 6-pound fly tippet remain IGFA world records to this day. I shoot my own homemade wooden cedar arrows from my longbow, just the way they did it in medieval times. I track my game, wind in my face, offering a fair chase.
Recently, I have read some 40 books on the subject of custom, handmade bamboo fly rods. During my research, I have cast at least 10 different bamboo rods from different manufacturers, discovering that, personally, my rod of choice is made by Bernard Ramanauskas, designer and builder of a spectacularly beautiful bamboo rod called Eden Cane.
Ramanauskas builds his rods using a labor intensive, nodeless, scarfed construction method that removes the weak and blemished growth rings from the bamboo, which can cause splitting and breakage in the finished rod, giving them far better power-to-weight ratios and less wind resistance than any other bamboo-construction method.
A 3-weight bamboo fly rod is equivalent to a 1- weight carbon-fiber, woven-graphite, techno-glass, fast-action something-or-other.
I consider casting a dry fly perfectly to a wary rainbow trout across 30 feet of fast-moving water an art form, and I love the challenge. Now that I understand what's involved, for the rest of my life I will fish only bamboo fly rods in both fresh and salt water. To start, I am soon off to Belize with 3- and 5-weight bamboo sticks for bonefish, and plan to try tempting sails and blue marlin on 10-weights in Guatemala. I even hope to pursue 500-plus-pound blue and black marlin on antique bamboo conventional tackle with custom-made linen line and wire leaders on 60-year-old reels. Wow! Am I a glutton for punishment?
With my paralysis, I needed a rod designer to customize the action of the rod, the grips, the taper and the balance. I also needed someone who believed in my quest: Ramanauskas did.
The perception by today's fly-fishermen is that bamboo rods are very expensive. Absolutely true.. But that bamboo is not strong is an absolute myth. Some anglers also falsely believe bamboo will not cast a long distance. Rubbish!
I will say one thing: Bamboo is not friendly to nimrod trendoids. A bamboo rod takes lots of skill and care to cast properly. It's like comparing a modern compound bow to a longbow. A good bamboo fly rod is like a vintage 1940s-era pickup truck, completely and lovingly restored, versus a new truck with deluxe interior and satellite navigation.
Some of you are probably muttering, "Oh geez, Tred's turned into one of those nimrods he hates so much!" Well, as a Republican just to the right of Attila the Hun, as a man who hunts, fishes, shoots and flawlessly navigates anywhere, let me dispel those rumors. I simply want to fly-fish the hard way, preserving fly-fishing history in the process.
Till next tide,
Capt. Tred Barta
PS: Join me as friend on Facebook. I would love to meet you.
