Good Morning/Afternoon all,
Last summer I rebuilt a bamboo fly rod for a customer who had asked me to build him a flyrod for steelhead fishing. Having no experience with bamboo rods, I solicited help from this forum and received a lot of really good information. My customer is really happy with both rods. He uses the bamboo for smallmouth bass at the mouth of the Walla Walla River in the Spring.

About ten years ago, I was with my wife when she decided to stop at a yard sale. So I spent an hour of my life wandering around a yard sale. I found that they were selling some old fishing tackle. I found an old rod in a steel case with a paper label that was pretty worn away. However, the first three letters said Mon. I looked inside and found a cloth bag with an old bamboo rod inside the cloth case. The decal said Montague Trail. It is a three piece rod with an extra tip and is a 9 foot rod (perhaps a bit shorter if the ferrules were seated tightly). The reel seat is nickel silver with a fixed hood at the butt and a single slip ring. The slip ring is badly deformed and has a crack in it. The barrel of the real seat is flared where it fits into the cork grip. The flare has a bad dent on one side and a gash in the barrel. None of the dozen fly reels I own fit into the hood of the reel seat. I have a Hardy's featherweight I might be able to force into the hood. It has a free ring nickel silver hookkeeper. The stripping guide has a red agate (agatine?) ring in a nickel silver frame. The snake guides are all very dark, but not black. One of the tip sections also has an agate ring tip top. The other tip has a wire tip top. All of the wraps appears to be yellow with a pinkish trim except for two snake guide wraps which are in green and the wrap on the wire tiptop which is also wrapped with green. All of the ferrules are step down nickel silver ferrules which are pinned. They also have quite a bit of corrosion, but could be restored to usability. They are all well seated with no wobble. The reel seat is not pinned. I was also a bit surprised to find that there is a rather sharp taper below the logo to the butt of the rod. I did a static distribution test to see how the guides were distributed and noticed that almost all of the flex was in the tip section and maybe a quarter of the middle section. The butt section had almost no flex. I haven't determined the action angle yet, but I think this rod must have a medium fast action. I guess I was surprised because I think of bamboo rods as being pretty slow action.

Having read everything on this forum about Montague flyrods as well as what I found by googleing ( or maybe googling?), I know that Montague bamboo rods were low to middle range factory produced rods. From the rod phorum I read that some folks try to restore these rods to their original state. However, using Angler's Workshop's catalog, replacing the ferrules, the agate stripping guides, and the agate tip tops would cost over two hundred dollars. To have a machinist make a replacement reel seat would be as we say out here in Eastern Oregon, very Spendy. I have very little illusion that restoring this rod would ever repay the material cost let alone my labor. I'm more inclined to rebuild this rod with new modern hardware and have a bamboo rod to fish with once in a while.

I would like any advice anyone is willing to give me regarding this choice since I am truly a newbie in terms of bamboo rods. Thanks in advance for any information or advice you have.


Mike Blomme

I am new here, but I build and fish cane rods, let me chime in.

What you have is a decent, workman like, production fishing rod. They were mass produced at a time when flyrods were made out of cane. Not a collectors rod, but certainly a usable fishing rod. As it is not a collector class rod (FYI, darn few are, just not many Garrisons, Gillums, or Paynes floating around waiting to be found at yard sales), as such, I recommend that you fix it up and use it.

What you have is called a swelled butt taper; typically faster and heavier than more traditional staight tapered rods. Cane rods could be made every bit as "fast" as modern plastic rods, but they would be so heavy you couldn't fish it for very long without arm fatigue.

Anglers Workshop has decent prices. Russ at Goldenwitch can help you get appropriate components to put the rod back to work. Don't feel like you need to put a nickle silver reelseat on it; many older production rods (and high end rods too) came with aluminum seats with simple wooden spacers. Payne used aluminum with cedar spacers; you can still get copies today to replicate a Payne rod.

Good luck, and have fun playing with a grass rod.

I'd suggest the same thing. Montague rarely possess much monetary value, but they are nice keepsakes and often finish out into very decent fishing rods. Don't be afraid of harming the monetary value - it hasn't much. If the blank itself is in good shape, go to work outfitting it as necessary to allow it to fish once more.

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it is a good rod some people that get the older rods do the mid and tip only when rebuilding the older cane and use them for small stream trout rods but most of your tip top and other fittings can be had from Russ at Goldenwitch and right now on @#$%& are new ferruls for your rod strippers along with a lot of old new reel seats for the older can rods just have fun redoing it and fishing it God Bless Jeff Rhonda and Kaya net pup

Michael;
Try Rick's Rods in Denver for parts, Rick has a lot of nos parts for a lot of the old production rods, his website is www.ricksrods.com. The Trail was actually one of their better models, nickel silver ferrules were only used on above average models, most had really bad chrome plated brass ferrules that are typically split by now. That reel seat was made for the stamped metal feet that most reels had back then, like the old Pfleuger Medalists. As you already know, old 0' rods don't have much value, so don't worry too much abourt keeping it original. BTW, it's most likely a 6 or 7 wt, possibly heavier, try some lines on it and see what feels best
john

Hi Mike. I have an affinity for the Montagues because they were built close to where I grew up in western Mass. I agree with the consensus assessment that these are not great but only good rods. The Trail is c. 1932, in the upper echelon of Monties at the time and may have been Varney influenced.

I have a bunch of old NS or plated yellow brass, sliding ring reel seats that came off old rods and fit your description, some with butt caps and rings, some not. I am happy to give you one. Most are unmarked, heavily tarnished and in the case of the plated seats there is plenty of finish flaking off. I have contemplated cleaning/stripping and then powder coating these and getting them back into service.

Send me the barrel length and diameter and I will see what I have in the inventory.

Best regards,
Chris

Mike, Have you read A.J. Campbell's book on Antique tackle? The Montague Trail is certainly a collectable Montague fly rod of higher quality then you may think. It is ranked number 4 in quality behind the Red Wing, Powr-Built, and Manitou.It is a very good taper with NS ferrules and reel seat placing it in a class of rod inspired by George Varney while he was at Montague City Rod Co. 1895-1927, all of the afore mentioned models were his design/influence sporting his pat. ferrules and reel seats in some cases. I have to agree with the fact that after Bartlett's death in 1925 and the subsiquent sell of thye MCRC and name change in 1927 to Montague Rod and Reel Co. from 1927-1934 run by the bankers and then sold to Ocean City in 1934, that the qualityea suffered through that period in some cases, but those high end models sold for as much as $75 during the depression years. I would think the Trail is one of the better rods Montague made, with good labels and full length sections and in good condition is a very collectable rod to say the lest and is a great fishing instrument equal to any Heddon, Edwards,or Granger out there. Many of the early 20's and 30's Monty's out there have reel seats that are mrade for vintage fly reels so many modern feet will not fit properly without modification to the reel foot, so use a vintage reel or get a foot modification kit for Pflueger reels if you have one. This problem exist on other production models as well, so don't damage the seat just use a vintage reel, there are plenty of good one's out there. Ed