SHOP NOTES | C.J. BOVA RODS

Under every Rainbow lies an infant fly fisherman .   My new baby boy, Joseph Charles Bova weighed in this month at 5lbs. 14oz. and measured 18" long. A modest sized Rainbow trout.   Sounds from his room are not the shrill sounds of Disney characters or The Wiggles DVD's. Instead sounds and running loops of A.K. Best tying quilled dry fly's and Doug Swisher doing mid-air curve casts across Montana rivers. Yup Child Services has already been notified by concerned relatives and friends. My faint whispers of chapter 3 from Vince Marino's A Modern Dry Fly Code can be heard at night from his newly painted room. His big Christmas gift was a 5'6" 4/5 wt. bamboo rod that I just crafted over the last month and inscribed on it “Little Fish” with his name and birth date. He's got a little Meisselbach Featherlite 280 reel to put on his new fly rod. Unfortunately the only fly fishing vests that fit him are Christmas ornaments. Oh well all I can do now is wait a few ye...

Describing actions of bamboo fly rods is a bit like describing a painting you have seen at a local gallery to a slack-jawed friend. If you are really good at creatively visualizing something while somebody else is describing it to you then its not a problem. Fly rod literature for most part is typically comprised of a multitude of adjectives and combinations of touchy feely words that really do not describe the essence of a particular rods action. Until you pick up the rod and actually cast it you can only then fully understand the rods true persona. As a rodmaker I’ve casted countless bamboo fly rods and the ones I like most are the ones that compliment the way I fish. That being said I gravitate to dry fly rods that are moderately quick, accurate, and light weight. Some load up in close, others spit line like a fire hose, some do both. I’ve casted Leonards, Paynes, T&T’s, and Garrisons and liked them all. I dislike many rods that others like, and like many rods others disl...

Back in 1995 I purchased a phenomenal fly tying vise from The Classic Vise Co. It is engineered very very well and built like a M1 Bradley. It detents four times in full rotation, and allows me to tie flies as small as #28. I purchased the vise in Canada and am not sure if it is still in production. My little HMH is always well used but The Classic Vise has holding power like no other vise I have used before. This vise is made from very high quality stainless and has endured countless wet hands while tying soaked quills and still shows no signs of weathering. Tools such as these make the craft of fly tying that much more enjoyable. Being a creature of habit it will more than likely be my last vise I ever purchase. ~Clint Bova

Fall Brown, caught with my 7'6" 4wt. “Shawnee Rose”  on a #20 Black quilled suspender midge With a consistent cool breeze the flotsam piles up during the fall on edges, seam lines, and sweepers along the river banks in the North East. This is a period of time when the fish are foraging and becoming quite picky when it comes to surface feeding. I use to fish scuds especially hard in the fall but over the years have taken to surface fishing year round. I simply enjoy dry fly fishing over any other type of fishing period, especially in the fall. Fall dry fly fishing takes perseverance, patience, and focus. There is so much floating in the water that both Trout and angler become distracted. I have a fly box dedicated to late fall midges, typically fore and aft designs and micro parachute suspender midges in black and gray sizes #20, #24, and #26. With water levels low and typically clear I fish 6x and 7x with a 14 foot leader. I usually fish my “Johnny Logan”, or “Little Mecoche” ...

Path Walker An American Indian Prayer To bring back the natural harmony that humans once enjoyed. To save the planet from present practices of destruction. To find and re-employ real truth. To promote true balance between both genders. To share and be less materialistic. To become rid of prejudice. To learn to be related. To be kind to animals and take no more than we need. To play with one's children and love each equally and fairly. To be brave and courageous, enough so, To take a stand and make a commitment. To understand what Generations Unborn really means. To accept the Great Mystery in order to end foolish argument over religion. May your fall fishing be memorable and peaceful ~Clint Joseph Bova

                            “Streaming Light and Shadow” oil on board                          “Late Afternoon Below the Fields” oil on board                             “Side Door and Back Steps” oil on board                                   “Beside a Stream” oil on board                                   “Down River” oil on board Christopher Greco is one of those rare painters you come across that has a point of view that incorporates old school mediums in a very relevant and current way. His series “A New Painting Every Day” captures a natural rural spirit that is honest and heartfelt. I catch myself smiling when I look at his paintings because I feel as though I am experiencing this scenery along side him. Most of these paintings from his series are all done on location, in a somewhat spontaneous manner, with no reworking.  Christopher Greco resides in Westlake Ohio and continues to produce marvelous work with his oils.              ~Clint Bova

I have been waiting a long time to find a really functional and comfortable wet wading pant. During the summer months shorts just do not cut it for me because of sun, brambles, poison oak, poison ivy, leaches, deer fly's, the occasional hungry mink, and various other man nibbling critters. Patagonia's Guidewater Pant is the best wet wading pant I've used period. I have used these pants for about a season and have no issues at all with the wear, general design, or comfort. These pants do not bunch up or bind when wet. They are pliable, dry very quickly, and repel water like a raincoat. Finally I found a wet wading pant that works great which is a genuine relief because I have been searching for a wet wading pant that fulfills all of the above criteria. I really have no reason to wear waders during the summer months now. Even my waist high waders are now collecting dust during the summer months which is a relief because I just don't like the extra bulk when its over 80 de...

Recently I was asked by a customer out of Upstate New York what inspires me to lean towards my more “antique-esque” hardware patterns. I definitely have an affinity for some past rod makers one being the late Fred D. Divine who began making rods in 1875 out of Utica N.Y. I always felt that his hardware was somewhat medieval in personality. After going through the armory exhibit at The Metropolitan Museum of Fine Art for the fourth time I started seeing some basic geometries that were very reminiscent of some of Divines tooling and stamping. Meandering about in arms and armor exhibits is a good way to develop a taste for forging and tooling. I soon started making drawings of my own and surrounding myself with little artifacts of “Divine” inspiration. I have a small collection of Divine paraphernalia that keeps my creative juices flowing. Most of my cap and ring sets are slightly reminiscent of Divines “Classic Reel Seat”. The cap is slightly elongated, a pronounced taper, with an even ...

I think I’ve learned more from Canadian ghillies about successful trout fly patterns over the years than anyone else. They seem to excercize the mantra, “the simpler the better”, and I’m a firm believer in this affirmation. For the most part trout food is fairly understated, modest in profile, and buggy. My most consistent and successful fly patterns are fairly dull, not a lot of flash if any, and only carry subtle hints of color variation. I suppose when you really think about it mayflys are two-toned, there are only two colors contrasting against one another on any mayfly with the exception of any varigations. Hues of green, yellow, umber, and rust are the basic color ways. These colors are accompanied by a range of cool and warm grays that range from 1-10 on a gray scale. These are the colors I mix and dye my feathers to emulate both mayflys and caddis flys. Terrestrials are a whole nother ball of wax but even these patterns need not be overly complex and garrish. I’m not a big fa...

I often find myself looking up, not really knowing why. Sometimes it’s as though I am looking for the wind and always trying to see it.The trees offer me a suggestive response with a flapping leaf or a bending branch. The wind acts as a obscure time piece, and like temperature, the wind is affected by the sun directly and indirectly. The wind does respond to time in a sort of celestial manner. My dog Manny often looks up when I do when the wind blows, he joins in and looks somewhat introspective while doing so. I then try to draw a mental picture in my mind of what the nearest piece of trout laden water is doing. If my dog could fish we would do so often since both of us have a certain zest for solitude and running water. Unfortunately Manny will never bare an opposable thumb so the idea of meandering about with him in streams grasping fly rods is somewhat wishful thinking. Although there is an orthopedic surgeon that I know of nearby that could pull this surgery off, maybe I could t...

Ingredients: 4 six-ounce fillets of rainbow trout. 1/4 cup of canola oil. 2 tablespoons of fresh lime juice. 1 tablespoon of ginger root, minced. 1 teaspoon of grated lime peel. 1 teaspoon of crushed red pepper . Preparation: In a suitably sized saucepan over medium heat, sauté the minced ginger and grated lime peel in the canola oil, until just lightly browned and aromatic. Remove the saucepan from the heat, then stir in the crushed red pepper. Once the oil has completely cooled, gently whisk in the lime juice and reserve. Heat the grill to a moderate temperature. Brush the grill pan with some oil to reduce sticking, and grill the trout fillets with the flesh side down for about 2 minutes. Gently turn the fillets and grill for 2 minutes more, or until the trout turns opaque. Serve the trout immediately with a splash of the ginger/lime mixture.

I definitely love wrapping with silk. I have always been a big fan of Pearsall’s silk threads. I honestly believe that the dye batches are the most consistent, color fast, and easily matched. I have been wrapping with Pearsall’s consistently for the last fifteen or so years and have had no guide failures at all. I suppose this sounds a bit like a sales pitch but I’m typically a very reserved optimist and a bit superstitious on top of it all. So I usually keep my happy thoughts to myself. I wrap a lot of rods with white silk which eventually ends up as clear wraps. I have managed over the years to consistently create crystal clear wraps, no glassing at all, no thread tunnel pockets or bubbles by paying close attention to time, temperature, and viscosity using spar. Pearsall’s silk is all I will use to achieve clear wraps to my level of “perfectness” or maybe I just have a high level of comfort and trust with our friends in the UK. My wife has watched me over the years reach scarey level...

I suppose there really is not a mutual understanding between critters when it comes to rural life in North America. It still is everything goes, as it should, and like anywhere else location means nothing when it comes to making sense of our own mortality let alone other creatures. While walking on somebody else’s farmland to get to a favorite piece of water I often rubberneck every few hundred yards.  It never ceases to amaze me the likelihood of finding something interesting poking out of the freshly tilled soil. Early this season while tromping along in a half dazed sleep deprived state wearing baggy waders I came across a big leg. It was severed from the socket in the hip and partially eaten mid-thigh, hoof still attached. I stopped abruptly and just stared at it for a few minutes. I was both mortified and curious. “Where’s the rest of the body?”, I said to myself. I imagined David Caruso showing up on the scene with aviator glasses and a sidling bra-less wonder...

            Recently I had a old client complement me on the durability of my bamboo fly rods so I thought I would take the time to write a little on polyepoxides. If you are interested in the stuff that actually holds bamboo fly rods together for a very very long time you may find this compelling. My old work colleagues who were employed by GE Polymer Solutions, use to call me “Chemical Joey” (Joseph is my middle name) because my obsessive interest in epoxies. In my past life I was fortunate enough to live side by side with chemical engineers that could give me some very hard and detailed facts about epoxies also known as polyepoxides. Epoxy is a copolymer that is formed by the mixing of two parts. Unlike many traditional glues and water based glues epoxy has a very high tolerance to temperature variables, can be virtually unaffected by moisture or water, and can be subjected to such abuses as extreme flexural strength, impact strength, shear str...

                 24" Brown caught on a “Little Mecoche” 6'9" 4wt. 2pc.                        fly used~ #18 Parachute Ant seen in upper jaw At age thirteen I was a diehard ultralight fanatic armed with a wee Abu Garcia spinning reel spooled with four pound Maxima mono and a cork handled 5’6” fiberglass Shakespeare rod. Growing up on the South Shore of Oahu was an incredible classroom for playing very aggressive saltwater fish on light tackle. I caught my first Marlin at age eleven which dwarfed my smallish frame as well as the 9/0 reel that I caught it on. When I caught my first Mahi Mahi at age eleven on very light tackle I got the fever for life. The O’io, or bonefish was not the fiercest or most popular of quarry’s, the Papio, or Juvenile Jack Trevalle and the Ulua, or adult Jack Trevalle are really the signature sporting fish of the islands. Open any “Hawaii Fishing News” publication ( www.hawaiifishingnews.com) and you will realize the fanatical clubs that revolve ar...

Standing for long hours leaning over a bench, planing, straightening strips, pressing nodes, turning cork, and squinting a lot at 8/0 silk thread you realize that time passes very quickly but that time spent working at the bench is time well worth spent. For the processes and manipulations that go on during the course of building three bamboo fly rods at a time, which is how I work for the most part, one also realizes that solitude can be found not only on a river but standing in front of a well crafted bench. About twelve years ago I had a wild hair and decided to build the ultimate rod making bench. Fred, a master cabinet maker from the west coast, was a good friend I worked with for many years and always wanted to make a traditional cabinet makers bench. One day during the fall of 1998 we decided to go for broke and took a trip to a Homish lumber yard and purchased some very large pieces of beautiful maple. We spent a lot of time designing, customizing the plans, and eventually re...

In the lap of recent generations lies the predisposition to have things in our own time, in our own space, and at our own pace. It is unfortunate because it points to our lack of attention to detail, patience, and understanding. Nature has little tolerance for these cumulative traits. The nature of fishing in general is really an ongoing exercise in looking from the outside in and finding a sense of pause within ourselves. If we go to a river with little or no expectations, and we merely accept her for the moment we find that the focus is taken off of the results and placed on process, introspection, and sense of wonder. We can then in many ways relive our childhood joy and innocence time and time again. As we grow older we put pressure on ourselves to be in places on time, be productive, up on current weather and forecasts, and generally trying to predetermine our experience before it has even started . If we experience these destinations in this manner, we are really setting ...

Like all things in nature there is co-existence or no existence, and when it comes to the resourcefulness of wildlife everything is up for grabs. On a sunny afternoon back in 1996 I came upon a group of DNR conservation officers doing some fish shocking in some fairly unobstructed and nondescript water, nothing more than typical meadow stream water. I pulled out of the water and went up the embankment to get out of their way. It was a long mundane shallow run that stretched for 50 yards, slightly riffled water that had no real “fishyness” in personality. There were no pools either upper or lower to this location.  After about ten minutes I realized that they were netting fish that quite honestly were between 18 and 22 inches and in the cooler they went. Again this was water that typically most fisherman would pass up at first glance and this particular area was really no more than 16 to 24 inches deep. I was a bit dumbfounded by the size of these brown trout relative to the s...

Sometimes when it’s cool and breezy in the early spring, nothing is seemingly coming out of the water. If you really want to catch a nice trout on a dry fly you have to pull something out of your vest that is part of the buffet line menu for the surface feeders .   Most often trout throughout the day are still pecking at the surface in the not so hatchy moments. Prior to the Hendrickson hatches it can be discouraging but with a little patience and a keen eye you can feel like your beating the winter blues. Little black midges are quite common during these times of year. Not only are they nearly impossible to see in flight but they are nearly indistinguishable when they are emerging and floating in the surface film. As we all know black midges are hard to fish especially when they are size 22’s and smaller. During certain parts of the day it’s very hard to even see a midge cluster because of reflections and shadows on the water. The trick is to create something that is very small like t...

"My wife wonders why all women do not seek anglers for husbands. She has come in contact with many in her life with me and she claims that they all have a sweetness in their nature which others lack." ~ Ray Bergman

“Somebody just in back of  you while   you are fishing  is as bad as someone looking over your shoulder  while you write a letter  to your girl” ~Ernest Hemingway

Through the dog days of summer in many parts of America a strange mylar-like terrestrial shows upon many trout streams. The Trout seem to just sit quietly in the shade of an overhanging tree or shrub and wait for these crunchy morsels to drop from the heavens above. The stout Japanese beetle plops down every few minutes soon after an often violent slurp turns a quiet pool into a variable tsunami. Most beetle patterns today are tied with a myriad of synthetics including mylars, foam bodies, and various rubber legs of all shapes and sizes. If your a tyer that likes to use natural materials like myself, that tends to shy away from synthetics, a simple selection of quills and peacock herl will be great mediums to achieve this pattern. It’s a very convincing imitation that is easy and as familiar as tying your favorite Catskill dry fly with very similar materials. 1) Build up a black dubbed body with a slight egg shape profile on a #16 or #18 straight eye dry fly hook. Tie in two peacock h...