A while back, in addition to my work with Kentucky Monthly, I reported on outdoors for The Courier-Journal. One winter afternoon, I was in the downtown Louisville newsroom. This was unusual, as I was rarely in the building, being a remote worker before that became a common thing.
A phone rang. A colleague answered it, then yelled from across the room, “Hey, Garth, it’s for you.”
The caller identified himself as John Durbin. He spoke in a gentle but firm voice, like a man who knew how to make himself understood without being loud or brash. He asked if I was the person who wrote fishing stories for the newspaper. I acknowledged that, yes, I did sometimes write fishing stories for the newspaper.
The winter sport and outdoor show season was approaching, and the caller wanted to contact a show that was held in downtown Louisville. He explained that he built fishing rods and wanted to rent a booth to display some of his rods during the upcoming show. A story with show dates and times recently had appeared in the newspaper, and he was calling to ask if I knew who he might contact about booth space.
It so happened that I did know who to contact and shared the name and phone number. He thanked me and said goodbye, then, an instant before the phone clicked, I asked, “What kind of rods do you build?”
“Bamboo fly rods,” he said.
Even then, bamboo fly rods were antiquated angling relics. They did have a certain gilded romance about them, but, from a performance standpoint, bamboo cannot compete with modern composite rods. I later learned that fans of bamboo fly rods share a curious trait with those of automotive manual-shift transmissions: Not many people want them, but those who want them don’t want anything else.
I didn’t own a bamboo rod but had fished with one and was smitten. Performance-wise, they are dinosaurs. But aesthetically, they are magnificent—each one beautifully unique as only a wooden, handcrafted fishing tool can be.
We chatted for a few minutes, then John invited me to meet him at his workshop, which was in his garage. I accepted the invite, curious to learn how a butcher from Shively got into the bamboo rod-building business.
• • •
We met on a frigid, sunny day. John, then recently retired after a 49-year career as a butcher, explained the rod-building process and produced several rods he had built. He handed one to me to try and—not being an expert caster and more accustomed to a fast-action graphite/composite rod than the slow, deliberate stroke required by bamboo—I made a mess of things, accumulating a pile of tangled fly line at my feet. I spooled up the line with a string of apologies and handed the rod to John. He handed it back. “Try again.” I improved with practice.
John was an unpretentious man, trim and fit, unfailing polite and generally interested in and concerned about others. I ask him how he had become interested in building bamboo fly rods. His answer stunned me. The memory of it still stuns me.
He had been watching a TV show (ABC’s The American Sportsman) about fly fishing. “They were using bamboo rods,” he said. “I thought, ‘Somebody had to make those.’ ”
John visited the library, where he found a copy of A Master’s Guide to Building a Bamboo Fly Rod by Everett Garrison and Hoagy B. Carmichael, originally published in 1977 and still the authoritative tome on rod building. He studied it, gathered the tools and supplies needed, and taught himself to build a fly rod. I nearly panicked when I learned that the rod I’d been casting was the first one he’d built.
What if I had broken it??
“It’s just a stick,” he said. “I’d make another one.”
John and I became friends and fished together frequently, although not as frequently as either would have preferred. I benefited most from these outings. John was one of the kindest people I’ve ever known—a mentor, teacher and friend. And a fine, totally unselfish fly fisherman.
Health problems eventually slowed him. When I last saw John on a sizzling hot July day last summer, we both knew his fishing days were probably behind him, but—optimistic as anglers are—we made loose plans for a fishing trip when the weather cooled. Until then, he said, he had a gift for me, and with that he handed me a white tube marked with a simple, heartfelt note penned with a Magic Marker. Inside was a 7-foot, 9-inch, 4-weight, 7-piece bamboo rod—a travel rod.
“Let’s see how it casts,” I said quietly.
With the aid of a walker, John moved to the front yard and the stifling heat. I strung up the rod and handed it to him.
“You go first.”
He laid out a few arrow-straight casts, using the same, seemingly effortless, abbreviated left-handed stroke he’d employed in his Shively backyard years earlier. He seemed pleased.
“Well,” I said, “there’s nothing wrong with your casting.”
“No, I guess not.”
Readers may contact Gary Garth at editor@kentuckymonthly.com