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 ...

FREMONT -- Wes Cooper won't be fishing today, the opening day of trout fishing season. He is more likely to be in his basement shop making bamboo fly rods. Cooper, 81, has built 245 such rods since he ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Larry Donahe wants to slow it down. Not just life — though that as well — but the cadence of the fly cast, an already gracefully slow series of motions that allows the skilled angler, armed with 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 ...