SHOP NOTES | C.J. BOVA RODS

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...