Bamboo Fly Rod - History

History

Fishing with a fly rod the way we know it today started between 1790 and 1845. Many bamboo and wood species were used as a building material before and during that period but bamboo soon became the popular and preferred material to use. It is believed that in 1846 Samuel Phillipe, a gunsmith from Easton, Pennsylvania made the first 6 strips designed tip from Calcutta Cane and that his son, Solon, built the first complete hexagonal rod from Calcutta cane in 1859.. Although that assertion has come under fire recently, with the publication of Split & Glued By Vincent C. Marinaro (2007). The two authors, Bill Harms and Tom Whittle, dispute Samuel Phillipe as the first to use six strip design to build bamboo rods. According to their research Charles Murphy and others began building six-strip bamboo rods at least five years earlier.

As bamboo popularity increased, the H.L. Leonard rod company started making machinery to produce cane/ bamboo fly rods. The first fly fishing rods were made from ash and lancewood, but in 1874 H.L. Leonard started to make bamboo rods exclusively until his death in 1907. The company would continue to make rods for almost eight decades under various ownership, including surviving a fire in 1964 which virtually destroyed the shop. In 1984, it eventually went bankrupt. The machinery from the Leonard shop, including the beveler, was purchased at auction by Marc Aroner who continues to make rods under his own name.

Square or Quadrate rods were the first rods Leonard made because his belief was that these performed much better but he eventually started making 6 strip or hexagonal rods because of commercial reasons. At that time good quality cane was hard to find. What was available was often full of scorch marks and insect damage. For this reason it was easier to acquire six strips of good quality cane than 4 wider strips for the Quadrate rod. The hexagonal version was easier to produce and soon became the standard. Bill Edwards, Sam Carlson and Ebenezer Green produced Quadrate rods and others even made bamboo rods which had pentagonal and octagonal cross-sections.

Bamboo soon became the preferred material for all fishing rods with Tonkin cane being prized above other species. This continued to 1950 when a trade embargo was imposed on Chinese goods. Due to the resultant shortage of quality bamboo and the concurrent development of synthetic fibers the fabrication of bamboo rods nearly stopped. By the time the embargo ended in the early seventies only a handful of craftsmen were still making bamboo rods. The main reason for bamboo rods regaining their popularity was a result of Everett Garrison together with Hoagy Carmichael publishing bamboo rod building ‘secrets’ in their book A Masters guide to building a bamboo fly rod.