Memories of another day...thoughts of the present: July 2009

Thursday, July 9, 2009

It's called fishing, not catching

10:12 PM | Posted by David |

As a young pup growing up in Beaver, I developed a love for fishing. With Little Beaver Creek just a short walking distance away, it was an easy passion to build. I would sit on the rock ledge behind Todd's Hardware and fish the day away. From Rock Bass and Creek Chubs, I moved on to finer things as far as angling was concerned. That was trout.

On one of the visits to my Grandmother Richmond's farm at Pluto, I took a long stick and tied a hardware store bought line to the end of it. There were no fancy leaders or tippets....just a small hook and worms gathered from under a rotten log behind the smokehouse. Pinch Creek gets it's start at the corner of my grandparents' farm. It flows slowly through the meadow creating a deep hole at each bend. I must have been 10 or so...but I can remember today seeing that line go tight and under a log. I had caught my first native brook trout. My uncle who lived on the farm was watching me from the foot bridge and told me to get a few more and he'd fix them for dinner. That was my first taste of trout and the beginning of a love affair that has never died.

The older I got, the farther I ventured out in the area to streams I had only heard of as I was growing up. Today, some 50 years later, these streams are still my favorites to visit when I can. I have caught trout in Glade Creek, Pinch, Little Beaver and Camp Creek. Each, a memory I hold tightly to. But it wasn't until later in life, did it become an avenue of escape for me.

I grew up watching a neighbor fly fish. I can still, today, see him false cast and lay that fly just at the right place on Pinch or Glade. I'd listen to his stories of trips to the Williams and Cranberry Rivers. To me, at the time, they were in another world. He often gave me his rod and told me that only with practice would it come to me. He was right.

I bought my first fly rod while stationed at Frances E Warren AFB in Cheyenne, Wyoming, in 1970. It just happened that the day I was in the store, so was Curt Gowdy, the famous sportscaster and fly fisherman. He signed the 9 foot Eagle Claw rod I bought and I have that rod today. It was once I was out of the service and venturing out to streams I had only heard about, that I began to fall in love with fly fishing. I have spent so many hours on streams that most never visit and never catch a trout. Yet, caught up in where I was at and what I was teaching myself slowly, but surely, to do. I would often venture out with friends from work to a recently stocked stream and use a spinning outfit, only to catch myself watching for a hatch or a rise that I could have cast to. I began to find a peace and solace in places most never think of. To see the surface of the water break and a small native trout hit a fly I have tied gives me more pleasure and peace of mind than I can describe. There is actually a romance about it all, and releasing it to catch another day is a part of it. It's a way of sharing back and forth with this beautiful state of ours. Trout live in such beautiful places.

I came across a fly rod at an antique car swap meet of all places, that got me to thinking about the older bamboo rods. Soon after that I decided I wanted to build my own. After a lot of research and reading, I came to the conclusion that it was too far out of my reach to do and bought one of the newer composite light weight rods. Yet, the thought was still in the back of my mind, along with the romance and history behind the older rods from England and the craftsmen from New England.

I bought my first older Shakespeare Rod in the late 80's and have been hooked ever since. There's a lot of things I don't remember and a lot of trout I have forgotten. But I can remember the first trout on that old rod. I was at the lower falls on Fall Run of the Holly River park, and it was a Black Gnat dry fly that I had cast to a small Rainbow that been coming to the surface. There was no turning back. The desire to build my own only grew stronger.

The more I researched the older rods, the more I came to realize it was much more than planing down bamboo strips and glueing them together. There was, in fact, a science behind it. This comes into play with the taper and length of the rod. The taper meaning the progression of the size from the tip to the handle. I was fortunate to be able to find others who had gone this route before me, and their trials and tests to find just what they wanted. Building bamboo fly rods can be a very expensive venture, so I slowly began to gather what tools I didn't have so I could start.

One key tool to building a bamboo fly rod is the planing form. It's an adjustable form that has a 60 degree slot down the middle. The taper is adjusted and one of six strips are planed down to the desired thickness. I began to correspond with an older gentleman from Vermont who told me how to build my own forms rather than purchase them. Having worked with wood all my adult life, I figured this was the way to go. I built my first forms from hard Maple and actually still use them. I was wise enough to know to practice, so in 1997 I began to practice on a domestic type of bamboo that grows here at my home. A special bamboo called Tonkin is used for the better rods, and is not that easy to obtain nor is it cheap. I lost count that winter of the number of strips I cut and threw away. But soon I got the hang of it, and mastered the forms to do as I needed them to. I bought my first supply of Tonkin bamboo from a supply house in the state of Washington and instantly could see the difference. I learned to keep my plane irons razor sharp and have a lot of patience. Lots of patience!

One needs to envision a strip of bamboo planed to the thickness of a toothpick on one end and an eight of an inch on the other. These six strips are glued together and wrapped with a string and set aside to cure. Once the glue is dried, it's sanded off and the surface of the bamboo, the outer surface, is sanded to a glass-like finish.

The hardware is installed and the guides wrapped with a silk thread tight enough so that you can't see the wraps. The rod is then finished in a varnish and allowed to dry. It's then polished once again to a mirror finish.

I have built over 12 of these rods. I've sold a few, kept a few and given some away. I sign each with my name and the Motto...Montani Sempri Lebri, meaning Mountaineers are always free men. It was while I was making my last few rods, I began to notice a problem I have been having with my hand. Arthritis has taken it's toll in my hands and wrists and I can no longer plane as I did. I'd spend an evening in my shop working on a rod and then have to take four or five off for my hands to get so I could do it again. I loved it while it lasted.

Casting a bamboo rod is much different that casting the newer power rods. It requires you to slow down and pay much more attention to what you are doing and the mechanics of laying a weightless imitation of a fly out on the water...just as nature would do with the real thing.

It was one of those spring days you read about in books. The scent of everything coming to life was everywhere on top of Cheat Mountain as I made my way down to the stream. The sky was cloudless and wildlife was taking advantage of the absence of snow. As I hiked down the mountain through the Laurel and Spruce, I could hear the river ahead of me and the excitement that never dies grew in my chest. I sat on the bank and watched the water for evidence of some sort of insect hatch that I could try to match from my selection of flys. I decided to go with a fly that tends to imitate a lot of things and see what this new rod I had built was like. I began to work the pool from all angles and, with each cast, fell in love with the creation in my hands.

I had let the Stimulator fly drift to the tail of the pool, and out of the water came a beautiful rainbow with the fly in it's mouth. There is nothing I can write to explain the feeling of that catch. I had caught a beautiful colored rainbow trout with not only a fly I had tied but a rod I had built. The transfer of energy from the trout ran up the hair thin tippet, through the line and down the rod to my hands. The whole exchange of a trout fighting on the other end winds up as excitement in your heart. One that I never tire of and often becomes an addiction.

I spent the rest of the day learning the quirks and traits of the rod. I was fishing and not catching. That was fine, because I was alone in such a beautiful place. I was witnessing Wild Wonderful West Virginia at it's finest. The only sounds were those made by the river. Each bend held a new scene of nature that took my breath away. I was in "Almost Heaven". Toward late afternoon, a hatch of Blue Wing Olives came to the surface. I tied on a size 22 and began to work the ripples to several deep pools. Out of nowhere the hits came, one right after the other.

It's a day I'll never forget and will always see it as my benchmark on fly fishing. I was alone in the middle of nowhere, intoxicated by the sounds and scents of Spring and with my own creations. I have since caught a lot of trout on the rod I built, but that day will always remain with me. When I open the Oak presentation box I keep it in, I instantly go back to that Spring day on the Upper Shavers River of Cheat Mountain.

My last rod sits half finished. On a good day when my hands are not swollen and I can manipulate my fingers, I work on it. It will be signed: My Last One...David Akers, builder.