The Bonnaroo of Bamboo

A HOMEGROWN SMOKY MOUNTAINS GATHERING CATERS TO THE CULT OF THE CANE FLY ROD

By T. Edward Nickens

Don’t call it a revival, or a celebration of history, or even a renaissance. That’s not what the BambooBash is about. The annual get-together does bring a passel of bamboo fly rod makers and restorers and vintage tackle collectors to the banks of the Little River near Great Smoky Mountains National Park. There are piles of classic Pflueger Medalist reels, and you might find, and be able to cast, a fly line nearly a hundred years old. But this gathering of folks who are simply bonkers over bamboo rods is as much about the now and the next as it is the past. Each spring, for more than twenty years, enthusiasts have converged like a hatch of mayflies on the property of Dock’s on the River Motel, just outside Townsend,…

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Garden & Gun (Digital) - 1 Issue, June/July 2024

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