Short Hiatus...

So it seems as though I have been taking a bit of a hiatus from the blogging thing lately, and it's funny that I feel a little bad about it. Can't say as I haven't had a lack of things going on, but it is amazing how little spare time there is in the day right now. It is the end of the semester and that takes a bit of time to prep and get organized for, but I think my schedule is not conducive to spare time this semester. Teaching until nine four days out of the week seems to take a bit of energy out of the equation. Even more frustrating than not being able to keep on the virtual world is not being able to find much studio time. I have some things I really need to get done, not to mention some of the things I would like to develop and work on. Two weeks left in the semester and time will be on my side once again...I hope. This weekend was good in some respects and strange in others. I feel like this has been more of a fishing blog lately, which isn't a problem at all, but I have been able to fit in some of these things in between naps and bed times and early mornings.
I have had this old bamboo rod that I picked up in an antique shop somewhere, and it was in pretty rough shape, put had a feeling that it would make a pretty nice small stream rod. Well I finally started reconditioning and altering it a bit from it's earlier form, and I am really exited about how it is turning out. I made a simple cork ring clamp to clamp up the grip on saturday and got the rings all reamed out and glued up. The alterations on this rod mainly is the fact that I am only using the top two sections of the rod, taking it from a nine foot three piece to a six foot two piece, and from feeling it before stripping it down it had the feel and spring of a stiff 3/4 weight or a soft 4/5 weight.
Two summers ago on a trip to fish the Battenkill river and others around the Manchester Vermont area, we also coincided with the American Museum of Flyfishing summer festival. We came across a guy that I think was making rods called "Yoshida Rods". He was making Bamboo rods out of Japanese bamboo, or Madake, instead of the standard Tonkin cane and they were phenomenal. They were small, light, beautifully made and cast farther than any graphite rod of the same line weight that I had cast before. So in putting this rod together I decided to take a couple of ques from a couple of my favorite rods. The first was the reel seat from my Orvis one weight with the cork and double ring slide bands. Nice and simple. I also came across this one on one of those small bamboo rods and thought it would fit. Simplicity but class and the color of the bamboo wouldn't compete with or be competed with by an exotic insert in the reel set. And the little flash of nickel silver wasn't too bad either.
I then shaped the grip to a simple fat cigar shape, that is about five or so inches long, which was a new experience for me and am really pleased with how it came out and by how it feels when held. I can't wait to see how it handles a couple of casts. I'll post more pictures and words on the project as it develops, and would love to hear from anyone who might have any comments.