Spent some time with Boyne City's bamboo rod builder Alex Wulff today.  We reviewed some old cane rods of mine, the only one of real interest being the 11 foot Sealy Octopus split cane rod that I used for course fishing back in the UK when I was a youngster.  That would make it about 50 years old!  It just needs the stripping guide re-soldering and it's good to go.  Alex suggested using it for Spey casting and recommended that I seek out the Spey teacher John Breslin who could be participating at the FFF Great Lakes Council School and Fair June 15-17 which I will attend:
http://www.fffglc.org/

We discussed potentially re-furbishing the split bamboo rod that Donna picked up at a garage sale.  Boyd King (Beulah, Michigan 1903 to 1978) seems to have been the owner, not the rod builder. Boyd was obviously proud enough of the rod to put his name on it so it was probably a decent rod when it was new.  Much work would be needed starting with re-wrapping the cork handle.  Not worth the effort per Alex.

Next week I'm going to observe Alex working on tip sections to go with the three five weight butt sections already completed. Alex typically uses the (Jim) Payne 101 taper which he believes is as fast as you will get in bamboo.  Alex offered to lend me some of his books to learn the fundamentals but these well-thumbed volumes were obviously highly valued by Alex and in frequent use so I declined. Asked which one book he would  recommend for beginners Alex suggested Handcrafting Bamboo Fly Rods by Wayne Cattanach.  Another recommendation was to attend the bamboo rod conclave but it seems this is not happening this year.  Grayling public library has a good collection of books addressing all aspects of fly fishing and would be an interesting place to spend a cold, stormy day sometime.

Hiked a new section of the North Country Trail in the afternoon through the upper Jordon valley.  Did not see another soul for three hours. The Trillium is coming into bloom.  My image but I needn't have bothered with 4,750,000 images of Trillium on Google Images. Seems like people are interested in Trillium until you realize there are 94,800,000 images (non-offensive mind you) of boobs. Does this mean that people are twenty times more interested in Trillium than (non-offensive) boobs.  What if we included "offensive" boobs I wonder.

Managed a (just-about!) dry stream crossing at the old lumbering-era bridge ruin adjacent to the Fish Hatchery to save myself about an hour on the return leg.