The preamble. Phillippe, Payne, Edwards, Thomas, Leonard, Orvis, Uslan. Aficionados of fine fly rods know these names.
They are the names of classic split bamboo rod-makers, the rods crafted by taking bamboo culms, splitting them, tapering strips on “V” blocks to make them into equilateral triangle strips, almost needle-thin on one end. Six of these — or sometimes five or eight — are glued together to make the basis for a split bamboo fly rod.
The costly, labor-intensive process was developed by Easton, Pa., gunsmith and violin-maker Samuel Phillippe in the mid-1800s. Others soon followed his lead. The above pieces, now museum quality and museum desirable, became the standard of beautiful handcrafted rods. They are understandably expensive with prices well into the thousands of dollars.
The story. My friend Bob was dragging his trash out to the front curb. He knew that the garbage pick-up came shortly, so he hurried after his morning coffee and paper.
As he positioned the cans, he glanced across the street. Cans were already in place, no doubt placed there the night before by the single elderly resident. Her husband had died some time ago.
But what were those things sticking up out of the trash can, Bob wondered. Curtain rods? Old wood dowels from a workshop? Ribs from a blown-out umbrella?
He went across the street to check. The sticks poking out of the trash can were fishing rods. Perhaps there was a good rod among them, or they could all be post-World War II Japanese imports when the country was flooded with cheap toys, cheap hardware, cheap fishing tackle and cheap everything else.
Or they could be early Montague rods, which were split bamboo, but used in everything from fly rods to boat rods. They also were cheap, well enough made to fish, but not fine enough to collect or ever command anything beyond Salvation Army or Goodwill prices. Bob did not check further, rightly thinking that the lady resident should know of his concerns.
She answered the door on his second knock.
“Ma’am,” he stated, “I was putting out my trash and noticed some sticks poking out of your trash. I checked them and found that you have some fishing rods there. I didn’t take them out, but some of them could be worth something.”
“I don’t want them, that’s why I put them out in the trash,” the lady responded. “My late husband was a fishermen. He had stopped fishing before you moved here a few years ago. But he is gone now, and I am cleaning out the house. I found these and don’t want them. They are old. Some of them belonged to my husband’s father.”
“But ma’am,” Bob continued. “Some of those rods could have some value if you were to take them to a flea market or auction them off. I’m a fisherman. I would be glad to help you and try to check them out or find someone who could price and sell them for you.”
“I really don’t want to fool with them,” she replied. “Thanks for your offer, but I just want to clean house. If you want them, you can take them and do what you want with them.”
“Are you sure?” Bob asked.
“Yes, I’m sure,” she replied. “Just take them out of the can before the trash man comes and do what you want with them. I don’t want them.”
Bob, his conscience and ethics clear, his morality and fairness-to-fellow-man still intact, walked out to the curb. He pulled out and saved all the rods. The trash truck could be heard banging and clanging cans farther down the block, men throwing the contents into the crushing maw at the rear of the truck.
Once home, with the two- and three-piece rods assembled, he discovered that he had seven complete split bamboo fly rods. All were in good-to-excellent shape except one that had a damaged but replaceable snake guide. The old man across the street had been a fisherman, a fly fisherman, as apparently had been his father. The rods were all 7- to 9-feet long, fly rods of a time long past, perhaps the late 1800s.
You guessed it. They were early, rare and valued rods by the likes of Payne, Edwards, Thomas, Leonard, Orvis, Uslan and others of that early period. By then, the garbage men who might have collected this trash that was really treasure had emptied Bob’s trash cans, the cans across the street, and had moved on to another block.
C. Boyd Pfeiffer is an internationally known sportsman and award-winning writer on fishing, hunting and the outdoors. He can be reached at [email protected].
