Did your 'boo get to the river for the stream opener?
- Thread starter Tom Butler
- Start date
Mine got some exercise last week on the Fall River near Bend OR. This is the Payne 201 clone I finished on a blank perfectly made by Jeff Pope aka Splitcanenut. 
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Cliff
Steelhead
Beautiful rod. Is Jeff Pope still in the Spokane area?
He was when I talked with him last time sometime in 2021. I was very, very impressed by his cane work...perfect toning to match a Payne, perfect varnish.
Cliff
Steelhead
When I first got into bamboo around 1996 I bought a rod from Mark Ruhe, who was building rods in the Spokane area under the name Bitterroot Rods. At that same time I found a bamboo rod for sale at the old Avid Angler when Tom Darling had the shop near Northgate. The blank was clearly one of Mark Ruhe's blanks and Tom told me it was built by Jeff. To make a long story short Tom put me in touch with Jeff and I corresponded quite a bit with him. He was learning from Mark and subsequently moved to Spokaloo and ended up being a fishing buddy of his. I later saw some one of Jeff's own rods down at Patrick's and it looked to be a really nice build. Back in the day I had a standing invite to drive over and fish with them but I never quite made it. Regret that.
I didn't take my bamboo out to a stream but I fished my Granger 8642, Farlows 3", intermediate line and a selection of irish wet flies on on one of the few western washington ponds I know where you can fish from shore without using a float tube.
Lots of small wild cutthroat. They were very dark because of the dark tannin stained water. My best fly was a size 12-14 Claret Bumble but I don't think the fly mattered much.
A pro tip. If a lake is 0.3 mile hike from a road via either forest or logging slash always choose the forest. Way faster. Fewer blackberries, fewer deadfalls, fewer devils club, fewer falls and there's probably a trail you can follow.
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