coming to life - bamboo diaries #2

It is magical here. Outside, a sweltering heatwave, but under this deep cool emerald canopy we are travellers in a different land. And for this brief but delightful journey my fellow traveller is made of golden canes. Hotei-chiku - golden bamboo, for the heart, Ya-dake - arrow bamboo for the head. Their rich colour heightened by many layers of Urushi lacquer so that the rod and the iron stained rocks of this little stream look as one.

I hold the rod and I can feel it's vibe, an echo of traditions handed down. The rod was once part of nature, a living, growing thing. Perhaps that's why I feel I need to bring it back to wild places like this, to the places where I feel most comfortable, places where it can live on, anew. My ancestors - my father, his brother, their father, his brother and further generations back - all were english furniture makers. Me too for a while. Wood lives on past the tree's felling. That's what I learned. Keiichi-san says to put the rod together like a tree, with the nodes set like alternate branches. 

The rod is 10ft long in three sections, its style is of plain and functional utility, a business-like tool for the efficient catching of trout. The action at first seems stiff, agricultural even. But the rod is surprisingly light in the hand, and tie on a balanced horsehair casting line and this rod springs into life. It is beautiful. Beautiful to hold and behold, to cast with and to catch with. It is made by master craftsman Masayuko Yamano in a process staged over several years. It has travelled far to arrive in my hands - I am blessed- and today on my first cast it catches a fine trout in the blazing sunshine of the high peaks. 

But eventually the searing heat drives us off from the high moor, and so here we are at this magical place. A little woodland stream of placid pools, rocky riffles and the dark intrigue of deepening cuts. But it's the fizzing energy at the foot of the falls that draws us on today. 

For the shady dark canopy overhead I had tied on a pale stiff hackle fly that sits high. It's soon struck by little trout in the foamy water at the tail of the fall. The first one leaps and skitters and shakes the hook free, the second too. The third little trouts sticks and comes to hand. No trophy size fish - far more than  that.  The rod feels very happy here.