Fly Fishing Books: New Bamboo History by George Black

Coming August 8 from Random House, this new history of bamboo rods in the U.S. promises to be good reading for split cane rod anglers and craftsmen. Casting a Spell: The Bamboo Fly Rod and the American Pursuit of Perfection (hardcover, 272 pages) is by George Black, who also wrote The Trout Pool Paradox (Houghton Mifflin, 2004, 336 pages), a history of Connecticut’s Housatonic and its tributaries.