Your comments
Feel free to leave your thoughts, comments, etc. about the site, rivers, flies, whatever….
Also, your ‘comments’ on all pages and posts are funneled to this page.
-JW
Shuksan Rod Co.
handcrafted split-cane fly rods
Feel free to leave your thoughts, comments, etc. about the site, rivers, flies, whatever….
Also, your ‘comments’ on all pages and posts are funneled to this page.
-JW
A beautiful site, as well as rods, photographs and words! Now I know where to go when work keeps me away from rivers and streams. Looking forward to fishing a shuksan rod someday.
Greatly enjoyed your web site and blog, I just wandered into it. I spent the last hour reading thru it and I feel as if I spent that time with a rod in my hand in search of trout. I made my first bamboo rod last year, a P.Young taper and enjoy it like no other rod in my quiver.
I downloaded that picture of your brother onto my screen and now I have some books to seek out to continue the journey…Thank you
Great site! I really like some of your ideas in rod presentation.
Best of luck.
“Skipping Stone” is beautiful. I just read it, I am a old man and a fisherman, and I am crying.
Jimmy, One fine web site. I’m a humble flyfisherman but have never fished a split cane rod. After reading most everything on this site I now understand I think, of why one would fish this particular stick. Your words and pics have created an interest in the art and who knows maybe more? thanks in advance, you are a true craftsman of words and rod making.
Sheer poetry, in a fly rod.
A wonderful homage to the split-cane fly rod and all it should be!
Well done.
You sir, have artfully illustrated what fly fishing is to me. Not a sport or a recreation, but a state of being, still and center, all the while streamside with a hand made bamboo fly rod.
I suppose it is what some people experience in churches, but what better cathedral than towering pine trees or holier water than from a river?
Greatly enjoyed your blog, and your rods are very much more than just fishing rods-
I had the pleasure of seeing and casting one of his rods last week in Seattle, and I must say- there is something in its feel that I did not expect. I have never cast bamboo before. I don’t know how to describe it except by saying, like the MacLean quote says on his web blog, I felt it in someplace in my throat. I could feel this kind man’s heart in the rod. Thank you!
Jimbo- what a wonderful web site! I have just spent the last hour reading all the eloquent words you have written with tears rolling down my cheeks- what a gift you have for putting very moving thoughts into words!-my boy you should be sitting at a desk with a pen and not riding on a firetruck. I am so very proud of you-words just can’t tell you enough. I wish you well in this endevor.I wish I could be there to learn how to fly fish with you!
I absolutely love this site! So many wonderful things see and read in here. You are a gifted talent and the rods are beautiful. Keep it up!
I’m not sure what to say, I’m speechless. Thank you.
Just fantastic work young man, wonderful job! Perhaps the most beautiful cane rods I’ve ever seen, and casts as nicely.
Jimmy,
I am searching for the consummate words, although even as I write I am painfully aware of the fact that they will not do you nor your rods the service to which you/they are entitled. So I will keep it simple;
I received a gift from my son (Aaron) for Christmas. It was meant for Father’s Day, but time and events prevented the connections necessary for said gift to be given until then.
You need to understand that I fully appreciate not only what you are capable of doing with your hands, but also, and much more importantly, what it is that is in your heart. Only a few of us will ever be so blessed. I know this to be true. We have only spoken about flies and fishing quite briefly in the past, but even then, before there were these beautiful rods and before there were these eloquent thoughts you have conveyed, there was your heart. The heart of a good, sensitive, insightful man.
I am proud to own a Shuksan. For so much more than just to own a work of art. It is the truest connection to everything good and right and beautiful in my life.
Recently I had the unique privilege of working along side Jimmy while handcrafting my first bamboo rod. In addition to being a truly gifted teacher, JW has a keen eye for aesthetics and a fertile mind for innovative techniques. In addition, Watts possesses historical perspective, honoring both the methods and the design sense of those artisans who have come before him… In case you wondered, my little 4wt looks gorgeous and casts even better…Thanks Jimmy
Wow! I just read ‘Home’. In your eloquent writing, which so wonderfully captures the emotion of a passion-driven soul, it is a gift you give; and one that I understand so intimately with each visit to my moving waters. It is truly a state of mind wherein we live each conscious AND unconscious moment, and I wish to thank you for sharing some of what lies deeply within you.