589 | Casting Back in Time: The Art of Bamboo Rodmaking & Traditional Fly Fishing with Ed Few

Wet Fly Swing Fly Fishing Podcast

Dave Stewart

Leisure, Hobbies, Sports, Wilderness

4.7 • 531 Ratings

🗓️ 5 April 2024

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Show Notes: https://wetflyswing.com/589

Presented By: Waters West, Togiak River Lodge, Skwala

Sponsors: https://wetflyswing.com/sponsors

Ed Few, a distinguished craftsman of custom bamboo fly rods, shares his extraordinary journey from traditional boatmaking in England to mastering the art of fly fishing with hand-built gear. Delving into the essence of fly fishing's heritage, Ed brings to life the thrill of using bamboo rods, silk lines, and horsehair leaders, all while chasing steelhead in the Great Lakes. Listeners will be transported back in time, learning not just about the meticulous process of creating these traditional tools, but also how they can elevate their own fishing experiences. Ed's stories of craftsmanship, passion, and the pursuit of the perfect catch with historic gear promise to inspire and ignite a curiosity for the timeless art of fly fishing.

Topics Discussed in This Episode:

The transition from traditional boat building to crafting bamboo fly rods
The unique allure of fishing with hand-built custom bamboo rods and traditional gear
The process and passion behind selecting materials for rod building, including sourcing bamboo and creating silk lines
Techniques and benefits of fishing with horsehair leaders and hand-tied flies
Ed Few's memorable experience catching steelhead in the Great Lakes with a bamboo rod he crafted
The significance of preserving fly fishing traditions while integrating them with contemporary practices
Insights into the craftsmanship of rod building without power tools, emphasizing the artistry involved
The potential for bamboo rods in modern fly fishing, including trout and saltwater applications
The concept of a community-shared bamboo rod to connect anglers and stories across the globe
Ed Few's vision for the future of traditional fly fishing gear and his contributions to the sport's heritage

https://wetflyswing.com/589

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Have you ever wondered what it would feel like to cast a hand-built custom bamboo fly rod?
0:06.9	And how about fishing with horsehair leader and a traditional fly all well catching and going for large steelhead?
0:15.6	My guest, Ed Few, today, did just that on our last trip to the Great Lakes.
0:19.7	And today he's going to show you how he did it and how you can get started with traditional fly gear today.
0:25.7	This is the wet fly swing podcast where I show you the best places to travel to for fly fishing, how to find the best resources and tools to prepare and what you can do to give back to the fish species we love.
0:37.2	Hey, I'm Dave, host the Wetfly Swing podcast.
0:39.4	I've been fly fishing since I was a little kid.
0:42.2	I grew up around a fly shop and have created one of the largest fly fishing podcast in this country.
0:47.3	And I've also interviewed more of the greatest fly anglers than just about anybody on this planet.
0:52.5	Today, Ed Few is here, my good friend who I met for the first time on our big Great
0:56.6	Lake Steelhead School trip with Jeff Liske.
0:59.5	Ed shares the setup he used and how he became a rod builder after building boats from
1:05.8	a master in England.
1:07.5	So amazing stories here that Ed shares about not working too much. Plus, you're going to find out what is next for Ed and how you can get your hands on one of Ed's custom rods for free in the bamboo rodshare program. All today on the podcast, time to cross back over the pond. Here we go. Ed Few, and you can find him at Bamboo Few on Instagram. How you doing, Ed? I'm doing great, Dave. Thank you very much for having me. I'm pleased to be here. How are you getting on? Yeah, good. Good. I appreciate you taking the time. We've got lots of stories to tell us. I think we're going to be running low on time, but I'm going to dig into this as much as we can. And I think the cool thing is we met in person. This is, I think, one of the great things about the, you know, the programs we're doing now, kind of with our fishing schools and trips and things like that. So we, we met at the, um, the Jeff Fliske, the Great like Steelhead School, and with the crew out there. And we fished,
2:04.3	you know, and we fished together, which was, we've got this great story about this epic,
2:08.8	you know, fish and kind of day on the river where you caught everything on a bamboo rod you
2:13.2	built by hand and horse hair, you know, leader and the fly and everything. So I'm going to
2:19.9	talk about that today. And then also some on your boat building. You do a lot of cool stuff
2:23.9	without using tools. So I think that's a really interesting thing we're going to hear about today.
2:27.7	Before we get into all that, take us back to fly fishing. What's your first memory? How did you
2:31.7	get into it? So fly fishing itself and I was thinking about this because I knew you were going to ask this question.
2:38.0	I can't actually pinpoint exactly my first memory of fly fishing.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Dave Stewart, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Dave Stewart and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.