A Very Moral Fishing Rod

Yesterday we went to my favourite fishery, as we often do on a Sunday. It’s run by some very good friends and aside from the chance to visit them, there’s always the opportunity for a bit of fishing.

As usual I picked up my “go to” rod, a custom rebuilt South Bend 359. The original rod had been an 8’ 6’’ but in being rebuilt, by a very skilled craftsman in the Ile De France, it had been reduced to just 8’ 3’’.  The 359 hails from Wes Jordan’s tenure as workshop manager at South Bend, and is rated as a dry fly rod. Actually, if you even try to cast a weighted fly with it, the cast just collapses in a heap as the rod seems to lose all of its “spring”.

As usual there was a westerly blowing, not a strong one, but enough to ruffle most of the small two acre loch I prefer. However, there’s always a sheltered spot at the top of the water where the outfall from two springs enters the loch, - usually a good place for holding fish in any conditions. As there was nothing showing on the surface, I decided to fish a couple of wets, a damsel nymph (un-weighted of course) on the point and an orange bodied PTN on a dropper. The PTN makes sense because of the large number of shrimp in the water, many of which carry the bright orange parasite that makes such a good “hot spot” for feeding fish. Well, I should have known better. Although the rod cast as reliably as ever, within a few minutes I had a complete rat’s nest at the end of the line, and had no choice but to send 15 feet of fluorocarbon into the nearest bin. Undeterred, I made up a duplicate task and set about fan casting to search the water in front of me. About ten casts later and I knew the flies weren’t swimming correctly – another macramé special in the leader, and another 15 feet of nylon in the bin. Maybe my trusted 359 was trying to tell me something…..

Clearly I had been judged and found wanting! I sat down, lit my pipe and unfurled the tapered dry fly cast that lives in the pocket of my vest, tied on a small hopper, and carried on. I wasn’t at all surprised to find myself fishing on for the next hour without the slightest tangle. There were a few rising fish by this time, but then the wind backed into the North West and stirred up a real ruckus on the surface, - no trout however far sighted was going to see a fly in that. I wish that I could tell you that my rediscovered virtue was rewarded with a fish on the bank, but sadly not this week.  I did see a heron fly over though..

Malloch's Centre Brake Anatomy

Well now, that wasa bit of a break - suffice it to say it has been an interesting year since my last posting, so let's leave it at that shall we...

Around the turn of the Twentieth century, a lot of reel makers and retailers were experimenting with ways of supplementing the various pawl-based check mechanisms in use, - usually with some sort of continuously adjustable drag, often referred to at the time as a "centre brake" Malloch of Perth made a significant contribution with their patented example. This is a partial re-post of an article I put up on the Classic Fly Rod Forum earlier this year...

I recently acquired this example of one of these reels that has been “in the wars” a bit. The foot has been clumsily filed with attendant file marks to the shoulders of the reel, and, worse still, the calliper check has at some point been drilled out, leaving a nasty hole in the back plate. However, you don’t see many of these, and it’s still a handsome reel. I wanted to see how much damage had been done to the check, and give the reel a bit of a clean up, so I thought I’d bite the bullet and dismount the spool as well.

Here’s what I found:

This is the view from the top of the spool, once it has been dismounted from the frame. The screw holes receive fixing screws that locate right through the winding plate and the visible half of the brake mechanism. Incidentally, notice the artisan mark XI on the edge of the spool.

Here’s the top of the winding plate showing the corresponding screw holes.

The brake mechanism itself is in three parts:

The familiar rotating drag adjustment that can be seen on the front of the reel. This conceals a bronze wedge, advance on a left hand thread by the rotation of the adjustment knob:

The second element is mounted on the top of the spool…..

…..in the form of a quite massive bronze bearing. Notice the groove with the bronze wire sitting in it? This is the active part of the brake. Turning the adjuster knob drives the wedge down into the bearing where it pushes two shaped bronze springs outwards to engage the inside face of a bronze bush set into the reel face plate.

You can clearly see the groove worn by the springs in the sleeve.

Here’s a sketch of how it all fits together:

I have left out the winding plate and the two fixing screws to try and make it a bit clearer.

Putting it all back together is fiddly. At one point one of the brake springs was dislodged – they are quite tricky to relocate. The other thing to ensure is the alignment of the wedge, with the wedge faces perpendicular to the screw holes, - and the final challenge is lining up all three sets of holes to allow the final fixing screws to be put in.

I hope this is a helpful little exploration. I don’t know if the actual manufacturer of this model has been pinned down, but there are Reuben Heaton style artisan marks on all the major components, the drilled spool spindle and the exposed rear bearing is similar to a lot of other Heaton reels I have seen.

New Arrivals

It's not just rods of course. Reels are a lot easier to collect. They are smaller, much easier to display and come in an endless variety.  For the most part it makes sense to focus on a particular type of reel,  - in my case of course, it's fly reels. Even that leaves a menagerie of makers, countries of origin and models to collect, so an overall theme within the chosen type of reel makes sense.  In theory anyway.

For a long time I concentrated on the reels of a particular manufacturer, Young's of Redditch, and at some point I'll show you some of these and raise some relevant points of interest. But since I have a number of American made rods, reels by the same manufacturers also have an appeal, particularly if they can be sourced in the UK. Buying items from America can be fraught with difficulty and expense. Items valued at more than £15, including carriage, attract VAT at 20%. In addition to this, the Post Office adds a surcharge of £8 for  processing an inbound taxable item, so if the initial cost of an object is, say £70, P&P a further £30, this is subject to £20 VAT  AND a further £8 surcharge, making a total of £128, almost double the actual item cost. So, if an interesting item of American made gear becomes available in the UK, it is significantly more attractive than one sourced from America.  This is why I was pleased to get this little reel.

Horton Manufacturing Co. Bristol no 66 Fly Reel with the original box.

Not really thought of as a particularly good fly reel - it has a rather poor click pawl check, this is nonetheless interesting because it was made by the Horton Manufacturing Company, located in Bristol, Connecticut. For a number of years Bristol rods were closely associated firstly with Eustis Edwards and latterly with his sons, Eugene "Gene" and William "Bill", Edwards. Edwards Senior trained with Hiram Leonard and was intimately involved in the early evolution of bamboo rods, adding his own innovation of heat treating, or "tempering" bamboo to imrpove it's suitability for rod making. The whole fascinating story of the early days of bamboo rod making in the eastern United States is told in George Black's excellent book "Casting a Spell".

Another newcomer, also in the original box is this little 3⅛'' Milward's Flycraft.

Milward's was one of a whole raft of tackle manufacturers to evolve in Redditch in the West Midlands, largely as a development of the local needle making industry. Walton gives detailed instructions for the making of fish hooks from needles in the Compleat Angler, and the progression from needle manufacture, through hook manufacture and other tackle items was a natural pathway. Indeed the last practising traditional hook maker in the Redditch area retired only last year. This is the third Flycraft I have of this period and makes an interesting comparison to the other two larger models in that it is right hand wind only, and has an adjustable check, similar to Young's model 15A. Young's, Alcock's and Milward's were neighbours in Redditch and seem to have shared manufacture and distribution of each others products, an area which I know is being researched. More on Fycrafts next time.

Museum Piece

There was a time when it seemed possible that the collection might have a bigger purpose and form the basis of a small museum, dedicated to the development of modern fly fishing. With that in mind, I set out to acquire certain"landmark" objects that represent particular periods or developments in our hobby of fly fishing. The two oldest rods I have are good examples of this., not just because of what they themselves are, but because of the other things that were going on at the time they were made.

The first is a fairly typical late nineteenth century Scottish made fly rod. It is in three sections, is about 10 feet long and made not of split cane but of Greenheart. Greenheart (Latin Chlorocardium) is a tropical hardwood, native to northern South America. It has a number of properties that made it an excellent choice for making rods, it is close-grained and relatively impervious to water, can be shaped into the finely tapered forms necessary for rods and is relatively flexible.  It is also somewhat heavy, at least when compared to more modern materials.

Andersons of Edinburgh, greenheart trout fly rod c 1900

The rod is marked "Andersons, Princess  St., Edinburgh, Dunkeld Princess" on the brass butt.  Andersons had premises at 101 Princes Street in the centre of Edinburgh at the beginning of the 20th century, having relocated from Dunkeld on the Perthshire Tay. They were a well known and well respected retailer of all things to do with fishing. The rod itself has American twist snake guides throughout, - no stripping guide. The ferrules are spigotted and hooded, - the male ferrules have a domed brass cap the covers the edge of the female ferrule when the rod is put up. The solid wood handle has an ingenious sliding band reel seat with pinned rails to hold the reel foot in place. Clearly when this rod was new it was a quality item.

Greenheart remained the material of choice for fishing rods of many types well into the twentieth century, but there is evidence to show that cane rods were being imported from America from the end of the nineteenth.

Advertisement from the end matter of Lochs and Loch Fishing by Hamish Stuart , published 1899

This advert is for a Glasgow tackle shop, William Robertson, contemporary with Andersons, and features "American Cane Built Rods, American Tubular Steel Rods, American Cane Built Bicycle Rods" included in "Lochs and Loch Fishing" by Hamish Stuart.  It was common practice to include such adverts in the end matter of popular books and they can be a great source of information.

The advert also makes reference to  Robertson's "St. Mungo" rod.

Robertson's St. Mungo trout fly rod

The St. Mungo is superficially very similar to the Anderson's product.  Hardly surprising. Both rods are made of greenheart, both have similar sliding band reel seats. The St. Mungo does have an improved cork handle, but guides and ferrules are the same as those on the "Dunkeld Princess". Where the St. Mungo gets interesting is at the tip.

Tip of Robertson's St. Mungo trout fly rod

The final 2¾ inches of the rod is composed entirely of the tip eye itself, the wire support extending the entire rod. Stuart makes reference to this device in one of his foot notes

"I never had occasion to use the second top of this rod, which owed some of its power to the fact that I had one of Robertson's (Glasgow) patent steel rod-tips added to it—a most excellent contrivance ; it adds to the casting and holding power of a rod to a marvellous degree."

 He goes into more detail; about the rod in his main text,

"Rods are a lottery and though cheap rods are as a rule to be avoided, yet occasionally one picks up a weapon cheap that proves in use to be as good and faithful a servant as the highest priced rods. I had such a rod in use for many years. It was an American built cane and though I killed with it among other fish upwards of 80 trout between 2½1bs. and l0bs., it was as good a rod when the last fish was landed as it was when it received its baptism of fire on a big day when 85½hs. of seatrout yielded themselves victims of its prowess."

I think it very telling that Stuart refers to the American made cane rod as being "cheap" - perhaps this offers an insight into the perceived quality and therefore price of contemporary greenheart rods.

So......?

So I started collecting cane rods, not always the best, in fact my colleagues (I work in the tackle trade) often ask my why I don't consolidate things and get just one well made can rod. But where would be the fun in that?

Some of the rods I have are "blue collar" American models, shop built, factory finished but nonetheless interesting, often attractive and sometimes good fishing tools. Others are UK made, varying from the long and heavy, to surprisingly light and useful rods from well known UK makers.  Then there are the reels.

One of the reasons cane rods have a reputation for being heavy is that often modern reels are not heavy enough to balance the rod.I learned the importance of correct balance a long, long time ago when working in the museum service. A colleague and I were looking for items in the local edged weapons collection when he handed me a Scottish basket hilt broadsword. These were the swords carried by the Highlanders during the Jacobite rebellion. Five pounds of steel, the blade nicked and chipped, so it had been used, and...it just floated. There seemed to be no weight at all, even though the blade was more than three feet long. We'll come back to this business of balance in due course.

 Basket hilt broadsword, courtesy of Wikipedia

From tomorrow I plan to start sharing some of the items from my collection, and some of the things I've learned.  I also hope there will be some diversions, fishing trips, interesting books or web sites, that sort of thing,  The whole point is it ought to be fun...

Back on Track..

As I was saying before the fishing interrupted, Gierach's book, Fishing Bamboo reminded me of those  two cane rods I'd had as a teenager. In the UK, rods made of "rent and glued" bamboo are called cane , or split cane rods, that is the way it is. I know our American cousins call them bamboo, that too is the way it is, but, out of habit, I'm going to carry on calling them cane.

Allcock Popular 10' 3/1 A typical mass-market British cane rod made by one of the celebrated Redditch based manufacturers that dominated the UK tackle industry. Well made but relatively soft and heavy, and in modern terms, almost unusably long.

So, in the UK cane rods have the reputation of being soft, long and very heavy. When starting a back cast, you probably have time to make a pot of tea, light a cigarette and take in an old episode of The Archers before having to address the forward cast. The first British made cane fly rods I acquired seemed to bear this out. How then could the American still be so enthusiastic about their bamboo rods? And how the Dickens would I be able to afford a modern cane rod?

The answer came, like all quality cane, from the Far East, in the form of a new make two piece (2/2 in fact, 2 piece, 2 tops) imported via Ebay from China.

Zhu's Rods, 8' #5 2/2, apparently based on a Dickerson 8014 taper, and my first "modern" rod.

When the rod finally arrived, packed in a 2 inch water pipe, I took it out of the bag and it looked fabulous. I have to say there are few graphite rods that you can genuinely say look pretty, but this did. The first outing too was a revelation.  I'm still  not sure what I expected, perhaps some kind of magical moment. What I actually got was a perfectly usable fishing rod..you can see me using it in the picture below (First Post).

Oops - Missed Yesterday..

...because I was getting organised to go fishing.

Spent most of the morning on the River Avon at Linlithgow, fishing a stretch below the entry of the Mill Burn at Little Mill.

  © Copyright AlastairG and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

No fish, but then I hardly expected any as it was a bit too early in the day for much to be happening, and it is unseasonably cold still.

There are rivers Avon all over the place, mostly in England, but the word itself derives from the Celtic "Abona", -Welsh "afon", meaning simply, "river". Our own Avon rises in the hills to the South of the River Forth, makes its way North through Slmannan, Avonbridge and Linlithgow Bridge before entering the Firth of Forth between Grangemouth and Bo'ness. Nearly all of it is accessible for fishing,mostly for Brown Trout but there are runs of Sea Trout and every year there's talk of the occasional Salmon. It also has a number of very pretty stretches, including one of the best wooded river valleys in Scotland in the form of the Avon Gorge. If it were 30 miles further north, there'd be a visitor centre, a cafe and several hundred brown road signs. If you fancy wetting a line here, you can get a day ticket for the stretch at Muiravonside Country Park.