torchbearers

Bamboo Fly Rods, Cressy Cane - Hayes on Brumbys Lodge, 2016

The Torchbearers

This page recognises three Australians, Ray Brown, Peter Hayes and Sean McSharry who share a deep love of fly fishing with bamboo rods, an appreciation of bamboo rod making, and a knowledge of its history and its origins in Australia. They are themselves not primarily rod makers, but they have championed Australian bamboo rod making and influenced where it is today. 

Ray Brown 

Over close to 60 years, Ray has been passionate in his pursuit of all facets of fly fishing: a fisherman of rare ability, he is a great fly tyer, has built an impressive library of fly-fishing books and is an astute collector of bamboo fly rods, but above all, he spread the knowledge of bamboo rods to Australian fly fishers by importing bamboo rod blanks, building finished rods from them and marketing them. Nick Taransky acknowledges Ray as one of his most important mentors as a fly fisher and bamboo rod maker.    

In an article about short bamboo rods in the 12th edition of Flyfisher Australia magazine, Nick included Ray’s account of his fascination with bamboo, and particularly with the shorter rods:

“I suppose it all started in 1960 when my Nan and Pop arrived home from overseas. Pop had brought me home from Japan a boxed bamboo fishing rod set. I reckon I was pretty excited. My family were fishermen, always! Fresh and salt, but I wanted to fly fish, an obsession I still have today. The fly rod in the set wasn’t the best and the level line my Pop gave me didn’t load very well, but I persisted. Things improved when for my 11th birthday I received a double taper line, absolute magic! I could now cast reasonably well at the hoops I placed on the front lawn between the trees.

“Dad was most impressed and over the next few years I acquired a Jarvis Walker Gold Medal 6-weight, a Shakespeare Wonder Rod 5-weight, a Daiwa glass on glass and lastly a Hardy Smuggler 8 ft 4 piece. These were all fibreglass rods. I regularly fished in a couple of creeks for trout during this period – the River Torrens was a favourite haunt. In the latter part of this period, I acquired a Turville Princess from the Melbourne tackle business J. M. Turville Pty Ltd. 

“I, like most other South Australian fly fisherman, read all and everything we could find on trout. J. M. Turville still made cane rods and I read that a Victorian caster was taking an 8 ft Venus to the World Casting Championships. I had to have one. I contacted Jack Turville and talked to him, a rod was put aside and I worked all of my school holidays to pay for it. I christened it on Sixth Creek in the Adelaide Hills. The Venus was perfect for short distance dry fly fishing on the narrow streams of SA. In a couple of years, I had added both a JMT Dry Fly and a Jenny Anne to my collection. 

“A chance meeting with Lee Cramond on the banks of Sixth Creek one afternoon was the catalyst for major change. Lee was also fishing with cane, shorter again than my 7 ft Jenny Anne. We became lifelong friends. Lee was also passionately addicted to books. He gave me a copy of The Well-Tempered Angler by Arnold Gingrich. 

“Gingrich was the champion of the Midge rod; more specifically the Paul Young Midge. 

“Within the pages of The Well-Tempered Angler I found a passion for short bamboo. 

“Gingrich wrote of McClane, Paul Young and Lee Wulff. Lee had developed a 6 ft Midge built by Wes Jordan for a 7-weight line that he fished for Atlantic salmon. He even took it to the Spey River in Scotland for a contest with Jock Scott, the famous salmon fisherman. Paul Young went on to develop the Midge, the outcome being his 6’3” 4-weight. Gingrich was a member of the 20/20 club, only open to those who caught a 20-inch trout on a size 20 fly using a 6’3” Midge. The rod was invincible. Well, I found a Sharpes of Aberdeen version of the 6’ Midge, not a 7-weight, but a 5-weight. Fantastic rod, I christened it ‘The Stump Puller’. Hundreds and hundreds of fish later I broke the single tip. I tried to buy another rod from Scotland, but the rod I received was a far cry from the first in both action and quality. 

“Around this time, I was also Queensland rod maker John McGinn’s South Australian representative. I came into possession of a Partridge Cumberland 7’6” 4-weight. The rod was very impressive. Built on an Everett Garrison taper, it cast silky smooth with a reserve power I had not experienced in a bamboo rod before. I contacted Partridge and bought two cane rod blanks, a 7’6” 4-weight and a 6’3” Midge for a #5/6 line. The Midge was based on the Paul Young Midge. The rod was a revelation: fast action, powerful and it weighed around 2 ounces. Greg Wirth of Victor Harbor built the blank up for me. I still fish with it and the 4-weight Midge that Partridge sent me later in 1985. As the years progressed, I fished more and more with the two 6’3” Midges, even though I had built up a fair collection of bamboo rods, something I wish I still had today. 

“South of Adelaide is the Fleurieu Peninsula with rolling hills and lush river valleys. The streams are just creeks by national standards, but they contained trout that readily rose to the dry fly. Fertile, bushy, narrow and slow flowing, they provided the perfect conditions for using the short rod. Mayfly hatches were prolific; the trout (Browns and Rainbows) were selective and well-conditioned. Idyllic conditions for the dry fly. 

“I had reached this point purely by the conditions of my environment. I fished the small streams where fast, accurate casting was required. The rod had to load with a short line, often with only a leader out of the rod tip. Casting through narrow gaps in the tea-tree to trout sitting on station was a requirement, only achievable with the short rod. The conditions had dictated the terms, the equipment and the flies. 

“Nick came down to Port Noarlunga one day to talk about buying a new rod to fish the small streams, both in the mountains and around Canberra. He had cut his teeth fishing the streams around Adelaide, the very ones that had occupied my youth. His enthusiasm was evident. I was always cautious of newcomers taking on a bamboo rod. However, Nick was just so interested in all aspects of the art, and even then he expressed a wish to construct a cane rod. He purchased a 6’3” Midge 4-weight. We had become good friends by the time he moved to Canberra. It was rare to find as passionate a fly fisherman as Nick. Interestingly, my fishing partner at the time was Paul Bourne, another fly fisherman who was on that level; fishing only dries with a Thomas & Thomas Hendrickson bamboo rod. In 2002 Nick and Miri were fortunate enough, while working in the USA, to participate in a bamboo rod building course conducted by Jeff Wagner. Later that year they returned to Geraldton, Western Australia to work. Then in 2003 they spent a few weeks in Adelaide on their way home to Canberra.

“It was during this period in Adelaide that the concept for Nick’s Monaro 45 taper was conceived. Previously Nick had travelled down on occasions to visit us at our camp at Kybeyan – I had fished the Monaro streams for a month a year since the early 1980s, and after the drought, for a number of years the fishing was sensational. We fished the dun hatches on the Maclaughlin and the Kybeyan, the red spinner falls on the Bobundara, the hoppers on the Delegate and lots of other small streams whose names escape me. All were fished with my pair of 6’3” Midges, mainly the ‘Stump Puller’ because of its extra power in casting into the wind and its ability to place a fly accurately on the water. Fly size was between 16 and 10, all dries – I don’t ever remember using a wet fly on the Monaro streams during that period. Now a Tasmanian, I am allowing myself to be more versatile and the submerged fly has been used as required on the odd occasion. 

“Nick and Miri called in while in Adelaide and showed me their pair of Paul Young Driggs River rods they had built with Jeff Wagner. Nick asked me if he could take the specifications of the ‘Stump Puller’ and during a subsequent day out fishing we discussed how to improve the 5/6 weight Midge. What evolved was a rod for me to fish the Monaro streams. Firstly, it had to be a fast action, 4-weight dry fly rod with a fair bit of grunt in the butt. This suited my casting action and my desire for a swelled butt that was a feature of many of the famous American tapers. A few months later I received the first Monaro 45, not as swelled in the butt as I imagined, and probably closer to a 5-weight than a 4. If ever there was a rod made in heaven just for me, this was it! Forget Preston Jennings for president, Nicholas Taransky was a genius – of the many bamboo rods I owned, nothing came close to it. 

“Early in 2005 Nick tweaked the original Monaro 45 taper. I sent back my original and received my new rod. It was better, crisper, had improved ferrules and a figured timber reel seat. I have fished with it ever since; it’s tasted the waters of the South Esk, Meander, Leven and Mersey in northern Tasmania. I have fished with it in the Western Lakes, Nineteen Lagoons, Great Lake and Arthurs to name a few. These are not the sort of locations you would expect to fish a 6’6” bamboo Midge. But this is an exceptional fly rod, originally built and developed by two of modern America’s fly-fishing pioneers, Lee Wulff and Wesley Jordan. I am delighted to have played a part in the establishment of Nicholas Taransky as a master rod maker.”  

Peter Hayes

As the host of the ‘Cressy Cane’ gathering of bamboo rod makers and other enthusiasts since its inception in 2014, Peter has brought his extraordinary skill both in fly casting and in teaching it. He has enhanced the casting ability of all Cressy Cane participants and deepened their appreciation of the link between effective casting and making quality bamboo rods that can give expression to it. To understand the significance of his contribution, it helps to cast back to the origins of Peter’s connection to fly rods and their casting. That connection has three remarkable dimensions, grounded in Peter’s natural ability but all driven on by his enquiring mind and commitment to excellence. 

The first began in his early teens in the mid-1970s, when he was adopted and taught to cast by a group of superb fly-casters at the Red Tag Fly Fishers Club in Fairfield, Melbourne, on its fly-casting pool in Yarra Bend Park. His particular mentor was Jack Joyner, a legendary competition fly-caster who had defeated the American distance caster Jon E. Tarantino, then the world champion, in one event at the International Casting Federation Bait and Fly-Casting competition at Yarra Bend Park in October 1959. Tarantino had won almost all the other events.

For the next twenty years Peter committed himself to tournament fly-casting. In 1981, aged 19 he first became Australian fly-casting champion of champions and, as part of the Australian team at the World Fly-Casting Championships in Santa Clara, California, he won a silver medal with a single-handed distance cast of 211 feet. In 1983, aged 21 he won silver again at the World Championships in Toronto, Canada, with a single-handed distance cast of 245 feet. He was the Australian fly-casting champion of champions seven times between 1985 and 1999, including four successive years 1988 to 1991. 

In parallel with fly-casting, Peter also excelled in fly fishing. In 1998 he became Australian fly-fishing champion, and he twice represented Australia at the World Fly Fishing Championships, where he won a bronze medal at the championships in Bristol, United Kingdom, in 2000. 

Fly casting and fishing combined to launch the third dimension of Peter’s connection with fly rods: he discovered a natural ability and passion for teaching, in both fly-casting and fishing. In 1994 Peter moved to Tasmania and began a highly successful career as a fly-fishing guide, and he combines guiding in the summer months with casting instruction in the winter months (in addition to his casting conclaves in Tasmania and mainland Australia, he has taught fly casting in New Zealand, North America, Japan, China, Malaysia, Indonesia and South Africa). In 2007 Peter became the first Australian to be recognised by the International Federation of Fly Fishers (IFFF)[1]  as a Master Casting Instructor, and in 2012 he was elected to the IFFF Casting Board of Governors. 

Although Peter’s 20 years of tournament fly-casting did not involve bamboo rods, his exposure to them began early at the Red Tag Fly Fishers, where many members still fished and competed at casting tournaments with bamboo rods.[2] His mentor Jack Joyner left him several of his bamboo tournament rods. The revival of Peter’s connection with bamboo rods started from a chance meeting in June 2007 with Nick Taransky, who was presenting at a Victorian Fly Fishers’ Association Cane Day[3] at the Red Tag Casting Pool on the same day Peter was running a casting clinic there. 

Nick gave us his recollections of that day, and of what followed from it:

“I’d first met Peter in one of his casting classes, in the 1990s, when he visited Canberra. This was before I had started making bamboo rods. It remains a memorable day for me, with Peter’s passion, enthusiasm to share and teach, and his outrageous skill on show to inspire as to what fly casting could be.

“After I started making rods full time in 2004, I used to travel to Melbourne every year for the VFFA Cane Day at the Red Tag Casting Pool at Fairfield Park. This wonderful part of the VFFA Calendar was very well supported by the membership and rates a ‘Torchbearer’ mention in its own right. I was always invited and made to feel very welcome, by then President David ‘Choco’ Grisold and all of the other members (with a special mention to Malcom Elms). The day was an informal affair, with a sausage sizzle and a few warming drinks (both warm in temperature and alcohol content!). There was always a great range of rods, old and new, on the casting rack. There were many Australian rods on show – mainly Victorian Turvilles and Gillies – but also Southams and others. And of course, older Hardys, Sharpes and more. But the VFFA also made every effort to invite and promote the work of contemporary makers too. Peter McKean was always there, and I recall seeing Brad Waggoner, Tony Young, Andrew Chan, John Austin, Chris Kriekenback and other part-time Australian makers there too. Ray Brown was also a regular attendant. 

“In 2007, both the VFFA Cane Day and one of Peter Hayes’ casting classes intersected at the Red Tag Pool. I watched with interest across the pond to the long casts and narrow loops coming from Peter and his students with the graphite rods. At the conclusion of his class, Peter came over to say hello to his many VFFA friends. I somewhat anxiously introduced myself and handed him a prototype one-piece 6’3” fast actioned #6/7 Australian Bass Rod, based on my Partridge FA6345, that I had bought from Ray Brown. Peter proceeded to cast a full fly line, with ‘candy cane’ loops with the rod, and was very complementary about it. As a fledgling full-time maker, his encouragement, warmth and genuine smile gave a massive boost to me and my rod making. He had nothing to gain from me, and I was literally no-one to him at the time, but I will be eternally grateful for that ‘generosity of spirit’, which all of us who know him, will readily relate to.

“From that starting point, we interacted further, and Peter invited me as the ‘bamboo guy’ to his general Fly-Fishing Conclaves/Gatherings in Tasmania, Sydney and Victoria (Woodend). They were wonderful days, with a strong Casting/FFI focus, but also with a broader Australian fly-fishing content. People like Muz Wilson, Philip Weigall, Mick Hall, Peter Morse, and international guests including Paul Arden, contributed to a diverse program and shared elevation of skills. As David Hemmings has written, the ‘Cressy Cane’ concept grew out of the ‘bamboo’ element of these gatherings, and has grown from strength to strength from there.

“Peter Hayes was the focal point for all of this. He would be too humble to accept credit, but without his inspirational energy and willingness to ‘make things happen’, I don’t think that we would be in the place we are today without him.”

Peter’s interest in the casting characteristics of bamboo rods was further enhanced by the keen interest in them of David Hemmings, who guided with Peter. As David wrote: 

“The end-of season gatherings at Brumbys Creek Lodge around 2008 were an opportunity to try different rods, to improve our casting and discuss all things fly fishing and casting related. At some point during the day, the casting heroes would start competing with distance events, and that’s when I would be found with Nick Taransky – casting shorter cane rods with interesting actions which I found much more appealing.”

In 2011 David flew to Ohio to learn about bamboo rod making from Jeff Wagner,[4] following on from Nick in 2002. By then, Peter’s engineering background and fascination with casting biomechanics were leading him to experiment with rod design and rod actions.[5]  While the fly-fishing industry was developing ever faster tip action graphite rods, Peter was experimenting with a range of rod actions and materials, including fibreglass and, increasingly, bamboo. To further his understanding of bamboo and its casting characteristics, Peter made two bamboo rods in Nick’s classes.

Along with David and Nick, Peter was a principal driver of ‘Cressy Cane – A Celebration of Bamboo Rod Making’, and its ideal host since its founding. It has become a key vehicle for the expanding interest in bamboo rods and resurgence in bamboo rod making in Australia. Peter’s commitment to excellence has been an inspiration to many modern bamboo rod makers. He continues to be an integral part of the evolving Australian bamboo rod story.

In his Foreword to this history, Peter provides his thoughts on the evolution of Australian bamboo fly rods, starting with the important role of tournament fly casting in that evolution.

Sean McSharry

Sean made lovely bamboo fly rods for some years, but his particular importance as a torchbearer in this history stems from his deep knowledge of the evolution of bamboo rod makers and their rods internationally for much of the 20th century. Through the makers he has known and the rods he has owned and fished with in many countries, he has provided our link to that international story.[6] Sean has inspired a love of bamboo rods in many fly-fishers, particularly in the New South Wales Rod Fishers’ Society. He provides his reflections on his journey with cane (and silk lines):

“The earliest memory is on packing up from a day’s dapping on Lough Corrib, Ireland, watching a deft angler working with a fast yellowish cane single handed rod. With a tan silk line. About age ten…

“Some thirty years later, having fished in the USA with an old Hardy stiff fly rod, then the earliest graphite rods, I found myself invited onto the Risle in France. Emerging from a thicket, I firstly heard the snappy swish of a silk line and was delighted to see an accomplished trout angler working a Ritz-designed Pezon et Michel cane rod. Back in Paris, I fitted myself out with Pezon et Michel’s Ritz Super-Parabolic PPP 7’2” ‘Type Hans’ rod.[7] Plus a French silk line. Forty plus years on I still have that rod, with its amazing taper that fires a WF4 silk line out up to 25 yards.[8]

“In a sort of bell curve, the cane rod collection probably peaked at around 40 rods in around 2012, declining to around twenty-odd in 2023. There were Paynes, Leonards, a Young or two, EW Edwards, FE Thomas, some Heddons, and a Hardy or two. The American tapers were quite the best in their day and the mid-Western Heddons excellent distance casters. The grey beards include a Kosmic 9’6” rod made by Ed Payne in 1896, an EW Edwards Touradif 1917 rod, a Hardy CC de France 7’6” 1919, and a Jim Payne Model 97, a 7’ beauty. All have been used at times. 

“In 1977 came out the Garrison/Carmichael tome A Master’s Guide to Building a Fly Rod. Living in Belgium, I began to dream of having the time to do that. The planing ideas and the mathematical sections were a challenge. I wrote to Hoagy Carmichael to ask for more taper ideas, but he said no… Then Hoagy advertised a run of 10 reproduction planing forms exactly as designed by Garrison. That came in a New York colleague’s container when moving to Brussels. I began to accumulate planes, mainly Stanleys USA, and the various tools recommended by Garrison. Then in a move to Switzerland in 1981, I bought a fine solid workbench. I also bought a selection of 6’ poles from Partridge which was paradoxically going out of cane rods, just while the amateur tide was strengthening. Some of the densest cane I ever saw. 

“When Swiss times drew to a close, back to Sydney, and after retiring from JP Morgan, I eventually built an artist’s studio for Mrs McSharry and landed a mid-level workshop. By 2005 I was ready and got my first shipment of contemporary Arundinaria Amabilis from the Bamboo Broker in Colorado. 

“By then there were a half dozen new manuals on how to, and an interesting internet site: the Rodmakers’ List. All of these things allowed me to launch into the first rods in 2005. 

“I set my sights on a 7’6” Payne 2/2 Model 101, with late 1920s hardware design, and line guides set for silk lines, in bronze tint. Four rods came out of that, looking fine except for the shoddy pre-formed brown cork handles. Then around 2007 I acquired a Morgan Hand mill, that eventually arrived in parts duty free. The instructions were so bizarre that I ceased my correspondence with Tom Morgan and instead enquired on the Rodmakers’ List site how other folk online were faring. I had in mind a long run of Payne 97s, dreamily perfect rods for small streams…. Meanwhile the inventory built up, of silks, glues, line guides, all sorts of reel seats and inserts, rod bags from Bailey Wood, tube ends in brass and locally obtained tubing, an excellent sharpening machine that avoided all the mess of wet stones. Etc…

“I made a few other rods, but my work papers departed with the workshop in 2019, the price of downsizing. In passing both on to an aspiring young rod maker, I have passed the baton, trusting that he will use it to continue our lovely craft.”

[1] Later renamed Fly Fishers International (FFI).

[2] According to Kevin Laughton, bamboo rods were used in Australian fly-casting championships until 1972. Graphite rods were introduced by Fenwick in 1973.

[3] The annual Cane Day dates from June 2003. Marty Rogers, the legendary fishing manager at Jim Allen’s ‘Compleat Angler’ in Melbourne, was instrumental in its foundation. Marty, who died in 2016, deserves a mention among the Torchbearers. He was instrumental in the great fly caster and fisherman John Brookes (1922-2004), who had fished with Malcom Gillies, writing Lifelong Pleasure – Seventy Years of Fly Fishing. With Jim Allen, Marty gained the agreement of David Scholes to reprint Trout Quest, originally published in 1969 and increasingly difficult to find. Marty had a remarkable collection of Australian bamboo rods. Nick Taransky writes, ‘‘I spent a wonderful few days with Marty about 10 years ago and he brought out rod after rod from his storage shed to show me and talk about, including several that had been owned by David Scholes. While I was with him, I used my micrometer to measure up four of his Turville Jenny Anne rods. He had a huge stable of other rods and knowledge, though he didn’t let anyone into his storage shed!’’

[4] Jeff Wagner, one of the great US bamboo rod makers, deserves an honorary mention as a torchbearer for Australian bamboo rod makers. At least six Australian rod makers have travelled to Ohio to learn bamboo rod making from him. He was the special international guest at the 2016 Cressy Cane.

[5] For many years, Peter has made ‘Rod Tasting Notes’ to record his impressions of every rod he casts, to help him recall its action when he casts it again or compares it with the actions of other rods he casts.

[6] Sean wrote the ‘International Context’ section of the Introduction.

[7] Named after the legendary Austrian fly fisherman and guide Hans Gebetsroither, river keeper on the Gmundner Traun. He was the developer of the constant-tension, oval style of fly casting later mis-named as the Belgian Cast.

[8] Sean made a copy of that rod for Peter, who rates it very highly.