FREMONT, MI – In the quiet of his basement workshop, Wes Cooper has been keeping a 90-year-old Michigan tradition alive - that of hand-building bamboo fly rods in an era dominated by mass-produced ...

Bamboo became a popular material for fishing rods in the late-19th century but quickly was replaced with other materials — metal and, later, fiberglass. Modern graphite is considered by many to be the ...

Get any of our free daily email newsletters — news headlines, opinion, e-edition, obituaries and more. Bill Blackburn’s father bought him his first fly rod at Bargaintown in Manheim, Pa., in 1958. It ...

Many who fish with split-cane bamboo fly rods say they allow a depth of feeling when casting or reeling in a fish that just isn’t possible with today’s more common graphite rods. When Selah’s Kevin ...

You could use one of those fancy side-scan sonar depth finders with the new underwater fish-eye orthographic readouts. Or you could go cut a switch of bamboo and do a little cane-pole fishing. If you ...

The words leave his lips as though he has spoken them a thousand times before, yet resonate here among the culms of bamboo, ancient rod-building machinery and photos of legendary fish from a lost time ...

All students of fly fishing will agree that Tonkin bamboo was the superior material for building a classic fly rod, and most will concur that Tonkin bamboo was correctly named: Arundaria amabilis ...

I'm getting anxious now. Tom Smithwick, who moved to Shippensburg several years ago, builds bamboo fly rods. A couple weeks ago, he found three bamboo rod blanks and offered to help me build out a fly ...

ESKO -- When Phil Johnson was in college, making $3 an hour working summers at the paper mill in Cloquet, he saved enough to buy himself a bamboo fly rod. "I bought an Orvis Battenkill," says Johnson, ...

Join us at Headwaters Outfitters on Saturday, April 4th at 2:00P.M. for a special presentation by bamboo fly rod maker Lou Dondero from On The Rise Bamboo Rods. Lou will discuss the bamboo rod ...

LANESBORO, Minn. — Steve Sobieniak knew what a good fly fishing rod felt like. He developed a feel for the graceful casting tool, particularly ones made of bamboo. He could pick one up, hold it, test ...

Get any of our free daily email newsletters — news headlines, opinion, e-edition, obituaries and more. TWIN BRIDGES - Glenn Brackett will describe the act of building split bamboo fly rods as "a ...