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