Split bamboo Fishing Rods

Edward Barder makes traditional split cane fishing rods at their workshop in Newbury. Photo: Sam Frost

You may need a beneficial eye and a tremendously constant hand: the tip of a superb split-cane fly fishing rod actions 1.5mm across, about half the diameter of a matchstick – and it's a hexagon of six equilateral, triangular strips of tapered bamboo glued collectively.

"we are working, " claims Edward Barder just who, from a workshop on a Berkshire river lender, produces just what numerous respect given that best split-cane rods in the world, "to tolerances of a thousandth of an inch. With an all natural product. A big change of five-thousandths in proportions will totally alter the action and personality of pole."

Very first, some record. Fishing rods have been in existence for around provided guys. In the beginning, they certainly were items of stick. Later on, these were turned and jointed and tapered, but always of indigenous wood – in Britain, possibly ash or blackthorn. They were effective, but heavy. They'd a tendency to break. Once bent, they stayed bent.

Then, in 18th century, a brand new wood arrived from India. It was anything but heavy, it did not break, therefore always sprang into shape. Also, rodmakers unearthed that in the event that you separated a bamboo pole, planed the pieces down to a taper and spliced them straight back collectively, you can even improve on nature, making a rod with hitherto unimagined attributes of lightness, energy and resilience.

The procedure, basically refined by an American, Hiram Leonard in 1878, shot to popularity: in Britain, dozens of companies switched all of them away to the 1950s. However along came cheap, factory-friendly fibreglass, followed closely by the carbon fiber employed by the majority of Britain's estimated 3.5 million fishermen today. And, just as quickly, the breathtakingly stunning, but prohibitively labour-intensive, split-cane pole vanished.

Together with colleague Colin Whitehouse, Barder – that's been totally hooked on all of them from the time, aged 17, he repaired their dad's favourite fly fishing rod – tends to make between 40 and 50 split-cane rods per year. Each takes around 60 hours, over four months. Initially, you temper your bamboo pole – only the extremely finest Tonkin cane from China, straight, unblemished along with the knots at the very least a foot apart – over a soft flame, operating out the moisture and stabilising the wood (bamboo is, Barder says, "like nature's fibreglass – powerful, heavy longitudinal fibres in an all natural resin") but without scorching or weakening it. You then carefully separated it into between 12 and 24 pieces, making use of a knife and mallet. Next, you file and sand both edges of each knot. After that, you reheat the timber in the fire, temporarily softening it to help you set it up completely straight in a vice.

Then comes the milling machine, a bespoke bit of accuracy manufacturing. The heat-straightened pieces tend to be outlined hand and hand, six at a time, with all the knots staggered (you do not want two knots side-by-side) and noted to show in which the handle, reel chair and bones should be.

The device is set up with infinitesimal care to make an ingredient taper according to dimensions that Barder keeps secret, while the strips delivered through the cutter once, then again to arrive at their particular final tapered form.