By a certain age, most of us can look back to one or two pivotal experiences that have altered the direction of our lives.

 

Inarguably, the most pivotal for me was my first day fishing on Vermont's finicky Dog River with a good bamboo rod. It was in 1987, and I'd just purchased a used Payne 101 for $500.00. That day marked the first time I'd ever been able to look over my shoulder for a hole in the brush, and with little more than instinct, direct my backcasts confidently into it time after time. The accuracy and the feel of the rod were beyond anything I previously experienced.  It is fashionable these days to call such an experience an "epiphany," and for me it certainly was.

 

I grew up pretty much with a fishing rod in my hand, and by age 12 had contracted the fly fishing disease big time. Stories in the outdoors magazines about the "Golden Age" rod makers told me their was something special about split cane rods. At some point I made the decision to find out what all the adulation was about; why had the Leonards, Paynes, Gillums, Garrisons and others gained such mythic stature? What was it about bamboo?

 

On that day in 1987, I understood. And although I had a closet full of high-end graphites by that time, I virtually never fished them after that day.