SHOP NOTES | C.J. BOVA RODS

The New Year always brings me to a new visualization or the need for a fresh start of some kind. A personal ritual is always a new shipment of cane to start it off on the right foot. It's kind of like bringing in new visitors for an extended 3-5 year stay. After a new shipment of cane arrives checking occurs and the sounds of popping resonate throughout the house for weeks if not months.  Like new visitors culms acclimate to their new environment at their own pace. The security alarm is set off by a single culm checking in the middle of the night. This goes on until ADT either fines me or I insulate the culms, usually the latter. Checking is a natural progression that a culm of bamboo goes through as it dries and adjusts to its given environment. The only time a fly rod will ever make an audible noise is before its split in the form of a culm. I always like to think of it as a time the bamboo speaks its mind before a maker binds and glues it into submission.   I often imagine that ...

                                      “Seneca Creek” Don Hall started painting at 33 and was inspired by the Hudson River School of painting. He concentrates primarily on landscape painting in oils. Don has a keen eye for natural light that in turn influences his paintbrush in extraordinary ways. He travels extensively throughout the United States and paints almost exclusively en plein air capturing rural points of view in an impressionist manner.                                          “Along Leading Creek” I recently viewed a handful of his paintings and was mesmerized by their somewhat folklike point of view but could still recognize some very academic influences. Don wonderfully captures a sense of place and time with the use of a very vivid color palette. His paintings are definitely a testament to the rural beauty I've experienced in West Virginia trout fishing. Visit www.donhallart.com       “Looking For Trout”

                 Mad River Rod Co. Spacer for the “Trails End” a 7' 4wt. I consistently get questions in regards to my flared wood spacers and matching hardware and repeatedly get asked if I will make custom spacers and hardware for rod makers and hobbyists. Last year I stopped selling hardware and only sell rods, with my own hardware on them. Reason being my hardware is balanced and scaled proportionally for different sized rods, the bores are all custom, along with matching ringsets, etc. The nickel buts have a pronounced domed profile and fit like a fine machined part into the eliptical recess. All of these parts are made one at a time and are not popped out of a CNC machine like many manufacturers do. The double slide bands interiors are bored using a chamfering jig that allows them to seat themselves securely to the reel foot. So to make a long story short there is much more to these pieces of hardware than meets the eye. The wood spacer is not turned from a standard pen blank...