CRESSY CANE

A Celebration of Australian Bamboo Rodmaking

2021 Photo Gallery

Click on photos to view larger images and captions

Rods Rods and More Rods

Graphing Rods is a regular feature

Passionate discussions

Rod wrapping demonstration

Rod, mayfly and stream - the beauty of fly fishing

Tasmanian Mayflies are spectacular

It's about the rods, but the rods are about fishng

And more fishing

Tasmanian Trout are a feature of Cressy Cane

Brown trout are as diverse as cane rods

Program of Events

This relaxed gathering will be similar to last years with lots of discussion and rod testing and some practical sessions.

We will have spend a day grasshopper fishing with Cane rods on a local river.

There has been some interest in ferrules so we will return to this subject and have a practical session on ferrule fitting and lapping. Of course we can discuss any aspect of rod building in our open discussion sessions.

We will discuss favourite rod tapers, new rod tapers, Parabolic rods and even rod restoration.

We will drink gin and tonic whilst watching Haysie demonstrating on the casting pool. Most importantly, we will admire and cast cane rods. Even more importantly we will forget about the world for a few days.

The emphasis will be on 7’6” rods which is I think the sweet spot for many rods. So bring your favourites along. In fact, bring any of your favourites rods.

We will discuss lines and leaders and even tippet. We will talk about a very worthwhile project - A History of Australian Bamboo Rod Makers.

This enormous task has been driven by our friends Fred von Reibnitz and James Jones. James will update the group and discuss "what’s next” and we are hoping that Fred will attend via Zoom to outline the historical perspective.

Haysie will inspire and teach you to improve your casting.

2022 Cressy Cane - 9 - 11 April

Here's an update of our recent Cressy Cane gathering. We had a smallish but enthusiastic group of makers attend. A few of us managed to catch and miss some nice trout in Brumbys creek before the gathering started. We cast some beautiful cane rods and chatted in the classroom about particular favourites.

As always -its all about the rods. Madake cane keeps on making an appearance as an outstanding material for building rods. Nick T's stunning Madake Perfectionist and Imperfectionist were admired and drooled over. My shortened 7'6" Madake Para 15 ( Bamboo ferrule) was powerful and smooth. Jim Jones had a remarkable Bill Southam 1930's 7'6" which he had restored faithfully. Jim morris had a beautiful 7'6" 4/5# Steve Kiley rod that was a firm favourite. Peter Austin brought his lesser known Paul Young 'Princess and Brightwater plus many many others. I love them all!

We cast rods with different lines with some interesting results. Some rods transformed into super rods just by changing the line so we discussed the implications of this and realised that we have a lot more to learn about loading and unloading rods with the appropriate Flylines.

Fred Von Reibnitz joined us via zoom to co-present with Jim Jones the progress of an exciting and slightly daunting project - A History of Australian Bamboo Rod Makers. Jim and Fred have collated a large amount of historical information on makers and photographs of rods. This ongoing project will eventually bring us up to date with Modern Makers. SO - Your Country needs you ! If you have or know someone that has Bamboo rods made by Australian makers prior to 2000 we would like you to photograph the rods in a manner similar to the rods displayed at spinozarods.com. iPhone or similar is sufficient quality. Please include the inscription and any notes on the rod details. eg. age, owner etc. Then forward the jpeg photos and details to either Fred and/or James at ... fvr@webone.com.au or jj@jomo-arch.com.au This very worthwhile project will record the missing history of our own Bamboo makers before its too late. I know that Fred and Jim will appreciate your efforts.

On Saturday we left all of the theory of Bamboo rods in the classroom and caught a lot of trout using a Hopper on a Cane rod on a superb local river - just as promised.

On the final day we had a ferrule lapping demonstration and a sensational presentation by Jim Jones on his own journey into Bamboo Rods via Rod repair and restoration. Jim has documented this here... https://sites.google.com/view/bambooflyrodsrecycled/plant-to-rod

Then we finished the afternoon with more casting on the pond with outstanding rods and superb instruction from Peter Hayes. There will be photos of the weekend on the cressycane.org and a copy of this report.

So there you have it. I'm pleased that we were able to continue the Cressy Cane gathering in 2022. Next year we are hoping to host our incredible Japanese makers and return to a full program. We have many ideas including another Group Rod project . Staggered rod ferrules. A possible Master Class of Bamboo ferrules. Exploring unconventional rod lengths eg; 7'7" 7'8" 7'9" 7'10" and so on.

In the meantime, enjoy your rod making and the wonderful world of Bamboo.

Kindest Regards

BD

(The Program of Events for the year is listed here with the Gallery images below)