Bassin and Birchbark

I have just returned from my trip to Canada. I stayed with my Mom and Dad who live on Gooseneck Lake near Ardbeg, Ontario. The weather was so so with some warm days, some cool days and a cracking thunderstorm one night. The mosqiutos were wicked on a few evenings as my ankles will attest to. I was able to get out with my Dad to collect some birchbark. He took me to a couple large trees which the beavers felled into the water.


First we cut down the length with a carpet knife and made a few small cut across the diameter

Next we took a paint scraper and slowly peeled the bark off. There is a strange layer between the bark and the wood. The closest thing I can compare it to is like the crumbed cracker on the bottom of a cheesecake. I noticed several other older trees felled by beavers where they had eaten this intermediate layer. Its about 1/2" thick and once removed the "wood" of the tree is exposed. The bark on these particular trees is quite thick and very smooth on the outside. I noticed when the bark had a smooth outside it was easy to peel.

A nice long length of smooth thick bark being

peeled from a tree.

We used Dads boat to get to the fallen trees as they were quite far from his house(cottage). The boat was pulled ashore right next to the trees. Heres a load that we hauled back. My dad is going to rip this into 1 1/2" squares for me on his bandsaw. Im looking forward to making some very nice grips with this stuff

I also got to do some bassin with the flyrod. Poppers were working quite well and I managed some 18 bass. The smallest fish was 16" and the largest was 22". What suprised me was I only caught one small rock bass. All of my offers seemed to be a better stamp of fish than what my Dad normally catches while trolling or casting. All of my fish were released with the exception of a 24" walleye which also took my popper one evening. Here is a few photos

A 17 incer!!

He thought it was a frog. His mistake!!!

A bonus "popper" walleye

Birchbark

My Dad who lives in Northern Ontario, Canada has been collecting and cutting some prime birchbark for me. I find this to be a really interesting material to make a fishing rod grip with. It has a slight "leathery" feel to it before its topcoated with a finish. I prefer to use Birchwood Casey Tru Oil. Heres some pcs I have received in the mail this week.





Its very straight and nice and thick. he tells me he has his eye on a tree in which the bark is almost 1/4" thick. The tree dia is about 3 feet and he said there is no blemishes on it at all. I should get a few thousand pcs from it!!!!!!!!! Let the lathework begin!!!!

Stabilized Wood and some Fishing!!!

Today I received some beautiful pcs of wood for inlays into my grips. Its stabilized which means it impregnated with monomers. The wood is put into a vacuum chamber so the monomers are diplaced throught the thickness of the wood.The wood will not shrink, crack or warp. Its really what you need for a fishing rod grip especially if your going to use it in the salt. In this order I got some Black Ash Burl, Maple Burl, Red Oak Burl I will be sure to post some photos of the grips and custom seats made with these pcs in the near future.

I took a break from the workshop to do some tubing with a fellow fisherman, customer and rodbuilder Colin. He took me up to Nieldricken Loch up in the Galloway hills for brownies. I didnt fair so well with a few small fish but Colin got a couple nice ones at 14" and 16". The walk in was about 1 1/2 hrs with the heavy pack filled with gear and tube strapped on your back. It was worth it though the scenerary was very nice.

The First Blog

I thought it would be a good idea to have a space to just ramble about my recent fishing trips and current /past rodbuilding projects etc. As of late I have been river fishing for brown trout mostly with the dry fly. Heres a few photos

I have been using my new Dan Craft 10' 3 weight. It throws a very nice line although I have been trying to fish as short as possible and sneak up on the wee buggers as best I can. Rod has Fugi Ti framed SiC's wraps encorporate a Forhan Locking Wrap. This really is the business as far as security wraps are concerned. It eliminates any need for a double foot guide even where the stripper is concerned. A few photos of it