History of Fly Rods
An overview of history of fly rods from
200 A.D to 2000s
One of the most interesting histories of fly fishing and fly rods was written
by Dr. Andrew N. Herd of England.
Dr. Herd has traced fly fishing back to 200 A. D. in Macedonia. The Macedonians used a wooden pole with a line and a bit of
crimson wool attached to homemade hooks to catch fish. Doubtless this was a solid pole
and not very flexible but nonetheless a fly rod by definition.
he Treatyse of Fysshynge with an Angle was
published as part of the second edition of The Boke of St. Albans in 1496.
This book describes in detail how to construct a fly rod of the period. The
base of the rod was hazel, ash or willow, with an insert second top piece of smaller
hazel. The final part of the top section was "a fair shoot of blackthorn,
crabtree, medlar, or juniper". The Treatyse describes a lot of soaking,
drying, hole burning, fitting, binding and so on just to get a fly rod. No
running out to a store for instant gratification here folks.
These rods were massive affairs and not the
little light weight 00 - 5 line weight rods we enjoy today. To view
the complete construction process Medieval
Fly Rods
The Treatyse also talks about how to make colored braided
horsehair lines of different thickness for different fish species, how to make your
own hooks, floats, weights, fish species and when to fish for them. Lines were
about 16 feet in length so "casting" was more or a dapping or short pickup
and drop technique.
In the eighteenth century, the fly rod started to slowly evolve. Poorly made
jointed rods were being made, trout rod lengths ran from 9 to 12 feet and tapered
braided horse hair lines were down to single hairs for 9 foot rods.
Silk lines
were starting to make an appearance and "bamboo cane" was making an
appearance in the top sections of salmon rods. The advent of the industrial
revolution allowed the mass production of a variety of tapered fly lines and the
beginning of machine produced fly reels. The fly reels were not well designed
and often malfunctioned. Still no major revolution in fly-rods was taking
place.
From 1800 to 1850, rod design and manufacture was improving. The best rods
were still made from ash, hazel and lancewood as in the past centuries. But
Calcutta Cane, of good enough quality, was being substituted for lancewood.
Jointed rods were still unreliable and were likely to snap off. A variety of
joints was tried. A female brass socket with a male wood end. A brass
female socket and a brass male end. Screw joints were also used. A piece
of whale bone 4 -- 5 inches long was still used for rod tops. The joint quest
would not end until the Orvis company invented the strong thin walled "suction
joint".
More about
Fly-Rods and Reels
From 1851 to 1900, split cane rods were perfected. The false cast was
discovered, dry fly technique emerged, mostly modern reels were being manufactured
and a Scotsman advocated the upstream cast with a short ten foot rod.
1901 to
1950 -- The hexagonal split cane rod was the dominant design. A trout
rod was generally between 9'6" to 11 feet. The ferrule was being
increasingly used in rod production. Orvis perfected the suction
ferrule. Hardy Company of England was promoting the 'Universal' reel seat
invented by Dr. Emil Weeger.
Prior to the 1880s, rod butts were made by machining a swelling into the material
or wrapping the handle with pigskin. By 1900, cork was the more common
covering for fly rod handles. Ground cork for inferior rods and natural cork
on premium rods.
The discovery of nymph fishing by angling great G.E.M. Skues was one of the most
important fly fishing advances. Discoveries by Skues are still carrying us
forward today..
1951
to 2000 -- The glass-fiber rods appeared in the late 1940's. But they did not sweep the market as their weight was similar to split cane. The lower
cost of a fiber-glass rod was the main advantage. After the development of carbon
fiber rods in 1976, rod weights plunged to the point where line weight became a
factor in rod handling.
Another look at the development of modern fly rods is by Don Phillips, the inventor of
the boron fly fishing rod in 1971. "The Technology of Fly Rods" The author is a
fly fisherman, mechanical engineer and the inventor of the boron fly rod towards the end of
1971.
In 1952, the first modern fly line as we know it appeared. I have found
both Cortland and Scientific Anglers claim to have developed the line in the same
year. In any case, the new plastic line would float and not become water
logged like silk. (Once a silk line was water logged, it had to be
discarded.). Silk lines were effectively dead.
Credits
My poor summary above doesn't do justice the vast amount of material on Dr Herd's
website. Please visit his site and spend some time getting all the fascinating
information there.
My thanks to Dr. Andrew N. Herd of www.flyfishinghistory.com. Dr. Herd has
compiled a massive amount of data on his site about fly fishing history. I
can't even begin to imagine the amount of hours that went into making his site let
alone his book "The Fly". This book is a complete history of fly
fishing from its earliest recorded beginnings to the present. Dr. Herd's
second Book "The Flies" will contain details of every major fly pattern
from medieval times to 1899.
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