Wow. Eric, I must admit, all this talking about bamboo has me in the market for one. Something to start out with. For central PA, if you're looking classic or used I'd keep my eyes open for an 8' or 8'6" Granger, Heddon or South Bend. The Grangers will be 5-weights, the others could vary depen...

Re splice joint rods. A good friend of mine fished a splice-joint Brandin 8'3" 4-weight just about daily for a four month season a year or so ago, and he rarely took the rod down; just kept the rod with taped joints in a long, lined PVC case in his Suburban all season. No deleterious effects, a...

That was a nice video and a great piece of water. What a bend you had in the tip of that rod, I was sure it was going to snap. May I ask the length and weight of the rod? Thank you for sharing. Tim That particular rod is an 8'9" 2-pc 4-weight graphite made by C.F. Burkheimer; without question ...

I'm enjoying the thread as well. It has been a while now that I watched a video of Eric playing a trout that I think John S was filming. Thought it would be fun to review the battle once again should someone know where to find it. Regards, Jerry Your wish . . . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFLyL2...

Eric - is that the same rod you showed me and Hank, while we were at Jim's place, or do you have more than one quad? That was a real treat. Same one, Ray -- wish I had a few more, but . . . can only fish one at a time, and I fished this one a lot this past season. Definitely my "go to." I...

I haven't ventured into bamboo rods yet, there's time, but I'm very interested to hear a bit more about the timing or pursue or use of your arms, etc, when playing a large fish with the whole rod. Sadly, the occasion for me isn't frequent enough to worry much, but I have plans to make it a more fre...

In Jeff's longish, well thought out post on the previous page he alludes to the need to play a fish a bit differently with bamboo ("using the whole rod") than with plastic. I smiled when I read that (very accurate) segment because a couple weeks ago I was looking at a video a friend shot o...

I fish bamboo 100% of the time, and I don't give any of the rods more or less care than I would a good rod made of any other material. Well, I do give each a coat of paste wax at some point during the winter. My rods range in age from a couple years to 72 years old. All are in excellent condition, a...

I have Collins and Whiting hen capes that have stiffer, less "webby" hackle than the old Chinese and Indian rooster necks I used for tying dry flies back in the '70s when I started tying.

Eric

This'll probably sound crazy, Hank, but for what you describe, I'd get a 7.5' mono leader of your choice and cut about 18" (maybe even 24") off the butt end . I would blood knot this to a short (12") section of .015 or .017 Maxima that you have nail knotted to the end of the fly line....