Bamboo Fly Fishing Rods

Prior to the civil war, fly rods were made of woods such as Ironwood and Greenheart. Ironwood is a tree that grows in the dry Sonoran desert, can grow up to 45 feet tall, and can be as old as 1500 years! It is an evergreen tree and is renowned as being one of the world's densest woods, hence it's name. The tree has great value as an ecological habitat as well as for medicinal and other practical purposes.

Greenheart is a South American tree with dense wood that is water resistant, and was frequently used in underwater applications such as wharves and bridges. It is an obvious choice for fishing rods.

These rods were made of sections that were spliced together, and if you are lucky, you may still be able to find an Ironwood or Greenheart fly rod for sale on ebay.

These dense, exotic woods made for long and heavy rods that required two hands to cast and use. After the American Civil War, some people began to experiment with new material that made much lighter, more flexible, more resonsive fly fishing rods.

Dr. James Henshall, author of Book of the Black Bass (1881) notes that the first known bamboo fly fishing rod was made in 1848 by a man from Pennsylvania named Mr. Samuel Phillippi, a gunsmith Easton. This evidence is supported in verbal testimony from two well known fly fishermen of the time. Charles Luke and Charles Murphy, both of Newark, NJ as well as Mr. W.W. Bowlby of New York City.

All three men credit "Old Sam Phillippi" with having made the first split cane bamboo rods by hand in his gunshop. Old Sam's rods were made with three joints, and the butt was made of ash.

Standing on the shoulders of giants, the first giant being Old Sam, further refinements were made in the bamboo fly fishing rod. The first refinement was made by either a Mr. EA Green or a Mr. Thaddeus Norris. Their rods were constructed fully of Bamboo without the ash butt.

Still further improvements were made by none other than Mr. Charles Murphy who had credited Old Sam Phillippi with being the inventor of a split cane bamboo fly rod.

Mr Murphy began to produce 100% split cane bamboo fly rods for trade around 1863. By this time the design of the bamboo fly rod was being refined and the market was big enough that commercial manufacturing could begin to take place.

By this time, several makers of split cane bamboo fly rods were producing rods for trade and even teaching skilled craftsman the techniques for production.

Early bamboo fly rod builders included Mr. H. L. Leonard, Dr. A. H. Fowler, Andrew Clerk & Co and their successors Abbey & Imbrie. Other manufacturers ridiculed these visionaries, calling the market for bamboo fly fishing rods a "Phatom and False Idea"

While the true origins of the split bamboo fly rod may never be known with 100% certainty, the consistance with which the early notable men of the era agree is reassuring.

As Perry F. Frazer wrote in his book, Amateur Rodmaking, 1914, "Phillipe was undoubtedly, indubitably, and manifestly the first to build a four-strip or six-strip split bamboo rod."

According to Tom Kerr, author of oldrods.com, The only known Phillipe rod lives in the Pennsylvania State Museum in Harrisburg, PA. In Tom's own words, "It's the single most beautiful piece I've ever seen."