|
|
Article: Theyre art you can use: ; Enthusiasts gather to celebrate bamboo fishing rods
- Article from:
- Sunday Gazette-Mail
- Article date:
- July 26, 2009
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2009 Sunday Gazette-Mail. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
|
KESLERS CROSS LANES - As if drawn by some mystical force, people
gathered around a small wooden rack propped against a tree in one of
West Virginia's state parks.
The rack contained fishing rods - not just any fishing rods, but
fishing rods built as they were a century ago, of split bamboo. And
the people handling the rods didn't buy them. They made them.
"There's a lot of work sitting there in that rack," said Dennis
McGraw of Fayetteville, who organized the first annual Mountaineer
Bamboo Rod Gathering. "A lot of work."
Each rod was made up from six small bamboo strips, or "splines,"
split from a thick bamboo pole, or "culm." Each of the splines had
to be shaped so its cross-section ...