The ConsummateRodCrafter

ne Saturday evening many years ago, I happened to be casually strolling

through the local video rental store looking for something interesting to

watch. In my usual fashion I skipped the romance and drama section and

went straight to the outdoors section in hopes of finding the latest and greatest Bass

fishing tape. Little did I know that this was a day that would change my life forever.

You see I just happened to stumble onto a set of videotapes about build-

ing your own fishing rod by a man named Dale Clemens. Although I was

a starving college student at the time, the tapes had me excited enough

about building my own rod that I managed to scrape up enough cash to

buy a blank and some basic components. After several weeks of studying

Dale’s videos and books, I managed to wade my way through the learn-

ing curve and finally ended up with a fishing rod that I had built myself.

Now it might not have been the prettiest thing ever to hit the water, but

boy did it fish good. Needless to say from then on I was addicted!

My guess is that my experience is not all that different from many of

yours. In fact, I would bet that Dale Clemens has introduced more people

to the craft of rodbuilding than everyone else on the planet combined.

Throughout the seventies and eighties, Dale Clemens both literally and

figuratively wrote the book, or should I say books on the subject of rod-

building. Dale has what probably amounts to the top three rodbuilding

publications of all time to his credit: Fiberglass Rod Making, Advanced

Custom Rod Building and Custom Rod Thread Art. Each one has become

a “must have” for any serious Rodbuilder’s collection. Dale also started

what would become one of the foremost and most innovative component

supply businesses in the industry, Clemens Custom Tackle. And if that

wasn’t enough, he was also the man who formed the organization known

as RodCrafters, who thr

ough its mission of “knowledge through sharing”

literally caused the participation in our craft to grow exponentially

overnight.

Through his work with various OEMs and specialty manufacturers,

Dale helped develop many of the specialty pr

oducts and services that vir

tually every Rodmaker today takes for granted. Whether it be rod blanks,

reel seats, guides, thread finishes or handle materials, chances are that Dale

had a hand in designing it and making it accessible to the general public.

Being part fisherman, part teacher, part rodbuilder and part business-

man gave Dale the perfect combination of traits to become one of the most

successful rodbuilders of all time. Ultimately though it was his generosity

and never ending desire to share his knowledge with others that truly

solidified his status as an icon in this industry.

Last year I was planning a fishing trip down to the Gulf Coast of my

home state of T

exas and I decided to take along that very first r

od that I had ever built.

It was while fishing with this rod that it dawned on me that all of the great memories

I have of catching fish on that r

od ar

e due in lar

ge part to Dale Clemens. I decided

right then and there that it was time that we paid tribute to the legacy that he has left

on this craft. Thank you, Dale, for helping all of us cr

eate not only gr

eat r

ods, but

great memories as well.

14 RodMaker

The ConsummateRodCrafter

Dale

Clemens

by Andy Dear

This article originally appeared in the Volume 6 #3 issue of RodMaker Magazine

RodMaker 15

AD: I was wondering if you could tell me a little about your

backgr

ound as a fisherman and how you got started building

fishing r

ods?

DC: W

ell, I started fishing at an early age, with fly rods. In

fact, I fished fly rods before I fished flies. We stood in the

middle of a str

eam and steered a worm downstream. So

my early familiarity was with fly rods. Later, I think in

high school, I became very interested in spinning rods

when they became available in this country. It was a very

exciting way to fish, and most of the rods and reels came

from France and Europe.

On the building end, I first tied my own flies. Rod

building came along a bit later. I thought, “Gee, wouldn’t

it be fun to build your own rod,” but I was put off, actual-

ly intimidated by it. At that time, Reed Tackle and Hille’s,

two of the fly tying material supply houses, also sold a

very limited line of rod building supplies. They sold kits

where the handle assembly was already fitted and I

thought it must be a horrendous task to fit a shaped cork

grip to a tapered blank. That delayed me because I’m

rather poor mechanically. However, I finally took the

plunge and found that it wasn’t very difficult at all! I fell in

love with it the very first time I tried it.

AD: About how old were you when you built your first rod?

DC: Oh goodness, I don’t know, probably early college.

Up to that time I thought catching a fish on a fly you tied

yourself was pretty terrific. But I found, as many have

since, that catching a fish on a rod that you built was by far

the greatest thrill. To me, it was heaven and I was hooked!

It was kind of crazy how years later I found myself

writing a book and then subsequently selling the compo-

nents. At that time I was buying supplies from Finney

Sports and a new company that was coming along called

Cabela’s. I would call them often to order components

because I was building r

ods for myself and for other peo

ple. One day when I called, one of the brothers that owned

the company talked to me. He said they wer

e getting fr

quent requests for information on rod building, but that

they didn’t know much about it. They just sold the parts.

He asked me if I could put together a pamphlet that they

could send to people. I said, “Well, let me think about it”.

I was very flatter

ed. I did think about it. Being very task

oriented, I carried a little notebook in my pocket and jotted

down ideas whenever they came to me. When I or

ganized

my thoughts a couple of weeks later, I saw that it was a

book, not a pamphlet. So I wr

ote “Fiber

glass Rod

Making.” That title was selected by the publisher to distin-

guish it from Bamboo rod making, the historical approach.

AD: So this was around the early 1970s?

DC: I wrote it in ‘73 and it came out in ‘74.

AD: There wasn’t the variety of components or technology with

things like guides and finishes like there is today.

DC: NO! That is a whole separate topic, actually, which is

very inter

esting. After my book came out I was very for-

tunate; it was picked by Field and Str

eam for their Book of

the Month Club, and it sold like crazy

. We got into selling

parts and supplies about the same time and the business

ospered. During those initial couple of years, the com-

ponent market was tiny. The manufacturers wrongly

thought it was infinitesimal. Custom rod builders were

considered very much an aftermarket. In other words, we

got whatever was left over from what was sold to the rod

companies. No one ever conceived the idea of manufactur-

ing some components of a higher quality for custom rod-

builders.

AD: Specifically for that market.

DC: No! We were fighting a real uphill battle and it was

an education battle, but it didn’t take long, surprisingly. I

remember one of the first companies I pointed it out to was

Varmac. They were then the preeminent reel seat manu-

facturer in the country, and one of the top guide makers

along with Mildrum and a few others. I had reached the

point in my business where I was buying more of their

product to resell to custom rodbuilders than they were

selling to many small rod companies! I finally pointed this

out to them at dinner at an AFTMA show. I laid out some

of these figures of which they weren’t aware up to this

point. To say they were surprised was putting it mildly.

They went “Holy Cow!” I said, you guys have a real mar-

ket here, and it’s time you started paying some attention to

it. You need to examine what you make for this market

and what you charge. Things, then, started to fall into

line, and for a while custom rod building was the fastest

growing segment of the fishing tackle industry. New spe-

cialty manufacturers appeared. Fortunately, I did a lot of

consulting work with the various manufacturers.

Fenwick, under the dir

ection of Phil Clock, Pr

esident, was

one of the top rod manufacturers in the world. I served

as a consultant to him r

egar

ding this market, and wr

ote a

small booklet for them, “How To Build Your Own Fishing

Rod With A Fenwick Blank.” Their first printing was

50,000 copies and within a year they printed another

25,000. The other prominent blank manufacturer was

Lamiglas. Fr

om their education I wrote a 20 page explana-

tory booklet titled “Graphite” that they distributed to cus-

tom r

od builders. I did some consulting for Gudebrod,

Varmac, Loomis and various other companies. I mention

this to point out how the custom r

od building market r

eal

ly blossomed.

Of all the companies I was privileged to work with,

Fuji was by far the most responsive. It was never neces-

sary to convince them of the market. They considered cus-

tom rod building the cutting edge of fishing rod develop-

ment. They believed their success was due to making a bet-

ter product and that philosophy dovetailed beautifully

with what custom rod builders were seeking. After I got to

16 RodMaker

meet Mr. Omura and got to know him a little bit, he saw

what we (the custom rod builders) were trying to do. Each

year after the AFTMA show he would come to Allentown

to visit for two or three days. He was keenly interested in

what we as a group had discovered or uncovered in the

past year

. At that time Fuji was way ahead technological-

ly in their industry, so it was a perfect meld. Mr. Omura

even took part of my second book and had parts of that

translated into Japanese, printed and sold in Japan.

AD: No kidding?

DC: Oh yeah, that was a real ego trip for me! (Laughter).

Custom rodbuilders were doing much more experiment-

ing than the rod companies were. Most of the American

companies sat back and did what they had always done.

Mr. Omura always wanted to know what we wanted and

what we needed in the way of components. He was not

afraid to say no, and he was very candid. Whenever he felt

there would be a production problem he’d say, “No, let’s

not go down that avenue.” Otherwise he would bend over

backwards. One of the people in his entourage was an

artist. He would use this guy to sketch out ideas. For

example, if we described what we wanted in a particular

reel seat, he would draw it. Depending on the input from

us or Mr. Omura, the artist would redraw it as many times

as necessary until everyone was satisfied. Those were

some pretty exciting years and he was a very very exciting

guy. His son is the same way. There are actually three gen-

erations in that family that have owned Fuji. They did a

great deal for custom rod building.

Earlier I mentioned specialty manufacturers for our

market. One of the first was Struble Reel Seats. The late

Glenn Struble made the first seats for us that were not on

commercial fishing rods. They were a higher quality for

custom rods, and we put our own name on them. Glenn

had a small machine shop with only three employees, but

everything was automated and computerized, and he was

simply miles ahead of anyone else. Just fantastic.

AD: So Clemens (the company) was just an outgr

owth of you

selling components on the side?

DC: W

ell, I guess the book r

eally made the dif

fer

ence.

Although I had been helping friends who wanted to try

building a rod, get components, I was just buying them

from somebody else and I wasn’t making any money at it.

When I wrote that first book a whole world opened up. I

learned more after writing the book than I ever knew

before. It was like floodgates opened. I was getting letters

everyday in the mail. Guys telling me “Y

eah, I’ve been

building rods for two years or five years, but I do this a dif-

fer

ent way

,” or “Y

ou say do it this way, but have you ever

tried this? I think it’s better.” I really learned a lot more

after the book than I ever knew before!

You see, what it showed me was that there was an

obvious need to share. You had a whole bunch of people

sitting around the country re-inventing the wheel. That’s

what all of us were doing. We were operating in a vacu-

um, all of us. Then the book showed us we weren’t alone.

It became very obvious that we needed a method of shar-

ing so we could learn more and learn faster. “The

RodCrafters Journal” had its inception as a newsletter for

sharing. My printer convinced me it should be a small for-

mat, simple magazine. W

e never had any ambitions to be

a magazine like “Rodmaker

,” which is super.

“RodCrafters Journal” had a different agenda at the time.

It came at a different time in the whole evolution of rod

building.

AD: What year did the first journal come out?

DC: Well my book came out in early ‘74 and Rodcrafters

got formed later the same year. I was still swamped with

mail and people started saying, “Wouldn’t it be great if we

could get together and share some of this.” So we had our

first seminar in 1975. There were about 15 people there. It

was a one-day deal on a Saturday. Two people came from

as far away as Michigan, a fellow from Massachusetts, and

some guys from down around Virginia. We couldn’t stop

talking! We had some demos that we did, and some guys

called home and said, “I’m staying another day!” We did-

n’t have a seminar the next day, so we just went back into

the hotel and continued in somebody’s hotel room! The

following year we had about 60 attendees in Allentown,

and we had seminars in a few other cities. Those were

exciting times. They really were.

AD: I would venture to say that the formation of RodCrafters

was certainly one of the most important influences on the craft

of rodbuilding in the past 30 years. I don’t think that the craft

would have advanced nearly as quickly as it did had you not

come along and formed a catalyst for the sharing and dissemina-

tion of all that information.

DC: I think you’re right, and I certainly wouldn’t take

edit myself for that. I mean I was part of it, that’s all. I

was very lucky because we got into doing seminars

around the country. When I say, “Lucky,” I mean because I

became a conduit. I would go out to California and hold a

seminar and then maybe I would hold a seminar in

Michigan. Two different groups with everybody being

very open and sharing. I was fortunate to be able to take

this information from one place to another, learn it all, and

then write it up in the journal. I always made a big big

point of trying to give people credit. Because most of the

ideas didn’t originate with me, I’d say “RodCrafter John

Doe does this or that.” In fact with the second book some-

body criticized me by saying, “Gosh, every time you pr

ent an idea you say RodCrafter so and so does this.”

However, I felt it was very important to give credit to those

who were sharing, because if you gave credit, then it

would make other people want to share.

RodMaker 17

AD: Well you know, like most people who start building rods,

one of my first purchases was “Advanced Custom Rod Building”

and one of the things that I noticed was that you always gave

credit to guys who were innovating things in different parts of

the country around that time.

DC: Right!

AD: So that was in ‘75 when RodCrafters formed and then your

second book, Advanced Custom Rod Building came out in ‘78?

DC: Yes, in ‘78 and then the period following right after

that was what I would say was the greatest growth spurt,

about ‘79, ‘80 and ‘81.

AD: How much interaction did you get to have with the various

rod manufacturing companies, were they coming to you for con-

sulting work and advice on how to improve the performance of

their rods?

DC: Well, the rod manufacturers didn’t beat down my

door. It was those of them who made their own blanks and

who wanted to sell to the custom rod building market. For

those I either ended up writing something for them, or

helped them identify their spot in that market. As men-

tioned earlier, a lot goes back to Fenwick and Lamiglas,

the big two. In retrospect, it’s also interesting what grew

out of those blank companies. They each had different

design philosophies. The blank manager at Fenwick was

Don Green, who subsequently started Sage. At Lamiglas,

blank design was done by Gary Loomis who built one of

the most successful blank and rod companies. Practically

everything in graphite design and development came from

those original companies. It was exciting for me to be even

remotely involved.

AD: I’d like to, if we could, change the subject a little bit. From

all of the years of experience that you have in rodbuilding, I’d like

to know what criteria you use or what facets of the craft you look

for when you are judging the execution of the construction of a

custom fishing r

od?

DC: (Pauses) That’s a very dif

ficult question. But it’s a

good question, because it can lead me in so very many

ways. It’s dif

ficult though. One ar

ea would be the quality

of workmanship. Everyone attending a seminar had to

bring some samples of their work. Among other things,

this fostered very valuable one-on-one discussions

between rod builders. As people were putting rods out I

was frequently asked, “What do you think of this?” As I

examined the craftsmanship in the rods I noted that older

guys usually had mor

e gaps in their thread and their

threadwork wasn’t as good. I learned this was most often

due to poor lighting and a lack of magnification. They

never saw the gaps in the thread.

A lot of those over 40 needed to use drugstore-magni-

fying eyeglasses and some better lighting on their work.

So, the quality of workmanship, such as threadwork and

finish, is one comparatively easy criteria to judge.

Beyond that it would be very difficult to apply a judg-

ment because it is a custom rod. I might pick it up and

think that it would not cast very well. Yet the person for

whom it was made might feel it was as close to perfect as

it gets. That is the difference in a custom rod! It’s built for

a particular person, his physical build, his style of casting,

the fishing intended, his expectations. To each of us those

things ar

e different to varying degrees, hence the need for

a true custom rod.

Some people say, “I build custom rods” but really

what they build are handmade rods where the buyer can

pick the color of the thread and maybe a buttwrap of their

choosing. The builder, basically, has different models for

different kinds of fishing. Where I live now there is a big

difference between spinning rods for snook fishing meant

to be used with live bait vs. artificials, from a boat or from

the beach, under dock lights at night vs. from a bridge and

that’s not taking into account the person fishing the rod.

True custom rodbuilding is fitting a rod to the angler all

the way. I have always had a big bone to pick with that

and you hit it!

AD: Before you started Clemens Tackle did you ever have a cus-

tom rod building business where you built rods for a clientele?

DC: No, no I didn’t.

AD: So it was mostly building for friends and family?

DC: Right. Only the occasional sale.

AD: Once you got Clemens started were you able to work with

clients one on one, or did you focus strictly on the component

sales and consulting?

DC: I did work some one on one and built custom rods,

but my big passion however was getting guys to build

their own rods. I wanted to educate them on how they

could build a better r

od than they could buy

, for all the

various reasons. I worked with all kinds of groups, such

as bass clubs, flyfishing gr

oups, saltwater clubs, etc. As a

speaker I could spend the whole time talking about why a

person could build a better rod than he could buy.

However

, I r

ecognized my need to build r

ods for other

people if I was going to try to teach. You can’t be just all

talk. You have to do the thing yourself, and so I did.

I would say my forte wasn’t in the craftsmanship or in

the assembly of the rod, I was no better than the average

good rod builder and there were individuals that were cer-

tainly better than me. My strength was talking with a

client and spending hours, if need be, in helping him

define what he really wanted and needed in a rod. Once

that was all worked thr

ough, then it was just a matter of

putting the rod together. I felt that maybe I did the “defin-

ing” part better than others did. Part of this is psycholog-

ical, too, because once you have taken a person through

that complete process and he has examined all the aspects

he in essence has designed his rod, he is in love with it

18 RodMaker

before it’s made! Then again maybe it was just my old

salesmanship experience!

AD: Having seen the fishing rod move through fiberglass and

several generations of carbon fiber, how do you feel about the cur-

rent state of blank technology and design?

DC: Well, let me share my thoughts on that with you,

which may be all old fashioned. I don’t know (laughter).

Concerning the subject of blanks, I would tell people that

certainly today’s graphite is the best material out there.

But if you happen to have a fiberglass blank that truly does

what you want to do, by all means use it! That’s it. That’s

the blank for you! The same is true if you compare a third

generation graphite blank that has a phenomenal modulus

and strain rate with an older first generation technology

blank where the numbers are not nearly as impressive.

Likewise, I don’t care if the price is $500 or $75. The blank

that performs the best for you, for what you want it to do,

is the blank that you should use. Some people just can’t

see that.

AD: While we are on the subject of blanks, one of the things that

interested me that I never had the opportunity to experience was

that line of solid tipped blanks that Clemens sold for a while.

DC: Yes, the Apogee. Fantastic! The plant that made those

very, very thin tips for us in Japan burned down, and we

were never able to find a replacement. We used a number

of people’s technology to join the short, thin, solid tip to

regular hollow graphite to make the rod’s tip section while

maintaining a smooth dynamic transition.

The rest of the rod was made for us by Gary Loomis,

and Gary tried making the tiny tips, but it just was not eco-

nomically feasible for him, or us, to do so. It was definite-

ly a product for the custom builder and not a finished rod

company who wanted to sell rods for each line weight.

e sold a lot of them, but not in the huge numbers needed

for the tooling costs. The Japanese company had original-

ly done their tooling with another purpose in mind. Then

we came acr

oss them and they wer

e failing in the other

venture. We said “Could you do this for us?” and the

Japanese looked into it and said “Y

es.” Personally

, I think

the blanks are fantastic! A lot of people still do not believe

that you can build a flyrod that will cast a very wide range

of fly line weights, but you can.

AD: Was that your idea, the solid tipped design?

DC:

Yes, that was my idea. Multiple weight rods had been

tried years before using the so-called “magnum taper”

theory

. This concept used a very stif

f butt with the mid

section less stiff, and a light, soft tip. The idea was that

using just the light tip you could cast a light weight. As

you increased the weight of the fly line (or lure) the mid

section would flex more, load, and take over the casting.

Finally, when a heavy weight was cast, the butt section

would do the work. Supposedly you could progressively

increase the weight to be cast and the rod would load and

do the casting. It sounded good, but nobody was ever able

to make it work. You could get the tip to cast fine, but as

you increased the line or lure weight and the mid section

came into play, the tip was overpowered, flopped around,

and actually destroyed the casting action. An extremely

small diameter solid graphite section substituted for the

top portion of the blank’s tip section did work. Its profile

was thin enough to reduce air resistance enabling it to be

more responsive, yet it possessed enough strength that it

was not easily overcome and be an impediment with heav-

ier lure weights (it didn’t flop around). A lot more went

into the design, but that is the essence.

The apogee, how can I say this, required a certain

amount of time and dedication to learn how to use it. Not

a great deal, but you had to break some other habits. A

buyer of a custom rod would be willing to do this. The fin-

ished rod companies didn’t think the average customer

would make the transition as easily.

AD: As far as casting techniques?

DC: Yes. A good example was when we first developed it.

I took it to the show in San Francisco. They had one of the

first real tackle shows that wasn’t just people walking

around mindlessly with bags filled with literature. They

demonstrated things and had a number of casting pools.

When I asked a local fly casting guru who everyone was

watching to try the new Apogee, I requested he look over

his shoulder during the back cast for about 10 to 15 min-

utes in order to adjust his timing to the new rod. He calm-

ly told me “I never look at my back cast.” I said that I did-

n’t either while fishing but if he did so, now, it would be a

big help to me, and was the quickest way to develop the

necessary timing. He didn’t do it at first, and had some

problems. Finally, he did as requested and in about five

minutes was doing fine. I then put on a r

eel with a line two

sizes heavier

. He continued to watch his back cast and did

beautifully. Ultimately he cast four different line weights

with that one r

od. W

ith a little attention to timing detail,

anyone could make the Apogee sing.

AD: And that rod would cast how wide a variety of line

weights?

DC: After we had the Apogee on the market, I took one

with me on a motor home trip thr

ough New England to

the Maritime Provinces and Eastern Canada and up-state

New

ork. I caught smallmouth bass in Maine,

Atlantic

Salmon in Nova Scotia, trout in Quebec, and largemouth

bass and perch all on the same rod while comfortably cast-

ing line weights from 6 to 9. There were no record fish. I

just wanted to see if it could be done. I wanted to make

sure I wasn’t kidding myself.

AD: Were there a lot of products that you guys developed that

never saw the retail market?

DC: Oh sure. One was a color sealant that we developed

called Tru-Brite that we could never get some of the glitch-

es worked out of, so we had to take that one off the mar-

ket. We sold it one year, but then we replaced it with

Brilliance.

We also did a lot of work with the various foam grip

materials. Hypalon was a DuPont product that was very

rugged but very heavy. In an attempt to use it for fresh

water rods, more air was blown in during the extrusion

process. It still was too heavy. We were the only company

that developed a lightweight grip material that rod

builders could shape themselves. We called it Customgrip.

Someone came out with a light material but it was softer

and very subject to cutting. In fact, monofilament pulled

tightly across it would slice it. I don’t know what all is out

there now, because when I left Clemens, I took with me

enough Customgrip to last me for a lifetime! (Laughter).

AD: When you were building back in the seventies and eighties,

who were some of the rodbuilders that you worked closely with?

DC: Jack Justis and I became very good friends. He was

extremely creative and very good with his hands in every

aspect of building. When weaves first came on the scene,

via the late Bill Heckman, Jack jumped on the idea and was

exceptionally good. Gil Rowe in California and I became

very close. In fact, for a few years the California rod

builders were ahead of the rest of the country in thread

work, but they shared so much and we all learned from

them. B. D. Ehler wasn’t from California, but he definitely

was ahead of the pack. So many rod builders contributed

that it would be impossible to list all their names here.

AD: So do you still build r

ods at all?

DC: Oh sur

e, you know

, when I need a rod, or if I want

something different, I build it. I don’t make any rods for

sale. I don’t build a lot of r

ods. I’m age 70, now

, and I’m

sure that if you examined some of my wraps you might

find a telltale gap. I need a lot of light and a lot of magni-

fication! (Laughter) I have taught a few rod building

classes that I have gotten a kick out of. It’s averaged out to

about one every three years since I have left the business.

I taught one this past year. Small, I won’t do more than 10

guys. Usually it’s the fly club that I belong to her

e and

down in the keys. That has been fun, sort of an opportuni-

ty for me to go back and r

evisit those earlier years.

AD: It sounds like the teaching and sharing part of the craft has

been the most fulfilling part of it for you.

DC: Oh sure, oh yes, definitely. That was the best part of

a seminar for everybody! You could go one on one with

another guy at seminars. I usually didn’t get much sleep

because I’d be up at night in somebody’s hotel room. A

bunch of us would always be at it, sharing and talking. It

was great, I always learned so much. It was impossible not

to! I was more fortunate than most because I got to go

around to different parts of the country and meet different

custom rod builders. They were a wonderful group of

people.

AD: Obviously you have left quite a footprint on the world of

rodbuilding.

DC: Oh you’re very flattering. This is good for my ego,

can we do this every week? (Laughter)

AD: I would say that a lot of people have become interest-

ed in this craft and associate you with it because of your

books and the organization of RodCrafters. Out of all your

accomplishments, what would you say that you are most

proud of?

DC: Of having done that! I have been blessed Andy, put it

that simply, that I was able to do that. I don’t know how

to say it without making it sound religious or corny. I am

70, and when I look back, I say my God, what a privilege!

How lucky I was, I had my own company and it was suc-

cessful. Here I am sitting in vacationland Florida right on

the water with my flats boat out back on my canal. I mean

how fortunate can you be and I got here by doing what I

liked to do and having fun. And the fact that people looked

up to me. WOW! I mean it still blows my mind!

AD: That was a great answer! (Laughter)

DC: I had a thrill two weeks ago now. A guy contacted me

on the telephone who lives in Arizona. He said “I have

been building rods since you first got started and I have

every one of your books.” I got to thinking the other night

that I have these books and wouldn’t it be neat to have

them signed. If I sent them in to you would sign them and

send them back, I’ll pay the shipping?” I mean geez. I said

that would be wonderful! He not only sent me the books

and I signed them with a little note on each one, but he sent

me some flies that he tied and some pictures of some rods

that he built. So stuff like that you can’t put a price tag on

it!

AD: Well Like I said, I really feel that you have certainly left a

big footprint on the world of Rodbuilding and the community as

a whole owes you a big thanks for all you have done. Without

your development of all of the equipment and chemistry and

componentry, I don’t know that the industry would be as far

advanced as it is had guys like you not come along and helped

shape it.

DC: No, Andy, the thanks comes from my end, really. -

RodMaker 19