Brandin 835-3df solid, 8 ft. 3 in. 3pc/2 tips
Brandin 835-3df solid, 8 ft. 3 in. 3pc/2 tips; the 10th rod I ever built. In the mid 1980's as I was getting going building bamboo rods, there was a big fishing and outdoor show in Suffern, NY which was always attended by the Montana R.L. Winston boys after Tom Morgan had bought the company. I had known Tom, Glenn Brackett, and Jerry Siem for some years from my time living and fishing in Montana so it was a natural for them to stop in at my house in Pleasantville, NY where I started building rods in the basement. We would have dinner at my place and I would then hang around their booth at the Suffern Show, talking bamboo rods. Jerry Siem, who I had met in 1974 while he worked as a guide for Will Godfrey in Last Chance, Idaho fishing the Henry's Fork of the Snake river guided my father and myself on a lower section of that water. As chance would have it Glenn Brackett worked out of the same shop at that time so our paths also crossed for the first time. After seeing the bamboo work I was doing, Jerry suggested that I needed to design and build an 8 ft. 3 in. rod in three pieces for #5 line in my quad configuration which was all I built at the time. I took that to heart and built a number of rods trying to get the action just right, perhaps three or four rods in all. This is one of that series of rods and it has been owned by Tom Clark since the mid 1980's. These rods were very nice indeed, but were all better with a #6 line than the #5 I had wanted them to handle. I remember well the day fishing with Tom Clark on the Ausable River out of his boat of the same name, that he allowed me to borrow back this rod to fish on that water. I loved the action of the rod with a WF6 line and it is typical of many of my earliest efforts in that when I see them again after many years I wonder to myself how I knew to build such a good rod in those early years. This one remains in excellent carefully used condition with resorcinol glue, Spanish Cedar reel-seat filler, and Mildrum ME stripping guide. Snake guides are old stock tungsten bronzed steel as was standard in those years. I would describe the action as fast and smooth, a combination I was proud to be able to attain. I find no issues with the varnish that would need attention on the rod shaft, while the varnish on the Spanish Cedar reel-seat filler shows some indents from having reels mounted. As on many of my earliest efforts, the cork grip goes from round to square towards the front, a stylistic element I borrowed from the Edwards Quad rods that so influenced me. Some years ago, remembering how much I liked the action of those early rods, I did finally design and build a rod in this configuration for a #5 line, but that one is a semi-hollow quad. In original tube (brass caps machined in-house on these early rods) and bag with loop and stiffener sewn in. From the collection of Thomas H. Clark.
