SHOP NOTES | C.J. BOVA RODS

I suppose tending to rods, tying flies, taking the time to study rivers, and even going through the mental visualizations prior to even getting into rivers can stir up anxiousness in many fly fishers. I look at anxiousness as an enemy of sorts especially when it comes to the creative process. Fly fishing and the crafts that are the foundations of the sport can seemingly be an intimidating and convoluted amalgam of processes. Athletic and mental dexterity, tools, techniques, materials, equipment, and a myriad of disciplines frame up the very act of fly fishing. It can be downright overwhelming when you look at it all from a distance. This was a topic of conversation that I had with a friend of mine that is a well known fly tyer. We both agreed that if you are “results oriented” fly fishing is not the sport for you. Most river guides will reiterate this behind closed doors but not to their clients faces. The crafts that are the building blocks for the sport as we know it are all bas...

Above: CJ Bova Rod Co. 7'9" 3pc. 4wt. Some fisherman are pretty ritualistic about long term storage of their cane rods. Bamboo rods are made to take a beating but some simple steps can be taken from season to season to ensure your rod is in tip top shape for your next trip to the river. ~Gently wipe your rod sections with warm soapy water at the end of a season. Use a mild soap like Dove. Once thoroughly dry store your rod in its given rod bag and simply hang it up in a cool closet. You can use clothes pins to hold your rod sack by both ends. Bamboo rods are just fine in rod tubes for extended periods in time just make sure they are stored in a cool dry place. Honestly I get so much use out of my own personal rods that I keep them in their tubes and then rotate them from my rod racks. ~If your rods have water stains or have any scratches you can use Novus products to restore your finish www.novuspolish.com   Novus makes three different grades of polish that will k...

  illustration: by Clint Bova graphite on tea stained paper His pretty dragonfly darting away now exposed his boyish rashness he slid down into the pond and slipped away into the shade of melancholy and iris blossoms ~found poem from the 1800's, a children's magazine

Tying a convincing Damselfly can be a little difficult given the range of materials that we can get our hands on. Some damselfly patterns look muddled and overworked with markers, others appear so synthetic that they look like they came off sprue in a model airplane kit. A pattern that I came up with after a roadkill epiphany many years ago has payed dividends on the water especially with difficult trout. Extended bodies keep many fly tyers up at night. Many revert to what is available in online catalogs and local fly shops. What you may not see often are porcupine quills. Porcupine quills have changed the way I tie many patterns. This material is very very bouyant and has the tensile strength of a soft drink straw. It IS FLEXIBLE and it easily accepts liquid dyes and marker. Clint's Porcupine Damsel: Hook: TMC 212Y Thread: Aquamarine 8/0, Veevus Black 14/0 Wire: Fine French Silver wire Wings: Light Dun hackle tips Thorax: Beaver Belly dyed with Ritt or Veniards aquama...

The North American Porcupine, otherwise known as the Canadian Porcupine, is a large rodent that can potentially change the way you tie flies overnight.   Porcupine quills vary in size from very short and slender to thick and long, with these variables you can use them for extended abdomens on just about any insect. If you happen upon a porcupine carcass do not pass it up, one specimen can provide you a lifetime supply of quills. I found my first porcupine up in the Alleghenies along a train track. I spent nearly two hours carefully plucking quills using my forceps and placing them into a few fly boxes from my vest. Be careful!   How to Dye Your Quills: 1) Porcupine quills are hollow making them perfect for extended bodies. Quills are very bouyant. The quills are easily dyed using Veniard's or Ritt. After acquiring your porcupine quills carefully soak them in a warm Dove soap solution. Place them in a large tea infuser and submerge them in the solution for around 30 ...

As human beings we quantify and categorically bucket everything we see. We put labels on things and file them away in our minds. When we step outside of this categorical tendency we find ourselves uncomfortable and struggle with placing ourselves into context with the things we cannot see. In nature and fishing the unseen is what we seek. When the unseen suddenly reveals itself Mother Nature stares back at us with a certain truth. This is a sudden glimmer of honesty in its pure form that awakes and replenishes our senses. We seek it out again and again like a child reaching into an empty or full cookie jar high up on a counter top.             ~Clint Joseph Bova

From season to season insect forecasting is always a crap shoot. Every season certain insects can appear in prolific numbers or may not appear at all. Masked hatches, flooding, temperature, barometric pressure, and wind all play an important role in the comings and goings of insects. This accounts for not only water born insects but terrestrials alike. So the question that begs an answer is can we count on the same fly season after season to produce consistent results? The answer is a definite no. The cycles of mother nature are very fickle. As an example during the fishing season of 2012 Japanese beetles were prolific around our rivers. I even had to spray insecticide on my dwarf maple trees to kill off the beetles. I live less than a mile from the nearest trout stream. Because there were so many beetles in 2012 the fish zeroed in on them. Doug Swisher explains this phenomenon as the “pounds per meat law”. The most plentiful and attainable insects are at the top of the trout’s me...

Bees have a special place in my fly box for some very good reasons. When the weather gets hot and inconsistent trout will break from their lies and rise for a bee with unfettered enthusiasm. Another reason to keep a stash of bees in your bonnet is because bees are very helpless and awkward when they get stuck in the surface film making them easy prey for trout. A trout does not have to expel too much energy for a morsel of bee protein. Unlike a water scrafing cranefly or damselfly the bee is about as helpless as a baby in a swim diaper when it takes the plunge. Bee patterns often are in the boxes relegated for panfish but you don’t see bee patterns in many trout bum boxes. Trout take bees with the same determination and voraciousness that ants evoke. When the weather is exceptionally hot I have found that a bee can bring some pretty stubborn fish to the surface. Most of the bee patterns that you see in catalogs are not specifically called out as “trout flies” they have gotten type...

      above: A new “Isaac Zane” for Bishop Skip Adams of Upstate N.Y. I was particularly pleased with the finish and contrast of this rod. The blued hardware and light spalted Koa reel seat is a gorgeous combination. The custom winding check and swelled butt lead your eye right up the length of the fly rod. The light honey colored cane contrasts well with the fine red tipping. A Bishop chess piece profile for the ferrule plug was a special little finishing detail. There has been a noticeable spike in interest and orders for my #7952 7'9" “Isaac Zane” 5wt 2pc. tapers. This is a wonderfully crisp dry fly and nymphing rod that roll casts great and can handle many different fishing situations from small to medium water. It is my personal favorite taper for prospecting on new water. Comes with either a down locking seat with a traditional domed cap, or down locking slide band. The rod itself has a very distinctive swelled butt with silk wraps that are either bl...

At the fingertips of everyone on our planet lies the ability to look something up, find hopefully reliable information, even overnight drugs to our households. If we back away from the blue iridescent rectangular watering hole we realize that we are relying on somebody elses notion of what an interface is suppose to look like, what somebody else's concept of a product is suppose to do for us, and that we fit somewhere into this role playing world very well. We are handed things daily to react to but they are other peoples ideas not our own when we play the spectator in the technology world. Sure we can play along in this vast schoolyard, but the confines beyond the playground fences is where our fathers and ancestors played. Ironically these are the rich experiences we yearn for in our market driven world of not only our computers but televisions. We are simply handed tools or artifacts, and play along with these experiential visualizations passively. It would be a grand experi...

Fishing spider patterns is a favorite activity of mine in the late spring, summer and fall. Many of the spring creeks that I frequent have adjacent fields of corn, soy, feed grass, as well as tall overhead trees and brambles. Spiders are prolific here and as much as I hate them I do love fishing with them. I have tried many patterns over the years most of which were not my own. Most of them were either too clunky, too overdressed, or just downright stupid looking. If I were to cast a wad of sheet foam and rubber bands to a big Brown on most of my usual digs I would be typecasted by most of the coherent fish instantly. After years of hit and miss I settled on my own pattern that just seemed to meet my criteria as well as the Trouts. When your standing in a “hot river” in the middle of the day and you spot a massive brown that just will not budge for the most ingenious morsel you have in your box whip out a spider. Spiders are protein intensive, they are like baklava on a silver ...

From butt to tip everyone of my rods are totally custom. Nothing is pulled from a hardware drawer or added on from a vendors catalog as an afterthought or shortcut. Every reel seat, cap and ring set, winding check, cork check, threaded barrel, ferrule plug, and rod bag is created specifically for it's intended rod. All hardware is machined from the highest quality nickel rod stock. All of our bluing is done using a labor intensive process called “slow rust bluing” which is how very old firearms are blued and restored. Nickel can be treated in a very similar fashion with the use of additional powdered additives. All of my bluing is done the same way fine firearm restoration finishes are created. The result is a dark charcoal black finish with a lot of depth. Look at “blued hardware” from other component companies or rod makers and what you will find is a very flat uniform finish with no depth. Again if you look at a fine custom firearm you will immediately notice t...

For a long time I've been looking for the best all around fly tying head cement. After using Loon's Water Based Head Finish I've found that it does everything I need in a highly controllable non-toxic solution. It's viscosity is perfect for seeping into wraps. The finish dries flexible but NOT rubbery. If you tie a lot of dries it's an exceptional marriage of uses such as hitting parachute posts with horizontal hackle collars, locking in wings, setting splayed tailing fibers, wetting threads on micro patterns, and controlling the amount of head coverage you need. This stuff is truly amazing. After years of using cyno-glues that spew vapors and dry burning the materials in the process this glue is literally a breath of fresh air. Years of head cement drying up and “gooing out”, having to thin glues, scraping dubbing needles, etc...all this fuss was a real pain in the butt. This stuff just wipes up with water when it's still wet. When dry the consistency of L...