Interview with Tom Dorsey

Here is a nice, yet short, interview with Tom Dorsey. Dorsey founded the Thomas and Thomas (T&T) rod company together with his (late) brother-in-law Thomas Maxwell in 1969.

They started building bamboo fly rods only with a brief experiment using fiberglass blanks from the Phillipson Rod company.

Tom Dorsey: "The first graphite rods were not built until 1978 when we purchased our graphite manufacturing equipment."

T&T switched owners several times the past decade. It was even briefly owned by a Scottish investment company. Now it's back to American ownership.

The famous picture (probably somewhere in the early 1970's) shown here shows the two Toms testing a new bamboo rod.

Also check my previous posting with a nice video on how bamboo rods are made at T&T.


Update Nov 20, 2013:
Here's the best article on T&T and interview with Tom Dorsey I've read so far.
The brief history on T&T up to the the current owner of T&T, Mark Richens, is very well done.

RISE Fly Fishing Film Festival 2013

The RISE Fly Fishing Film Festival 2013 is planned for 12 & 13 March 2013. The third edition in The Netherlands since 2010.

The feature film for 2013 is Predator. Predator explores the globe for the largest and most powerful fish that can be taken with a fly rod.

These large predators employ all sorts of techniques to maximise their chance of catching prey. Some, like the queenfish use pure speed to outrun and crush their prey in the surface film. Others like the mighty barramundi of Australia’s North use brute power to get a feed. Predator is going to be a visual extravaganza.

We changed the Amsterdam venue from Tuschinksi down town Amsterdam to Pathé Arena for easier access by car as well as parking facility nearby. The Rotterdam venue is still held at Cinerama.

Tickets for either of these venues are only available here.



Update Feb 16 2013:
Here is a preview snap of the announcement of RISE in the March 2013 issue of the Dutch angling magazine BEET.


Update March 14 2013:
Two shows done.

The ticket sale for both venues were about 30% down from previous edition(s). The Rotterdam venue turned out to be slightly more filled than the Amsterdam venue.

The reactions on this year's show were great. The three short movies before the feature movie were well received.

Especially the search for the illusive (300+ lbs!) Arapaima in Guyana (South America) turned out to be a very enjoyable one. As of yesterday (March 13 2013) this movie, Jungle fish, won the Sustainability Film Award at the 2013 Sundance Film festival.

Here's an (favorable) article on the BEET website about the show we did last evening. Thanks to Rudy van Duijnhoven again for the pictures of the show!




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Hopper fishing

I love fishing with a hopper. The very visual take is just an amazing sight.
Here's a very nice video on hopper fishing in Alberta, Canada by the Jensens.
It seems it's the Red Deer river, not far from Calgary.

How the west was won: a success story

Sports Illustrated is probably known to most as the magazine that publishes the famous annual swimsuit issue with the most fabulous women on earth. But they also seem to cover more than just chicks in bikini's.

Like this article from the April 30, 1956 issue about the successful introductory of the brown trout in America.

The story starts with a shipment of 80,000 fertilized brown trout eggs from Germany in February 24, 1883.

The start was quite bumpy as fishermen considered the brown trout was an inferior spices that just wasn't was easy to catch as the native brook or rainbow trout.

As the Fish and Game commission from Montana said: "The brown trout is a good fish, but the average fisherman is not skilled enough to catch it."