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Step on a graphite rod and see what happens?Quote:
Originally Posted by palewatery
*snickering*
How many 50 year old graphite rods have you heard of taking a bend on a fish of a lifetime?
Wood and bamboo started it all and are very available for anyone to pick up and make.
I prefer someone's personal hand drawn art over computer generated art, no what I mean?
My rod comparison = new
My opinion = mine
Respectfully taken.
:D
Take care.
I can honestly say that if I didn't fish bamboo that it still wouldn't be graphite for me.It would be fiberglass.I own a 6 1/2' 4wt Russ Peak fiberglass rod that I would never get rid of.
Try buying one of those on ebay :lol: The last one I saw listed there went for almost $1800 :shock:
:D :D :D
Chances are it'll break, which on a $600-700 rod means the pain of a trip to the post office to send it away for a free repair. Bamboo is strong but I've read on here about many being broken, if you have the tools and knowhow you can fix it yourself.... If you don't......Quote:
Originally Posted by adam
There are no 50 year old Graphite rods.
Agreed, but if (like me and many others) you dont have the tools/space/ability/inclination to make your own which is the cheapest/easiest to pick up with good quality/performance? Like most things it's not black and white it's shades of grey.
I'm an artist and work in both mediums, different sets of skills but to be good at the second you need to be good at the first. Good computer art is drawn just the same only with a stylus rather than pencil or brush. I love and appreciate both. Photography too, in days past they were enhanced in the darkroom now most often it's a digital darkroom. All good.
New for new, like for like, Graphite is cheaper... doesn't mean it's better or worse, but it will reflect the time spent making it and costs of materials. Shades of grey.
You know I respect yours I know you you respect mine. I'm not flying the flag for graphite, I voted Bamboo, but I'm playing devils advocate and adding balance. Both types can be very good and both can be very bad.
If I had to pick one rod to fish with for the rest of my life on smallstreams I'd pick Bamboo, not any Bamboo just my Bamboo, can I do anything with it that I can't do with my TXL? No. Can I do anything with my TXL I can't do with my Boo? No. I just appreciate it more on different levels, it's a personal thing.
Fishing rods... it's always a personal thing... shades of grey.
This is a good discussion.
I believe there are many good bamboo rods and many good graphite rods. I wrote earlier that “At retail prices, the graphite rod is the most expensive rod you can own.” Palewatery disagreed, and that’s fine; each of us has his own experiences.
I will never own the top of the line bamboo rods, or the top of the line graphites, either. I also do not drive a Maserati to the stream. But I like serviceable and nice looking rods, so I have good, mid-range and home-made stuff. And a Buick, and an eleven year old Chevy pickup.
I assume that we buy rods to keep them and fish them, and not as investments. It’s true that there are a number of good graphite rods now, at modest prices. But if a rod doesn’t fill its intended purpose, much of the retail price is lost. Used graphite rods sell for a fraction of the new price.
I wrote earlier that I had put under $900 into my current collection of 12 bamboo rods. I have willing buyers in my community that would pay at least $4000 for the bunch. None of them are for sale, but I’m satisfied with the price I paid vs. the current value of these rods.
You are right Ernest, it is an excellent discussion.
Bamboo brought forth graphite.
Graphite brings forth bamboo enthusiasts.
Jim and I agree, we both enjoy both types of rods, our philosophy is different.
I will make a rod for Jim, spend about 40 hours thinking about him and the rod he is receiving from me.
I truly think it is healthy to have differences of opinion and we learn from each other's perspective.
Graphite is cheap, no doubt.
Bamboo is inexpensive.
Each has attributes that compliment each other.
Hopefully, we can all learn from listening/reading each other.
Thank you for hanging in there with me Ernest and everyone else. I am often not clear in my writing because I write fast and often think ahead and write about the idea that is spawned by the one I am currently thinking about...
Ernest, I wonder, when you say you will never own top of the line Bamboo or Graphite rods…. If the fishing gods were to appear and offer you a swap, the rods you own and use now for a batch of top of the line in whatever matrix you choose… Would you take up the offer? Not a sale but a swap of your choice.
The reason I wonder and ask is that I agree 100% with you regarding buying rods to keep and fish rather than for investment, but my current position is very different from yours. I own a few rods less than you, as I have no wife or children to care for and used to have a decent job a chunk of my disposable income went on fishing in one form or another so I’ve spent just over $3000 on the rods I now own and more or less broke even on the other rods I’ve bought and sold over the years, leaning to less. If I sold them all now I guess I’d lose $600 where you would have a fourfold increase in value. Many of mine were/are top end be it 20 years ago or now, anyway there are many rods more expensive than mine nowadays but I very much doubt I’d take the offer as I don’t think they’d add anything to my time on the water. I suspect you’d say the same for the same reason but I don’t know and that’s why I ask. Would those top ends add anything to your fishing or would they just be collectors items? This might seem like a stupid question but I know top end Graphite and I don’t know much on top end Glass or Bamboo.
My experience with modern Graphite is similar I guess to buying cars, the minute you take it off the forecourt you lose a percentage of it’s value. They introduce a new replacement model and you lose another percentage, they then continue to devalue slowly and steadily after that until you get to a point where if you bought well and looked after them they become “classics” and the value goes up slightly and then hovers (Sage RPL’s, LL’s and SP’s seem to be there just now, especially some LL's). It might take another 20 years before we’ll really know if they’ll ever become more than that as the matrix is too young and in the past the quality has been spotty. You can find good percentage prices on used/replaced high ends but the further down the ranges you go the higher the percentage savings you’ll make. Same with makers, outside of Sage, Orvis, Winston and a few others there’s loads of good rods and those are the ones with the biggest and quickest percentage savings. Supply and demand.
As a general question to anyone, those who know the second hand Bamboo market better than me, which means anyone… Is the second hand Bamboo market much different? Do the high ends from the biggest names rise in value straight away or must they wait to become “classics”?
Adam, we do agree. Which can be unfortunate as where people disagree can make the most interesting discussions.
Bamboo brought forth Graphite, as did glass and where Bamboo was the entry point for a generation Glass was the entry point for me and Graphite is the entry point for most folk now. Where they go from that… I trust many will go to Bamboo.
An example of our difference in philosophy is where you say Graphite is cheap and Bamboo is inexpensive I say both are cheap or both are inexpensive. I know, I’m nit picking… but I can’t help myself. ;) :roll:
I’d love to fish a rod you’ve made. Maybe I will, I’d like it more if I fished it in Arizona. :D
Wow, I read a lot of passion in that.
I don't have that much passion for a graphite rod, it has no soul, easily popped out one just like another...
I won't break down the cost of graphite cloth, mandrel and things that go into making a graphite rod. I've watched Mark Steffen use a kitchen butter knife make a graphite rod on a mandrel, fashion spiggot ferrules and make so many of his rods, I think I've made 1 to 10-weights on his blanks and wow, not all that different from a Parsley Rod at $600 a pop. I've seen 12' long carbon fiber aircraft rods (for my hang glider) made with all the precision of a premium graphite rod, tested, lives depending on the rod and sold for less than half of a premium fly rod. And that's with a middle man...
Graphite is cheap!
Absolutely!
$600 for a cheap rod?
I'm not writing about deals on used last years rods.
I'm writing about the guy who spends all that time crafting a bamboo rod, you can do the math and come up with how much he makes per hour crafting that rod out of a living thing and how beautiful it is in hand. Bamboo has proven the test of time, composite construction hasn't had the time yet to do that.
Fiberglass and Graphite are one and the same with me, same construction techniques for the most part.
I'm NOT arguing with you, not one bit, just engaging in a conversation trying to learn something.
Time for bed, will continue latter?
Please?
Back, much of the cost of a top end graphite rod is "overhead" and goes to a company and advertising and such. You pay for the development process, the price of a guy making the rods that works for the company, and everything that goes with this.
Bamboo, you pay a fisherman to make your rod. You can break down the cost and see where the money went and the craftsman is working pretty inexpensively at just about any price point. There are names in bamboo just as there are names in graphite but with bamboo, you get more than what you get, dollar for dollar than you get for a plastic rod (fiberglass, what ever)
BTW, Mark Steffen, I would place him in the bamboo craftsman group even though he makes composite rods...
You pay pay pay for graphite.
Bamboo is not a money thing for me, it's an investment, not in money, but in my fishing and in the community.
My experiences come from observing huge groups of both types of anglers over the years generating and conversing with makers and fishers, graphite and bamboo.
This web site is one example.
I'm not looking for one single person to agree with me, just writing thoughts.
Palewatery,
Thanks for asking.
I won’t buy top of the line rods because I don’t want to put the money into them. I honor them as the best examples of the art or craft, but I don’t see them making my fishing much better.
Now, if the fishing gods offered me a deal that no one could refuse, I would take it. If the gods offered to trade $4,000 worth of top of the line rods for what I have now, I would decline. All the rods I own are fishing tools. I am not a collector.
(Actually a “fishing god” did once offer me a 20+ year old but unfished superb bamboo rod for about 1/10th of its market value, a deal I could not refuse. Some people would have kept it as a museum piece. I started fishing with it immediately. The rod is “worth” a lot more now than when I bought it, but it’s not for sale. I like it a lot, but I don’t like it any more than any other sweet casting rod.)
My family and neighbors are farmers, loggers, laborers, and craftsmen. I admire people for using their own ingenuity to solve a problem, rather than buying an answer. People make their own tools. Some of these tools are simple, and some are elaborate, thoughtful, and very well suited to their purpose. I like that. Last month I built a device to skid firewood logs up the hill and away from sensitive land with our horses, rather than tear up the ground with the truck or buy a commercial skidding tool. It’s good to make your own things. Both the horses and I learned something new, and we got the job done ecomonically. That’s a part of the reason I make my own wood rods. I learn something every time I make another rod. They work very well (okay, some of them work very well), and they are mine in a way that a purchased rod can never really be “mine.”
This reminds me of a commercial that ran on TV last year for a pickup truck. The plaid shirted and bearded owner is standing next to his new truck, with his hand on the fender. The off-screen narrator says something like “I see you have the shiny new truck of incredibly smart and incredibly handsome men, complete with the big dollar Ego-Booster Package. You must be proud!” The owner looks directly into the camera, pauses, and says “Yes I am!” Proud? Of buying a pickup truck? Come on. People admire my old pickup too, but it doesn’t make me proud. Now, if I had made the pickup truck from pieces of metal I picked off the ground, that would be something to be proud of. That guy's beard was too neatly trimmed and his fingernails were too clean for him to be like me.
So there you have my answer. I suppose I have a different outlook than some. Others' outlooks are completely valid too. My answer doesn't have to be everyone's final answer. Your mileage may vary.
G~d, I totally got that, great analogy.