One area in which America continues to rule the world: the manufacture of first-class fly rods. Not all of them are overpriced, either. For my birthday, my wife had our friend Howard Bethel make me a four-piece four weight rod. If you need a rod built, Howard is the man. We met him in about 1989, when I blew the advance for a bad book on the Church of England on a trip to Montana.
He and his wife Joan guided us around for a fortnight. He’s a wonderful fisherman, one of the best I have ever seen, as direct and unobtrusive as a cat. Unlike cats, he puts his victims back. He won’t even lift them from the water. And the rods he makes — this is the second I have had — are just gorgeous. This one has a nice fat handle for my large hand, a matt finish so as not to flash inthe sunlight, and a reel seat made from deer horn. Howard shot the deer, of course. The whole thing is understated and wonderfully efficient. It’s built on a Scott blank, after we had a really long discussion about the style I wanted, and I can tell that I’m going to love it.
The only snag is that I can’t land a trout with it. I lost four this weekend, all soon after hooking them, whereas the ones that I hooked on Caroline’s old 10′ #7 beast stayed hooked. I’m pretty certain that this is because of the inconspicuous olive-green line I was using on the new rod. Normally, that’s another triumph of American technology, but it seemed pretty stretchy when I was pulling the kinks out of it on Saturday morning, and I think that it just won’t set a hook 20 metres away, whereas the bright yellow Anglian Water special on the other rod, which was made either in Taiwan or Scunthorpe, has about as much give as a chain link fence.
Then, when I was buying my ticket at the lodge, I noticed they had a sale on, with three-piece 10′ Powell rods reduced from