When the courier knocked at my door, I knew I was in for a treat as he handed me a tube containing a two piece, 7 foot, 3 weight Chris Clemes Symphony split cane fly rod. It had been over a year since I first met Chris at the Sportfish Show in Reading where I had cast this very rod on the grass beside the marquees and now I was going to fish with it for a fortnight and, unknown to me, catch my largest wild brown trout ever. Although I'm used to fishing delicate two weight, full flex carbon rods I was just a bit nervous unpacking a rod that wasn't mine and had been made by hand over many weeks ..read more

As I travel around the country the stories I hear are as varied as the anglers that tell them. The stories, the tall tales, the campfire fodder are all about big fish and the methods and rods used to catch them. As a maker and collector of cane rods the stories that catch my attention are about bamboo. Bamboo, as in a split bamboo fly rod. The kind of rod your grandfather used to catch impressive brown trout from Michigan’s Ausable or Pere Marquette rivers, monster Rangeley Lake brook trout or silver sided screamers called rainbows in the American West. For almost a hundred years from Samuel ..read more

Although the bamboo fly rod fell out of favor in the 1950s—as a result of an embargo against products from China, which limited the availability of the raw materials, and the introduction of Shakespeare’s newfangled fiberglass Wonderod—some anglers continued to prize the slow action and delicate touch offered by “sweetgrass.” And dedicated craftsmen never stopped turning six-foot “culms” of bamboo into fine fishing tools. In today’s world of lightweight, fast-action, high-modulus graphite fly rods, more and more anglers are returning to the old-school rods produced by traditional shops, such a ..read more

Many people today treat bamboo fly rods as more of an heirloom than a fishing tool, but there are are also plenty of anglers who use only bamboo. In fact, there are probably more people fishing these rods today than there were 10 or 20 years ago. My love affair with bamboo began in the late 1960s. My first fly rod was a tubular steel rod that I found in the rafters of our garage. It was probably made in the 1930s and belonged to my father, who may have used it once or twice, but after he returned from Okinawa in 1945 he was lured by the siren song of the new spinning rods. They were a lot eas ..read more

My father had a very fixed routine. Every evening, when he returned home from his job in London, he would take a chair and place it near the doormat, get the shoe polishing kit from the cupboard and spend several minutes cleaning his shoes thoroughly. He did this in an almost robotic fashion and without fail, placing wooden shoe trees into the now rejuvenated shoes and then leaving them to air. I’m sure he’d have much rather changed out of his suit and relaxed, but you could see he got great pleasure from the results, knowing that not only were they smart and ready for wearing, but they would ..read more

Crafts classified as ‘endangered’ are those which currently have sufficient craftspeople to transmit the craft skills to the next generation, but for which there are serious concerns about their ongoing viability. This may include crafts with a shrinking market share, an ageing demographic or crafts with a declining number of practitioners - The Heritage Crafts Association. History Split cane rods were developed in the USA in the 1870s. Until this time rods had been made from whole cane or solid wood, and the split cane rod was a big improvement due to its lightness and flexibility (the ‘carbo ..read more

Designing your perfect fly fishing tool has never been easier. Find our more by watching the latest video from our workshops. https://vimeo.com/350411073 ..read more

What better way to capture and relive that very special fishing memory than with a true to life water colour painting. With Marcels detailed watercolours you can cherish the moment each time you visit your study or "fishing room". A fin perfect perfect representation What makes Marcels artwork so special is his attention to detail. Each study he undertakes is a painstakingly matched spot for spot and to scale of the original images and measurements that you provide. Marcels preferred medium is watercolour, this is because it adds a level of depth to the paintings and brings out the true colo ..read more

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