This is the second iteration of the 2-strip bamboo fly rod based on the "Build a cane fly rod in 1 week!" article in the January '04 issue of "Fly Rodders" magazine.

Basically, it's a tweak of a Paul Young Midge 4 weight rod taper. The first rod was fishable (much to my amazement), but a little soft and springy, so for this version I'm (1) flame tempering the surface of the bamboo (flat out scorching it...) where the power fibers lie, and (2) leaving a bit more of those power fibers in place rather than shaving them off in a 120 degree angle cut on the surface. 120 degrees gives you a hex shaped rod, but here I'll make it octagonal.

We'll see how it turns out. (We'll see in about three weeks -- with experience comes efficiency...)

Finished the rod in early July. I took it out for its maiden trip and damned if I didn't catch a nice little Yamame in that secret spot on the Kazuno river. A few weeks later, I headed west to Tenryu and Chaosan (a mountain in the far northeast of Aichi) and on a swift river by a narrow road strewn with rocks and boulders, I hooked into a fish that at first I thought might be a carp, but when I landed him, I saw that he was a nice, strong Yamame.

So the new rod has done well so far. My first fish on a hand-made cane rod (and with a hand-tied Partridge and Orange).

Still lazy with the pictures... But these pictures are nice enough, so I might as well leave them be...

Motivation for this big adventure in woodworking.

Oh yeah... in keeping with the "ugly stick" theme, I'm planning on making a scorched bamboo handle with silk thread wrapping at both ends. This is based on my experience with the flame colored rod tube on version 1 of the poor man's cane rod. I'm wagering it'll look pretty swank. Again, we'll see...

On one of my last fishing trips of the regular season, I went to the Katsuragawa again, but to a new part of it at Uenohara. I wanted to work my way up to Shiotsu, but I couldn't find any decent access points to get to the river. So I gave up and went back to a bridge at Uenohara and started fishing the stream where it merges with another. After only a half hour or so on the somewhat crowded stream (with Ayu fishermen everywhere) I snagged my fly on a tree branch way up. Like an idiot, I started yanking the rod perpendicular to the line and...

broke the rod...

I had one week before I was to fly to Kentucky and this was the rod I wanted to take. I didn't know whether to repair it, or do something completely stupid like try to make a 4th rod in one week (I'd just finished my 3rd as a gift for my father).

That night, back at my apartment, I took out the bamboo knife and split the stave of bamboo into strips. In the next week, I worked maybe 6 hours a day, killing my arms "dressing" the bamboo strips down to the taper specs and after a week, I had a copy of the rod for my father, with the true 4 weight taper and good initial bend that had required no shifting of the guides from their initial placement I'd calculated with guide placement software.

The only catch was that I didn't have time for the traditional four coats of varnish, but the rod fished fine and I caught all those Kentucky trout on it in September/October.

The other interesting thing that happened that day, was that three Japanese guys (who'd been drinking after a mushroom gathering expedition to Mount Fuji) started talking with me. One of them invited me up to his house and we all had beers and later they called up their neighbor, a young and sweet girl who was studying English in school. After taking me to the local noodle shop by the station and insisting on paying, they bid me farewell and made me promise to come again some weekend.

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