I took this photo a few years ago to illustrate a column I was doing on the joys of making your own fishing tackle. Everything in the photo was made by me including making the jig molds to pour the jigs and paint them. I started tying flies in the mid ‘60s and it is a hobby I continue to pursue almost daily even today. I began making spinning and casting rods near the end of the fiberglass era and then switched to graphite. The first two fly rods made from graphite blanks were completed in 1975, and I still have them today. I made seven split bamboo fly rods in 1977-78 and then picked up the hobby again in 1997 and have made a few rods every year since then. The point of the column was there is much more to fishing than just picking up a rod, buying some bait and going fishing. If that is what trips your trigger, that’s just fine. If your desire is to simply drown a worm while sitting under a shade tree on some river bank, that’s your prerogative. And that’s fun, too. But, I feel it is a wonderful sport because you can pursue it as much as you care to. I have made it a lifetime study as much as raising a family and keeping a day job allowed me to do. I’ve guided, tournament fished, given countless fishing seminars and speaking appearances, written, I have no idea how many, columns and magazine stories about it. Most of that is in the rear view mirror. But fishing for fun and making tackle is what I do now. And I still enjoy every minute of it.

Larry Myhre, Sioux City, IA.  is the retired editor and outdoor writer for the Sioux City Journal. His columns have appeared in Fly Fishing, Game & Fish, Field & Stream as well as numerous other outdoor publications.

His Larry Myhre’s Hand Crafted Bamboo Rods are beautifully designed and constructed and available in numerous different styles and weights, Beautiful rods that will make your next fly-fishing trip more pleasurable and productive!

He’s an award-winning writer and photographer and was inducted into the National Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame in 2016. Myhre co-hosted the award-winning Outdoorsmen Adventures television series with Gary Howey.

Check out Larry Myhre’s Hand Crafted Bamboo Rods Facebook page.