Any of you ever fish bamboo ???
If so - what kind of bamboo rods do you use , collect, etc ?
I have a Wright and McGill bamboo rod. There is a nice feeling to bamboo, but honestly, the swing weight is really heavy and it's hard to fish with it more than an hour or two at a time. It just wears you out. There's no way I could do an all day fishing trip using bamboo.
Thats a good point - the longer bamboo rods can be heavy - but the shorter ones are usually pretty light in the hand - i just really enjoy fishing them and they are beautiful as well.
You do have to slow your cast down - but a fish on one is really fun.
They weigh about twice as much as a graphite rod. However, the "swing weight" is much heavier. Mine is only 8' and it feels like a piece of lumber compared to my Helios.
I find that when I fish my bamboo, I'm good for about an hour before I start to feel fatigued and after 2 hours, I'm done. With my graphite rods, I can go 6-8 hours.
They're fun to fish, but I definitely can't fish as long with it.
Make sure your reels balance the cane rods. You will likely have to use a relatively heavy reel to offset that "swing weight".
A 4 to 4.5 oz reel balances most 9' graphites about right. Canes need more weight, even in the shortest, lightest rods! In the "old" days, most of our reels were 5, 6 or 7 oz!
All that said, I have "collected" several bamboos over the years. Fished with a 5 wgt Powell that was actually custom built by Walton Powell himself. I acquired that one from the original owner. It was quite a nice piece of work.
Also have a nice little Horrocks Ibottson from the 50's that I restored, threw a four wgt on it comfortably! David Chin gifted me one of his twisted canes. Fished it a bit, but not as much a the Powell.
They all do the work, but there's something cool about fishing vintage rods! 😎