March 1965 -my Dad caught a five pound four ounce chub from the river Loddon (it’s in a glass case in my office now) and Bob Dylan released Bringing It All Back Home with a backing band who used electric guitars. When he played in Manchester later that year, a hard-core folkie shouted ‘Judas!’ at him.
What’s all this got to do with fishing rods, you must surely be asking?
Thoughtful, sensitive and caring people like anglers and the under fifties are trying to be carbon neutral. Controversially, here at the Barder Rod Co we’re trying to be positive about carbon. When we introduced some fine carbon fibre rods to our range, there were outraged mutterings from the hard-core bamboo fundamentalists. Their great great grandfathers had reacted with similar disquiet when Hardy’s promoted split cane over greenheart in the 1890s.
Our hearts belong to bamboo, but we like to make the best fishing rods we can, for the sort of fishing we enjoy. A really good split cane 8′ #4-weight is unbeatable in our view, and so is a 10′ #4-weight in carbon fibre.
Our custom made carbon rods are affordable and the lead times are digestible even to those of you who are no longer buying green bananas or long playing records. This was the reaction to a carbon rod we sent recently to Jason of the United States:
‘I struggle to find the right superlatives to express my opinion of the work, but must simply say it is perhaps the most exquisitely finished fly rod I’ve seen to date. The quality of all the details that go into its construction can not be overstated. The words that come to mind are sublime, exquisite and yet understated. I simply must purchase additional rods from you for my use.’
Please take a look at our website www.barder-rod.co.uk to find out about our hand made split cane & carbon fibre rods as well as our ever changing inventory of superb rods, reels and landing nets.