Barder Rod Co ‘The Wallis Avon’ 3-piece with a whole cane butt section.

A superb and rare Wallis Avon that has never been used and is in perfect as-new condition. It has been correctly stored since its completion in 2004.

Some of you may remember the late Stacey Weeks. When I was a lad I used to take my shoes to him for mending. He was the famous cobbler in Oxford’s Covered Market. Years later, he wanted me to build him a classically styled Wallis Avon with a whole cane butt, split cane middle and split cane top. I told him we’d run out of whole cane. ‘Leave it with me’ he said. Not long afterwards, a tube arrived that contained at least a dozen really superb pieces of whole cane. Stacey knew Clive Young, late of Young’s of Harrow, the famous rod making firm. Clive had retired but he had a stash of whole canes he’d carefully selected. He said we could have them for the price of the postage. Result! as the young people say.

We built Stacey his rod and in the same year, this one. It’s our contemporary homage to the Wallis concept of an 11′ Avon style rod- a general purpose model aimed at the discerning specialist angler who needs a bit more substance than the old Wallis Wizards have to offer, with more consistency and refinement than the average Avocet.

It’s a shame that we can’t obtain whole cane for these rods. Certainly, whole cane is still available, but not of the quality we require. We bought 1,500 pieces over the course of a year or two (it wasn’t all that expensive) and failed to find a single piece good enough, so we called it quits.

This is an opportunity to obtain one of our best and most sought after rods, in as-new condition. If I had to choose one rod, it would be this one. The sensitive and  durable tip, the middle that doesn’t collapse under load and the lightweight, resilient butt produces a wonderfully lively, well balanced and versatile rod.

This rod costs less than our current 3-piece Chris Yates Merlin and it’s available now. Incredible really.

Specification.

The rod is built to the very highest specification. The whole cane butt was tempered, straightened and matched for colour with the split cane middle and tip. Both split cane sections were made by me from flame tempered hand split and straightened Tonkin bamboo. The strips were straightened and the nodes pressed before they were tapered to a tolerance of +/- one thousandth of an inch. The sections are perfectly straight.

The handle fittings, keeper ring strap and ferrules were all made by us from nickel silver. The handle was made from Flor (the best) grade cork.

The intermediate rings are hard-chromed stainless steel. The butt and tip rings are Amberfin. The Pearsall’s pure silk whippings are translucent bottle green (shade 18). The graduated intermediate whippings are Pearsall’s green Gossamer silk (shade 18). The hook keeper ring is secured with a hand-forged nickel sliver strap.

The blued and lacquered ferrules have their snug fitting hand-turned hardwood and cork stoppers. The rod comes in its tailor made bag.

Test curve: 1 pound.

Reel lines: 3 – 6 pounds breaking strain.

Casting weights: up to an ounce.