J.E. Arguello Rod Company

Well I got out for the first time yesterday, main goal was to visit a small club I belong to which has probably the best water on that particular river, I’m am very lucky to be a member. Stopped by the owners house to pay my dues and see how he is doing. Some of the nicest people you will ever meet. His wife answered the door and greeted me like a long lost friend although it’s only been a year since I saw her last. How’s he doing I asked, I could see him sitting on his recliner but for the first time in years he didn’t get up. “He doesn’t have much energy these days, just sits there” she said. Sigh… he did manage to wave at me from his chair and ask “going fishing?” I’m gonna give it a try for a while I answered loudly, as he doesn’t hear very well, then I handed over my check and said “OK then I will see you all later” and off I went.

So I parked my truck in the designated area and immediately went over to see what was in the sign in log, as I suspected the same names that are usually on the log were there! Guys are doing great on nymphs as I suspected! Well I got dressed and headed down to the river, just a short walk. The flow was a bit low but perfect all the same! I had tied on a size 22 BWO, I like to use this as a starting point this time of year, it can be taken as a midge so I feel it’s a good place to start, I’m never real confident about anything top side this time of the year! I had a 7 ft. 2 pc rod based on a Garrison 202e taper (one of my favorites) a Hardy featherweight reel (an old one with the 2 screw line guard) and a silk line! Just doesn’t get any better than that! As always I have to stand and admire my set up for a while, just part of the experience! Hum, I think I need to furl up some new leaders…

I fished for about an hour and didn’t see much action… kept thinking about my old friend sitting in his recliner… God bless him! As I got to the hole where I was gonna get out of the river, there was a guy fiddling with a pump that supplies the sprinklers for the lawn. I could see from a distance that he was struggling a bit so I walked over and offered my help. “Thanks, but I’ve got it” he said. “I go through this every year, just have to prime the pump” Well, we introduced ourselves and come to find out he is the owners son in law! You know good people seem to flock together and I got the feeling that he was also a very nice man. We talked for a while and I decided to leave him to his chores. So I walked back up to the truck and got my gear off. Signed the log sheet… # of fish – 2 nice rainbows – type of fly?… uh, uh… OK, I used a nymph, size 22 glass bead head brassie! I have a very small box I keep hidden in a very dark, deep pocket inside my vest just for this day, when there’s not much going on and I don’t want to get skunked the first day of the season! No strike indicator just a tight line drift! Fished it the last 15 minutes of the day! And now you know one of my darkest secrets!

So that was my first day out, didn’t get skunked, did an inventory of my gear, met a new friend, and most importantly got to see my old friend.

The day was a success!

Joe E. Arguello

Taxes are done! The start of the new fishing season? Well that’s has been my rule of thumb for a long time! The weather has been exceptionally warm this year and I am hoping for a summer of good fishing. Today it is quite windy so I elected to stay home and finish up a rod that is on it’s way to Japan, second one for the same customer! This is kinda exciting… I am international! Seems that my customer read about me in Ed Engle’s book “Splitting Cane” many years ago and he said that he has wanted one of my rods ever since!

Funny little side story, when my customer contacted me to order his rods (2) he said that he had been in Denver recently on business, said that he had wanted to look me up but ran out of time. Well if you click the link above and start to read the excerpt from Ed’s book you see that he starts out by saying:

“May 1998. Joe Arguello and I are sitting in the Double Tree Restaurant in Platteville, Colorado, enjoying the afterglow of our first couple of bites into the rather large steak sandwiches…”

My customer told me that even though he didn’t have time to look me up he was able to go to the Double Tree and eat the steak sandwiches … twice… “best steak sandwiches I ever ate” he said! Now that is a cool story, although I wish we could have met in person! Man’s gotta have his priorities straight and it is obvious to the most casual observer that the steak sandwich would be mine also!

So back to the beginning of the fishing season as Joe sees it. As I like to fish dries almost exclusively, things for me don’t really start popping until the middle of May or June, (there’s always the Mother’s day Caddis hatch on the Arkansas) but there is always that chance that you might hit it just right and get into a midge hatch or if it clouds up and cools off a bit you might get into one of the best days of BWO fishing ever! Besides that, it gives me the opportunity to figure out how my gear is holding up and what needs refreshing.

And the truth be told…

Joe don’t like cold weather anymore!… Or too much wind! …And that’s just the way it is!

Joe E. Arguello

OK, so I am pretty excited about my new blog! So I woke up this morning and thought ‘what shall I write about today?’ then I also thought OK guys let’s not make this a habit, don’t know if I can post something ever day, but I will try to post something on a somewhat regular basis! You would think that at some point I would run out of things to say, or not!

So back to that first rod… I have always admired Winston rods and the company of old. I was quite heart broken when I heard some noise about the break up of the Bamboo rod shop, seems that like so many companies driven either by greed or necessity they decided to outsource some of the rod building off shore! Seems that this is the way of the world, same thing seems to be happening at Hardy or has already happened! Sigh…But then there is the bright side…The beginning of the Sweetgrass Rod Company… good job guys! You know what they say… “If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything” I respect people that don’t sell out for the almighty dollar! Ok enough of that, this is getting into politics.

Ok, well that is why I decided to built a Winston taper, at that time I ‘knew’ that it would probably not do the name justice (I was pleasantly surprised) How I agonized over every single detail of that build! Plane a bit… measure … plane a bit more… measure… reset the forms… plane … How the hell do you hold this scraper plane, what a piece of … OK, I’m starting to drive myself crazier just thinking about it! Oh and I did learn how to hold that scraper and use it all the time now… come to think about it I learned a lot on that first rod, a whole lot!

So I made reference in my last post that the first rod belonged to my Son, Leon. How did that happen? Well Leon and a couple of his friends decided to move to California in search of a music career, or at least that is what they told me. He was crazy about playing his guitar and still does so I guess that was as good a reason as any. While he was here we used to fish quite a bit. Anyway his birthday came around and as I was getting ready to write a check to put in his birthday card, I thought I would call him up and see if there was anything he would rather have than money! Imagine that, like the new commercial on TV now a days the question that jumps out is “Who wouldn’t want more money?” Well, he didn’t answer the phone, and it was quite some time before he answered my ‘call me’ message, to the point that his birthday came and went! I thought I would teach him a lesson and tell him I was gonna… but! I was lying in the bushes in wait! Then he called and I sprung into action… well I was gonna send you a check in the card you got (minus one check! he he) but since you didn’t answer my call I didn’t know what you wanted, so now your present is gonna be late! he he… That’s OK dad, he said, but remember a while back you asked me what I wanted for my birthday? Well, ‘I have been thinking’… I want the first Bamboo rod you built!

I should have known at ‘I have been thinking’ that I was gonna get the short end of that deal! Kinda like the time we were on our way home from a fishing trip and he said ‘Dad I’ve been thinking’…What’s that? I asked. “I’ll trade you my spinning rod for that old bamboo rod you have in the closet at home!” Hummmm, seems to me that I owned both those rods, and the bamboo rod in question was the first decent rod I ever owned! An Ed M. Hunter approved! Still have it! Though I think he got to use it for some time! Gotta watch that boy when he says “I’ve been thinking!” Usually doesn’t work out so well for Dad!

And that is how Leon wound up owning the first J.E. Arguello bamboo rod ever built!

Thanks for listening,

Joe E. Arguello

As I sit here wrapping a rod for a customer I have been reflecting on when this journey started. Trying to do this by memory is not an easy task these days! Seems that I remember the year 1991, I had just met my wife to be, though I still didn’t know that! Kinda like not knowing where my new found interest in building a bamboo fly rod was going, funny how that worked. We were on one of those weekend drives, you know, new girl friend, getting to know each other, drive up to the mountains on a nice summer day… well we were passing through Lyons Colorado and I had heard of South Creek Ltd. seems there was a guy up there making bamboo fly rods! “Let’s stop in here and see what this is all about” I said to my new gal! We were greeted by Mike and he showed us what he was doing! Then I started to look at some of the rods on the rack and quickly realized that this was just a dream, I could never afford the prices for a fishing rod! But… I knew right then and there that I could make one! It seems to me that it was on that first visit that I asked Mike if he had any information, but I may have thought about it for a while and then come back, just don’t remember that detail. Anyway he sold me a book that he had in stock “The Bamboo Rod And How to Build It” by Claude M. Kreider, I have that book in front of me as I write this! At the time there was not much in print about this subject. The bible, ” A Master’s Guide To Building A Bamboo Fly Rod” by Garrison/Carmichael was out of print and “Handcrafting Bamboo Fly Rods” by Wayne Cattanach was not out yet.

So I read my book cover to cover and found that there was a copy or two of the Garrison book avalaible at the Library. I would go to the Longmont library and check it out for as long as I could, then go to the Denver library and do the same! At some point I started to make a set of forms (still use them today!) and started acquiring the tools that I felt I needed. Looking back on this, if there would have been a class avalaible I could have paid for it with the money I spent on tools that I didn’t need!

At some point I went back to see Mike and told him that I was ready to try my hand at making a bamboo fly rod! He sold me a culm of cane and was nice enough to throw in a partial culm that he had taken a section out of for a repair on another rod! “Practice splitting this one he said, then you can go to work on your good one.” Well that is just what I did… the splitting went quite well! I’ll just keep going until I screw it up I thought! Well long story short I ended up with a one tip 8 ft. rod based on a Winston taper that I got out of the Krieder book! Still have that rod though it belongs to my son, (that story to come later) Now I wish I would have dated that rod, though I did sign it (not very well) and it is a pretty good effort if I do say so myself!

And so it began…

More to come, I hope you enjoyed my reflections … as I sit here wrapping a rod!

Joe E. Arguello