New Book: Rod Crafting

“Take, for example, the rich, dappled red, snakewood salmon rod that William Mitchell, of New York state, made in the 1880s. Hatton, who also fits mortised slices of snakewood into some of his rods, calls the material ‘incredible.’ ‘It’s one of the craziest woods in the world to work,’ he said. ‘You work it too fast and too hard, it’ll shatter like glass. It smells almost exactly like the pipe tobacco that A.K. Best smokes. It’s really pleasant smelling.'” For bamboo aficionados and those even marginally interested in the history of rod building, this new book by Jeffrey L. Hatton looks like required reading. Rod Crafting (Frank Amato Publications, January 2005) is reviewed here by Ed Dentry in the Rocky Mountain News.