A Complete Waste of Space

Yep, China has the best bamboo. Tonkin. The say the older bamboo was better and most of the top builders bought a bunch and saved it. Most of my bamboo rods were built from late 30's to late 40's. The golden years of bamboo rods. They just keep getting worth more and more. Better than stocks.

Damn, a good fly fishing thread!!
Dawg, Nice job on the bass. Yeah, Clousers rock.

BK, Bamboo is nice, those new Japanese Tankara things are a fad(let's face it, the fly-fishing craze and thus the market sort of went flat)

Pud, Herter's was a great, fun catalog. Still have a few little packs of stuff from them. Carbon fiber rods
are FAR lighter than the equivalent bamboo, require less care and work well.

It's true that CF rods killed the bamboo market for the majority, but there's still the die hards who wouldn't fish anything else.

You mention the GF rods being lighter. That's what we bamboo lovers are getting away from. It feels like i'm casting air with GF. I like the weight of bamboo. I can feel the rod in the whole cast. Just load it on the backcast and let the rod do the rest. It's very relaxing, but there's a lot of power if you get it into the butt. I can cast all the line with an 8 1/2' 5wt Granger. Just showing off though. I never need that cast when fishing.

They require a bit more care, but not much. It's easy to fix a broken bamboo rod. With GF, you blow it up when it breaks. Throw away rods at $700 ea.

I really enjoy a 7' or 7 1/2' bamboo with a med action on a small creek with dry flies. To me that's what fly fishing is all about. I go so far as to use silk lines too. It adds to the mood, and bamboo cast better with silk. I will admit the silk line is much more work to keep up than the bamboo rod.

Besides, bamboo just looks so good. To this old fart anyway.

If my memory is accurate after all these years....do you have to put silicone on the silk to make it float?....I can barely remember folks doing that to dry flies....I never did, just false casted until they were good to go....yeah, back in the day, I made all my leaders...I guess they are all store bought now......Biggest fish I ever caught was a (I think)a Norther Pike at Burke Lake in Fairfax County....in 1969...I was fishing for Bluegills and Bass.....on a two pound leader (tip) and it took awhile and a lot of luck to land the critter....I got my picture taken for it....a very heady experience for a young lad....The fish weighed around 5 lbs..... All in all not much of a feat....but a nice memory....

A 5 lb fish is a nice fish.

Yes, I have to treat the silk line so it will float. I use Mucilin. It's made in England and is actually bear fat. You can't use any kind of silicone around bamboo. Not that it will hurt it, but if you ever want to refinish it you'll have a hell of a time getting the silcone off.

Not only do you have to treat the silk line, but at the end of the day you have to stip it off the reel to let it dry. Silk will rot if you leave it wet. The way I do it it's simple and only takes two minutes to strip it off. I use a line winder.

All in all silk probably takes 5 minutes time a day to care for it. The beauty is the line will last 30 years.

Plus it makes a beautiful sound going through the guides.