Letcher Lambuth's Spiraled Cane rod?

[@Dryflyphotography]

A gentleman on the Facebook group "Bamboo Fly Rod Forum" posted today about reading Roderick Haig-Brown's "Fisherman's Spring" and the chapter titled "The New Rod" about a spiraled cane rod made by Letcher Lambuth who I believe was a native Washingtonian. I seemed to recall being told by someone local (Tim?) about a spiral cane rod made by another famous local rod maker, Ray Gould. Tim, or anyone else, I'd love to hear more about Mr. Lambuth, his spiral cane rods and to what extent Ray Gould tried to make them. Thanks!

 

[Stonedfish]

I know nothing about his rod, but this is one of his very well known fly patterns.
SF

Lambuth Candlefish – Tied By Steve Burke and presented by Salmonfly.Net

www.angelfire.com

 

[Dave Westburg]

A gentleman on the Facebook group "Bamboo Fly Rod Forum" posted today about reading Roderick Haig-Brown's "Fisherman's Spring" and the chapter titled "The New Rod" about a spiraled cane rod made by Letcher Lambuth who I believe was a native Washingtonian. I seemed to recall being told by someone local (Tim?) about a spiral cane rod made by another famous local rod maker, Ray Gould. Tim, or anyone else, I'd love to hear more about Mr. Lambuth, his spiral cane rods and to what extent Ray Gould tried to make them. Thanks!

Ron there's a chapter on spiral rods in Letcher Lambuth's book Anglers Workshop. Happy to lend it to you some time. Lambuth lived in Seattle and fished in Washington and BC. Here's the table of contents.


Haig Brown fished a 9' 5 3/8's ounce Lambuth Spiral bamboo rod.. Haig Brown wrote about it in "The New Rod" chapter of Fisherman's Spring: "In gluing, the cane sections have been spiraled one-sixth of a turn for every foot of the rod's length, which gives a theoretical and actual increase of twelve percent in power and strength for weight. The rod remains supple and responsive in spite of this..."

The angling author Steve Raymond owned a Lambuth spiral rod and wrote about a Letcher Lambuth spiral rod in A Fly fisher's Sixty Seasons...

 

[@Dryflyphotography]

Thanks Dave, great reading! An unexpected, off-topic bit...It's kind of humbling to see the great Steve Raymond state that he was hesitant to do a self-refinish of an old 9' Granger because it was a far more complicated task than he'd expected.

Regarding Letcher Lambuth's theory about adding more power fibers for the given length of the rod is along the same lines as the Cross Double-Built which increased the power fibers by nesting a skinny 6 piece section inside a wider 6 piece section the full length of the blank. Kind of the bamboo world's version of a Matryoshka doll. No doubt each building method did have some increase in power but neither were enough to overcome the challenges inherent in their designs.

 

[Dave Westburg]

I noticed the Steve Raymond Granger reference as well. Seems like everyone out west had a 9' Granger.

Haig-Brown says this about Granger's in my 1947 copy of Western Angler: "Goodwin Granger makes a standard rod, at $11.50, which for action and power and balance is unequalled by anything I have seen at the price..."

 

[@Dryflyphotography]

I noticed the Steve Raymond Granger reference as well. Seems like everyone out west had a 9' Granger.

Haig-Brown says this about Granger's in my 1947 copy of Western Angler: "Goodwin Granger makes a standard rod, at $11.50, which for action and power and balance is unequalled by anything I have seen at the price..."

I read all the Haig-Brown books long before I caught an interest in bamboo so I had no idea he was a fan of Granger rods. That is fun to learn. I may have to re-read a few old Haig-Brown books again. He truly loved his fly fishing on his Vancouver Island.

 

[Dave Westburg]

I read all the Haig-Brown books long before I caught an interest in bamboo so I had no idea he was a fan of Granger rods. That is fun to learn. I may have to re-read a few old Haig-Brown books again. He truly loved his fly fishing on his Vancouver Island.

I have an inventory of Haig-Brown's tackle prepared by Van Egan. Haig-Brown fished mostly Bamboo. His fly rod collection included the following bamboo rods: 6 Hardy, 3 Farlows and 1 each from Brayshaw, Lambuth, Gately, Sharpes of Aberdeen and Winston. A 12' Hardy AHE Wood bamboo rod and an 8'4" Winston bamboo rod were strung up to fish in Haig-Brown's study on the day he died. My guess is the 12' hardy was for greased line wet flies and sunk wet flies and the Winston was for skating dries.

 

[Tom Butler]

Interesting thread guys, thx.

 

[@Dryflyphotography]

Dave, was the "Brayshaw" rod made by the talented fishing artist Tommy Brayshaw?

 

[Dave Westburg]

Yes. The Brayshaw rod was a 9'6. The notes say "Made by and given to Rod by his close friend, Tommy Brayshaw, in 1953." Brayshaw met Letcher Lambuth in 1944, became his disciple and built bamboo rods from 1948 to 1962. Most of Brayshaw's bamboo rods were double handed. He didn't sell rods but gave them to friends.

 

[Dave Westburg]

@Denwor54 I should have added - he was the Dennis Worley or his day.

 

[Denwor54]

Thanks Dave, that’s giving me way to much credit comparing to a builder like Letcher. I just finished my third Spey rod and it is awesome and hopefully will follow in the shoes of Letcher. Now i have to learn how to build the twisted rod and learn it’s attributes. Having focused on 5 sided rods and hollowing and now i have one more rabbit hole to check out.

 

[@Dryflyphotography]

Thanks Dave, that’s giving me way to much credit comparing to a builder like Letcher. I just finished my third Spey rod and it is awesome and hopefully will follow in the shoes of Letcher. Now i have to learn how to build the twisted rod and learn it’s attributes. Having focused on 5 sided rods and hollowing and now i have one more rabbit hole to check out.

Hmmm, I have a favorite 8-1/2' hollow built rod that I would love to see stretched to 8'9". If you ever want to experiment on something like that let me know.

 

[Denwor54]

Hmmm, I have a favorite 8-1/2' hollow built rod that I would love to see stretched to 8'9". If you ever want to experiment on something like that let me know.

I will hit you up on that offer I have 3-4 more two handers to build for friends and then I can jump on some specialty single handers. I have always wanted to build some longer 6wghts and 7-8 wghts and it would be fun to try that length. I have a nice selection of rods to try and match and have a nice treat showing up in a couple weeks. I can’t wait to try a single hander as the big rods are a lot of work. The neat part for me I almost have my rod finishing room done and when that’s complete I can really start playing around with different rods.

 

[Josh]

Every time I see you all have a cool conversation about bamboo rods I wonder why I've never owned (or even fished with) one.

 

[Denwor54]

Every time I see you all have a cool conversation about bamboo rods I wonder why I've never owned (or even fished with) one.

Sounds like you should attend one of the bamboo get togethers and cast a few. They will grow on you and there are some gifted builders on this site and they will help steer you in the direction that fits your fishing.

 

[Denwor54]

This weekend picked some new toys and during the conversation the topic of Lambuths twisted rods came up and he has a book with the build dementions for his jigs. I’m in the final stages of getting my shop set up so I set aside some cane for giving this a try. I’m really curious as I have found that a five sided rod may produce the same result if not better. So it will be fun to build one five sided and one twisted and compare. Also I have also had a preference for longer rods which he would like. So do you guys ever play with longer bamboo single hand rods. I had a 9ft 4 inch 6/7 that is a my favorite for light steelhead and cutthroat and hoping to build 10ft rods.

 

[Dave Westburg]

This weekend picked some new toys and during the conversation the topic of Lambuths twisted rods came up and he has a book with the build dementions for his jigs. I’m in the final stages of getting my shop set up so I set aside some cane for giving this a try. I’m really curious as I have found that a five sided rod may produce the same result if not better. So it will be fun to build one five sided and one twisted and compare. Also I have also had a preference for longer rods which he would like. So do you guys ever play with longer bamboo single hand rods. I had a 9ft 4 inch 6/7 that is a my favorite for light steelhead and cutthroat and hoping to build 10ft rods.

I fish a 9'6" 9660 Granger 7 weight. It works great for the cowlitz tailouts and at 6.2 ounces it's not too heavy to fish. Wish the cork handle was a little bit longer.





I have a 10' Sharpes impregnated 7 weight which is 7.2 ounces. It has a fighting but6 so I usually fish it two handed with a single handed spey line. I think 7 ounces might be pretty heavy to one hand all day.

A longer group of rods I'd like to try are the Winston Hollow Built's. I have a 9' 4 and 7/8's ounce hollow built Winston which casts like a dream. Landed a summer steelhead on it 2 weeks ago while chasing cutthroat. Winston made some hollow built steelhead/atlantic salmon rods ranging from 8'9" to 9'6". This is from Winston's 1975 catalog.

 

[@Dryflyphotography]

This weekend picked some new toys and during the conversation the topic of Lambuths twisted rods came up and he has a book with the build dementions for his jigs. I’m in the final stages of getting my shop set up so I set aside some cane for giving this a try. I’m really curious as I have found that a five sided rod may produce the same result if not better. So it will be fun to build one five sided and one twisted and compare. Also I have also had a preference for longer rods which he would like. So do you guys ever play with longer bamboo single hand rods. I had a 9ft 4 inch 6/7 that is a my favorite for light steelhead and cutthroat and hoping to build 10ft rods.

I used to own and fish a 9' Leonard that was made to cast a five weight line. Long, slow, languid...if you slowed your cast the line would sail a mile. But after trying to fish it all day once on the Fall River in Oregon it got a bit too much of a one-trick pony for me. I could cast a long ways but it was hard to lift line and change direction quickly without feeling like I was hefting a lot of cane. I eventually sold it and went back to fishing 8 and 8-1/2' rods. Today I fished my Goodwin Granger Favorite 8642, an 8-1/2' five weight, also on the Fall River. It was very nice to cast and put the fly where it needed to be. Thankfully a couple trout sipped the fly so the rod has now felt the weight of fish in my hands...a good feeling indeed.

 

[Denwor54]

I picked up a fun old book which as I read into it a wealth of knowledge and Dave if possible I would like to take a look at Lecther’s book. Working on the jig this weekend for glueing up the spiral rod. And I would like to thank Tim Cottage for sending me some great info which helped get me going in the right direction.