Book Review By Mike Watts
Bamboo Days is a book that will appeal to serious fly fishermen’s bookshelves for many decades to come. The story is not only historically significant, but it also reveals the lives of some of the masters of bamboo making and highlights their importance in the sport of fly fishing and cane rods.
You can tell a lot about a man by the words and stories he puts on paper. As Jerry travels through time from his meager beginnings and struggles. He sets the stage and discusses leaving seminary school after eight years in search of self, and heads west. He settles in a place where he has no contacts and no family, but it offers a comfortable respite for a new start. It’s from there that the book begins.
When reading Bamboo Days, you realize Jerry is very transparent as he describes his journey. I’ve known Jerry personally for five to six years now. As I read his book, I didn’t feel like I was reading it at all but merely sitting across the table and carrying on a personal conversation. Jerry’s words flowed through the pages like a river meandering down a valley path, occasionally running into a boulder, then turning to slide into a foamy water run and eventually finding that calm eddy.
Jerry discusses meeting Tom Morgan and Glenn Beckett at Winston Rods and how the job changed his life. Destiny found Jerry; he learned a new craft under the masters and became one himself at Winston. After the sale of Winston Rods, Jerry teamed up with Glenn in 2006 and formed Sweetgrass Rods.
Jerry says he was humbled to be a founding owner of Sweetgrass Rods.
“Unworthy to be a historical footnote in the long lineage of bamboo rod makers dating back to the nineteenth century, I accepted the opportunity to partner with one of the true masters of the craft with all the reverence it deserves.”
The business began in Twin Bridges but eventually moved to Butte for traveling convenience. There, they reshaped the mandrels used on the milling machine, establishing specific tapers unique to Sweetgrass. The book goes into detail on their separation from Winston and the various struggles they encountered yet endured.
His chapters ignite memories of my past fishing trips. I was reacquainted with Slide In, Kelly Gallop’s famous fly shop on the Madison River, Three Dollar Bridge, and many more. He brings up notable personalities he met over the years who shaped fly fishing, such as Bob Popovics, Cathy Beck, Lani Waller, and Doug Swisher. I peruse my personal bookcase and see their work.
Jerry talks about John Geirach and how his vision of the future and the magnetic draw of fly fishing in the West coincided with John’s “troutbum” ambitions. Jerry admits that it was the search for the perfect “troutbum” lifestyle, one that could support him financially, which drew him to Montana years earlier.
Jerry’s storytelling evolves as he goes in depth about his many fly-fishing trips throughout the many chapters. Each of these stories was so entertaining, listening to the troutbum describe each adventure. Each of Jerry’s stories is unique and reveals to the reader what things were like fifty years ago and how time has changed them significantly.
One of my favorites was the one where he explained the challenging struggles and the engaging personalities involved. I was intrigued by his foray into the Russian wilderness and his six-week camping trip there. Dealing with Russian politics and biologists working on their steelhead management plan proved especially difficult. I could see myself helping Jerry set up camps and listening to biologists in broken English as they tried to explain their jobs, all while dealing with surprise visits from the Russian government.
After his wife died in Montana, Jerry moved to Mexico in 2014 for a year, then back to Maryland, where he once again set up a small shop and continued to help Glenn make bamboo fly rods.
Jerry reflects on bygone years. “Back then it was simple. There was a sense of enchantment while immersed in nature alone on a secluded stretch of water; and when a fish was finally hooked, it was special.” I couldn’t agree more.
This is a history book that jogs the mind and makes me feel as if I were there, slowly casting my cane rod into spring creeks, or playing steelhead with an eight- to nine-weight cane as our forefathers did.
Glenn and Jerry’s impact on cane rod making is evident whenever a group of dedicated fly fishermen sit around and discuss casting to a rising fish, while holding that special piece of sweetgrass in their hands.
Bamboo Days will always have a place on my bookshelf.
Mike Watts is the publisher of riversandfeathers.com and a freelance outdoor writer and author of several books: “Riverbank Memories,” “Tales of Rivers and Woods,” “The Christmas Fly,” and his children’s book, “Pond Fishing with Papa.”
