Fly fishing and more: November 2023

My Q&A's started as an idea to interview some of the memorable people I've met in fly fishing, both online as well as offline. Rather than a true interview I decided to keep it simple by asking a few Q&A's.

Leon Hanson has been building bamboo rods for more than 45 years. Yet he is only known within a small group of people who search for the best casting long & light bamboo rods.

Leon is acclaimed as a highly innovative maker, both in tapers as well as perfecting the hollow building technique. His rods seems to defy logics what can be done with bamboo.

There's barely any information about Leon and his rods. So, I thought I need to contact Leon so people can read about his history and his ideas about bamboo rod making. Our Zoom talk was really enjoyable, we could have talked for hours on end. So without further due, let's talk with Leon!

1) Q: When & how did you pick up fly fishing?

“This is the town of Plymouth, Michigan. It's west of Detroit, about 30 miles. In the same town, except for when I worked in Alaska and whatever, moved around a little bit.”

“... when I was in seventh grade in 1956, my cousin gave me a spinning rod and I was reading in Field and Stream about fly fishing in Ted Trueblood's articles. So I wanted a fly rod, so I took the guides off of it and put fly guides on with my mother's sewing thread. And then the neighbor guy gave me a fly reel for picking potatoes in the yard, in the farm.

So I put that on and I bought a line from the dime store for 39 cents. And it was way too light of a fly line, but it's what I had. And it was one of those kinds that were enameled. I don't know if you're familiar with those and the enamel breaks on them. So there's nylon, a nylon braided tube. So that's what I ended up with a fly line. I could cast about 20 feet.

And in a pond, I caught bluegills, you know, and that got me started. And William Blades had a book out on how to tie flies at our local library. And our library was a house in town. I mean, it was a little town, you know. And the neighbor guy had chickens. So I ended up asking for chicken feathers.

And he says, if you kill them, you can have all the feathers you want, but you'll butcher them for me. So I did a brown one and a white one for them. And so I had fly tying stuff. And the hooks were from the dime store, and it was a little round tin from Pfluger with a whole bunch of different sized hooks in it. And they were really junky hooks. But, you know, I used those for, yeah.”

“... if you kill them, you can have all the feathers you want”

“And there were five or six farm ponds within a mile or a couple of kilometers of my house. So I went and played on those a lot. I mean, a lot. So that got me started. Later, after I got to be like in 14, we would ride our bikes to different ponds and fish after school.

Or in the summertime, after I got done with work, either the neighbor's farms or my parents. And we ended up, there were bass and bluegills in all of them. And I could catch some nice bass on flies and on lures, you know, and on worms.

We fished every way we could to be successful. You know how kids are. They'll do anything to make it work, you know. And after I got to be about, let me see, I was 16. I bought a Shakespeare fly rod at the local sporting goods store. And that started the real fishing, you know. It was an 8.5 foot 6 weight. Well, HDH or HCH, you know, old numbers. And I ended up giving that to my cousin. I wish I would have kept it, kind of. But, you know, you don't need everything.”

“Well, then I fly fished a lot, and then I ended up fishing for salmon and steelhead and everything. But I liked fly fishing in the summertime because there was none of those fish there. So I started buying blanks from E. Hille (Ed: now closed) in Pennsylvania and making, this is before graphite, okay, fiberglass fishing rods, fly rods.

And I made lots of them. I mean, I would buy a dozen blanks at a time, you know, and they were cheap, like seven bucks. So you could make a lot of them for relatives and stuff for 20 bucks, and you were coming out a little ahead, you know. And then I was married. I had a child.”

2) Q: Why did you decide to build bamboo rods?

“I went to a fly show called the Bamboo Fly Rod Revival in Detroit, Michigan, in 1977. Hoagy Carmichael was there with his book. So I bought one of the books, and they were 39 bucks, and I thought that was an awful lot of money for that book.

But it started a lifetime of playing with bamboo. And the first rod I made was a seven-foot 4 weight with two butts and two tips. Well, actually, there were two rods that I could switch every which way, you know. And one of them was like a Leonard Duracane seven footer taper, and the other one was a 202E taper from Garrison. And I could fish with them. In fact, I got that brown up there on it the first summer I fished. Can you see it? That was 8 pounds 14 on a dry fly. Yeah, it was really fun.”

“It (bamboo) was not really cool at that point. I mean, it was like an outdated style. And the local Orvis store had one that I really thought, oh, I would love to have one of those. But I couldn't afford it. I didn't want to afford one. Graphite was nice, but it didn't cast as nice.

So I thought, well, I'll start making some. And it took me a year to collect all the stuff, you know. And I already had a lathe. So I thought, well, I'll start making them. And I had been buying all these old bamboo fly rods as a young man at garage sales and whatever. And I had a couple of Paul Young's. I had a Dickerson, a Gene Edwards. And then I bought a Philipson. And those ended up, some of those cast nicer than my graphites to me.

“But I couldn't afford it...”

So I thought, okay. And I sold one of the Paul Young's and a nice reel that I had bought for enough money to buy a planing form from Hoagy Carmichael the next year. And then that really got me going, you know. And at that point, then, that's where you saw the seven foot rods come out of the house.

My wife actually went to Florida on a vacation with the kids and her mom. And I got the planing form while they were gone. And when they came home, I went upstairs to say hi, and I went right back downstairs. And she was kind of like “uh…. I don't like this life”. But it turned out to be good. I made a few every year for myself. And occasionally, I would sell one when somebody wanted one. And to be honest, they're okay, but they're not great.”

3) Q: Your long rod making career seems to have two distinct era’s. On your website you mention that Per Brandin’s support changed your thoughts about rod designing. Please elaborate.

“The first five years, the mechanics of the build, I had good glue joints, I had good reel seats and all of that stuff. But I could not build a taper that I absolutely loved for a while. And I kept on modifying.

And finally, I hit one, an eight-foot four weight that I absolutely loved probably 10 years into making. And that became the rod of choice for me. And I fished with it literally all over the United States. Well, the West Michigan, you know. I fished down in Ohio once. I fished in Pennsylvania with it. But mostly in Michigan and some in the West Yellowstone area, okay?

Tom Clark had a camp on the east fork of the Gallatin, I think it was, in Belgrade. And I was invited to fish with him out there for a few days. And Per Brandin showed up. And he goes, Leon, you should make this rod hollow. And I said, I don't know. Tom Clark had a couple of his rods. And Per and I ended up becoming very close friends.

“Leon, you should make this rod hollow...”

In fact, I talked with him last week. And he said, you should make this hollow. Eh, I don't want to bother. Because I like it the way it is, you know? And then about a month later, we were talking, and he goes, well, what do you mean? Did you start yet? Hollowing?

So once a month like that for a year… And then I said, okay, I'll start. So I shut down the process that I was making them, basically spent a year designing a hollow work and making them. And it took me three tries to make it work. And then we shared tapers between Per and I on an 8.3ft 4' weight. In two spots, they were different. Everything else was the same. So our thoughts on taper and that feel is pretty close. And at that point, then, it kind of launched me. It was about 2010. Somewhere in there.”

Just for my reference, building was basically a hobby. What did you do for a living?

“I'm a former school teacher.”

“... at that point in time, there were quite a few people that liked my old solid fishing rods. So as fast as I could make, I would sell them. And most of them were, in fact, all but a few, were 8' and under. And they were, some of them were pretty nice. But they were solid. And I kept wanting a longer rod that was light.

And Per opened the window. Man, did I go through it. And then I, actually, he invited me to go to Nelson Ishiyama (Ed: owner of the Henry’s Fork Lodge in Last Chance, Idaho). Nelson has a fishing rod show (Ed: bamboo fly rod meeting), kind of by invitation. Well, I went there the first time. I had, I don't know, five or six fishing rods. Nelson bought two. Another guy bought one. And I got to take one home or two home, you know. And one of them was a 7'9", two piece, three weight. And I had different, I had lightened the guides. They're light, really thin wire. And they have very little thread holding them up. The wire weighs the same amount as the thread and finish.

So, if you can shrink that down, you take weight off, you know. And I had one with a regular set of guides and one with the lightened guides. Nelson said, I have to have that rod. So, he took it, you know. And that was the start of not only hollow, but lighter fittings and things.”

4) Q: Your rods are especially known for being long & incredibly light weight, something most of us have never thought could be made from bamboo. Do you think the envelope of what can be done with bamboo be pushed even more?

“Right now, I have a nine foot, three piece, three weight. It weighs 3.3 ounces (...). And it casts nice at 10 feet and nice at 60 feet, you know. And to me, you have to have a rod that casts so that it's a fishable rod like that. You know, you can't just have a stiff rod that you can cast long. You got to be able to fish short and precise, too. I'm working on eight-and-a-half-foot three-piece five-weights now.”

Per once said that he wanted to try to, let's say, emulate the graphite characteristic using bamboo. Obviously, that was his motivation to push the envelope. But I think your motivation to make the longer and light rod is probably different, or was it also the same?

“No, it was to cast a line. Let me see. How do I say? Straight, flat, into the wind, and you can control the distance without thinking about it. And the rod that you have does that, at least I think it does. Yeah, I still need to fish it, but obviously, when casting, I just wonder how is this possible? Yeah, it kind of is.”

“I mean, I was very fortunate to meet Per, and then at that point, I ended up, I think, pushing the envelope in papers and the fittings a little more than Per did. He introduced me to it, but I think I pushed it a little bit more. Because he was still using tube tips on the tip tops, and I showed him my little tiny pieces, and he goes, oh, what a great idea. And I said, it's not my idea, because I have an F.E. Thomas from 1910 that's made like that. It's got a wire tip top. I took it and pushed it to, because the wires on the side of that tip are like an inch and a quarter long, you know, so I pushed the envelope.”

Are your tips hollowed all the way to the tips?

"Well, as close as I can get to them. On an eight weight, they're within an inch. On a three weight, they're about four inches or so. Because they're so... Somewhere in between.”

Because you obviously have no material left at the tip.

“That's right. And I think that when you design a rod, if the, when the rod is lightly loaded, the bend of the rod with the weight of the line should be a true smooth curve, not stiff with a straight line. That makes the rod really...”

Have you tried making parabolic action rods?

“Paul Young, I went to Paul Young's store. I knew the family, okay, because I'm not too far from there, half an hour from the store on Grand River. And I didn't realize how famous he was when I was a kid. It was just a store.

Well, I ended up with a (Paul Young) Para 15, and if you held your little finger, grasping the rod like this, and put your finger out on the rod like that, and cast it, so that this became stiff all the way from here to here, for me, it cast way better than it did flexing there.

“... it casts nice at 10 feet
and nice at 60 feet...”

Okay. So, I thought, okay, I got to make my rod so that they don't do that, you know? But you want the rod to feel the cork in your hand. So, you have to have a little bit of bend there, but not a lot. So, you can increase the line speed. So, they're a progressive, but they're a little higher line speed rod, generally speaking, than some. You can cast them pretty good into the wind. And durability, one of my clients has got an eight-foot three-weight two-piece, and I know he has gotten over 5,000 fish on it, and it's still mostly straight, which is delightful.”

“I mean, how far can we go? Well, if I make the walls thinner than I am now, they tend to collapse. So, that part, I don't think so. If there is a lighter wire, yeah. I've made some reel seats. You have a reel seat, and that reel seat with the metal weighs about 0.4 ounces. I have made some, and there's a picture of them, I think, on my website, of a reduced reel seat foot. That one weighs 1.5 ounces.”

You basically just left out the wood spacer just the blank

“And it's smaller in diameter, too. And it's barely big enough to hold the reel, but it does. Whether people like that visually, that's a different question, obviously, but yeah. Well, one of my clients said, Leon, that looks like a crippled guy with a shoe on. And I said, you know what? You're right, it does. However, when he showed up at Nelson's, and he goes, you know, I want one of those. I didn't think it looked good. But when you see it in your hand, and you use it, it's really a nice reel seat.”

It looks like one of those Mike Montagne's rods.

“Yes, it does kind of look like his stuff. However, his has got a lot of metal on it. The metal weighs. It's surprising how fast it adds up. I used a screw lock, aluminum one, and made it as light as I could. And it started out as a reel seat that was made by F.E. Thomas. And I modified it. And it still weighed a half an ounce. Now, that's way more than I wanted, you know? I'd rather have the reel have the weight instead of the rod. In fact, have you seen the reduced, no, the foot on a Hardy Barton Dry fly reel? Have you seen one of those feet?”

I don't recall it specifically

“Just a minute. I might find one. Can you see what it does? Yeah, it's a-symmetrical. And it moves the reel up under your hand even more. That ends up changing the casting dynamics of a fishing rod noticeably. I like as light a reel as I can get, okay? There are some reels in the market which puts the weight forward. Now, the one that Abel made with it that way down and forward doesn't work. Because the fulcrum point doesn't work on the fishing rod under your hand.”

“If it's close, what is the Dutch guy that made something like that?”

Ari ‘t Hart

“Yes. Ari had some that were like that. CFOs (reels) are what I use. Yeah, look at it. See? Tim Abbott made these reel feet for me. And we made, I don't know, I bought probably eight or ten. I know, I bought ten of them on my CFOs. And I like CFOs, well, with my two weights, I have an 8.3 foot 2 weight that weighs two ounces.

And at Nelson's, I sold four because it was blowing 30 miles an hour and we could still cast into the wind. So these guys couldn't buy it fast enough. At the bamboo meeting, Nelson was going to buy one. And I said, you don't need it, you have a 3 weight. And he says, oh, yeah. I said, you're right. He says, I would fish a 2 weight three or four or five times in the park. And he said, that's all. So, yeah, no, I really don't. But, God, I would really love to have that.”

I mailed you once and I asked you if you could build me a rod. But you said, oh no, no, no, I'm 76 years old.

“I don't know how long I can do a rod. I have three years work in front of me.”

“...Alan Schwartz is one of my clients. And he bought a 6 weight. And he called me up twice this summer. Do you know anything about O’ Dell Spring Creek?”

Yeah, in Montana, where Tom Morgan used to guide as a boy (Ed: when his parents owned the El Western motel).

“Well, this guy gets to fish on it every day. He has a ranch up there. And he said, Leon, this is the rod. Per and I have fished with them on there, actually. And he goes, this is the rod that I use for all of my big fly fishing over there. And with the big tip and with the light tip, I use it on all my small flies because the fish are so big.

And he says, it fishes those size 16s and 18s just fine with that light tip. And he says, I'm fishing those number 8 rubber body or foam body things with all the fuzzy and rubber legs with the 6. And he says, it casts them into the wind. It's long and short. I love it.”

“You know, it is the perfect rod for if you were to fish in New Zealand. It would be.”

New Zealand has been on my bucket list for like at least 30 years now. But I got a family with young kid.

“I had the same. Well, Nelson wanted me to go. You know, some of those other guys wanted me to go. And I said, I can't afford that kind of a trip. I just can't. You know, it's just. And besides that, and then a guy bought a couple. And he says, look, we can camp. Nelson has a truck that I can camp out if I want. But I said, just to go and hire a guide and stuff, it's still more money than I can expend. You know, I don't have. How do I want to say this? My retirement as a school teacher is not very much. So if I don't have these fishing rods, I don't get to play. Well, we talked about that actually one time. But my wife goes, I don't want you to go there without me. I'd love to go. You've got two people to play.”

5) Q: You are one of the few makers using micro ferrules. Tell me what these ferrules do to a rod from a rod designing standpoint.

“Oh, they're really important. Number one, they take weight out. Number two, if you take a piece of metal that's two and a half inches long and you have a flexible piece on either end, that's not only adding weight, but it's adding stiffness. But it's also changing the way the bend point is where the end of the bamboo starts. It wants to break a lot easier. And I've got a whole bunch of pieces of where I tried to make it. You know, I'm a tester. I like to push things to the limit and see where it'll go. Well, as soon as you go to a short one, the rod just about bends on a straight, smooth curve instead of starting and stopping on the bend. So get rid of those heavy, straight things and get some flexible ones or close to flexible. So if you look at the curve. The flex curve, it's almost a continuous curve. It doesn't even show flat.”

Why do you think that so few people use these ferrules? Is it more expensive?

“They're the same price. I mean, they still cost 75 bucks a piece from Bailey Wood. But they are very hard to dress really well. It's a lot more tricky to get it really well fitted. You got to spend the time. And that's part.

I think that most of the guys want to push their fast, the rods too fast instead. The other thing is, I have, this is a good hand. And when I was 15, I got shot. So I have a paddle with this thing. So these rods are almost made with one hand. So I have, it takes me a little bit more time. But while I'm doing it, I make sure that I'm going to call it. I enjoy the job. You know? In fact, it's pretty hard for me to sell a fishing rod. There are some rods that I got made. I am just not going to sell that rod. I just love it. I'll make another one.”

“... you know, I'm a tester”

“Well, you know, there's a bunch of other stuff that goes along with those. I put, I made two rods about 25 years ago, blanks. There were seven and a half foot three piece solid rods. One of them I had the ferrules on and I had the big old ferrules and the standard reel seat. Okay, I'll take the other one and put the micro ferrules on and the little tiny guides and see what it did. Because the original rod was seven and a half or six weight. And, and to be honest, it was not a nice taper.

It was, you could cast it very well, but it wasn't a fast line rod, you know, a lot of flicks. So the light one weighed three quarters of an ounce less instead of taking a six weight, it became an absolutely delightful five weight. I mean, it changed it that much. And it was three quarters of an ounce lighter, the same amount of reel seat, the same length rod, the same, same taper on the bamboo. And the bamboo basically weighed the same section to section. So it really changed the feel of the rod. It increased the line speed.

Now, I don't know when you cast, but I'll lay 40 feet of line out on the ground, cast it to the back, cast it to the, to the front. So I have one time, one stroke, ground to ground, and you can measure how fast that line speed is with that distance, you know. That's just a mathematical problem, like in time. And it's surprising how much faster you can cast with that.

Well, here. Here is a rod that I found. I didn't know that I still had it. And this is six foot and it's got too much cork on it, but I made this in 1990. So, this is old. And I found it in a cardboard tube and it was for a three weight. And this, all these dark spots on there were mold.”

“... So, I changed this. I took the guides off of the tip. It was for a three weight and at 30 feet, it had an 18 inch loop and it was, I'm going to call it sloppy. You know what I mean? So, I took those guides all off, put all my little tiny guides on. It became a racehorse five weight. I mean, I couldn't believe what it did. But, you know, I had number two guides right up by the tip top, an oversized tip top, because I thought in those days that I could get more distance. Bigger was better.”

Tom Morgan also said, wrote many times, smaller guides is better. You got less line slopping, hitting the walls of the rod.

“In fact, he (Tom Morgan) asked me, Per and I stopped there just before he passed away. The year before. And he says, “tell me about your tip tops, Leon”. And I said, I want it the lightest I can get. “Oh, you're one of those smart guys”. I just loved it. That was a really a big compliment. Because he was a great, great designer.”

6) Q: What is your favorite fly fishing destination and what makes it so special?

“Wow. That's a good question. I like the Henry's Fork, but there's a lot of good out west streams. So that's, I like fishing in the mountains and I don't really particularly care of a specific location if the fishing is nice. And to me, I don't need a lot of people around. I like to have fish that are pretty good size, 15 inches. I don't like to catch a lot of little guys.

Like this summer, my son took me up into the mountains in the southwest corner of Colorado, a little town of Creede. It's a big park with just a few roads in it. And the creeks were 10 feet wide and knee deep and were catching 15 to 18 inches on dry. That was lovely. And doing it with my family, that's special. Or friends.”

Have you been out in Europe to fish?

“No. I was actually in Ireland and I did actually fish there in Ireland on some of the locks. But that was with a graphite rod because I was traveling. And they wanted me to fish long dibbling. Is that what they call it? Well, they had, no, this was with three or four flies. You cast it downwind and wiggle it up. Well, not my type of fishing, but okay.”

7) Q: What dish or food can we wake you up in the middle of the night?

“None. It's not. No.

In the morning, I like to have just a simple breakfast of eggs and bacon and bread or oatmeal I'm not into, what do you want to call it? Fancy food. However, I really enjoyed eating at Nelson's and some other nice restaurants around. So, you know.”

“Simple breakfasts are fine”

You like your sleep?

“I like my eight hours. And I always have. I like traveling around. Simple breakfasts are fine for me.”

8) Q: How would you like to be remembered?

“As a nice man. Yeah, you know, I don't try and sell myself, if you will, or my business. I don't, you know, if you find out about me by a friend, that's fine. You know, I'm a word of the mouth kind of a guy. For a while, I was doing some stuff online and that situation didn't work out for me. So, I've just kind of been, and they're still buying as fast as I can make them or faster. So, I'm fine.”

The same question I asked Per, is there someone who could be your successor, so to speak?

“Okay, I have answered a lot of questions for Chris Vance. I have answered a lot of questions for Mike Lobel. Mike is kind of a little unknown kind of a guy in West Yellowstone. He's been making rods for about five years. He does a nice job now. He's there. He's been to my house many times. We've talked in the wintertime. He's a fishing guide in the summer. You don't get to see him, okay? But in the wintertime, we talk once every week or two when he's working.

Jack Coyle in Florida, I have answered and talked with him. We've spent a lot of time together down there as well as out west. And then I've had a young man, well, a young man, he's 50. He's in my shop and has built a couple of rods in here. And he knows exactly what to do, although he's an emergency surgeon with three students in college right now. So he's not building, but he's going to be back into it.”

“I have a son in Cadillac, Michigan, who doesn't, well, he's a good fly fisherman, but he likes walleye fishing better. He's got my old walleye boat, but his kids like fly fishing, so we'll see if they step up. Who knows? I have a son in Colorado that is working on his doctorate. I have a daughter that lives here in town, and she has two kids. And they're not, he's into cars and she's into dance, so they're not going to follow up.

So I hope that one of them takes over, but I have not been, I'm going to call it under the basket, if you will. If they have a question, my buddies, no problem. I want them to have a good fishing rod when they're done.”

9) Q: Final question. Where would you fish if it was the last day you would be able to fish?

“Man, that's a tough question, because, you know, at this point, I have caught fish, so many fish everywhere. I don't know. Are you familiar with center pin float reels? Yeah, the traditional English style of fishing. We use that here in Michigan a lot, okay, or in the Midwest. I designed one, the first one made in this country. And I don't know if you've seen anything on them or not. Go ahead and look them up, okay? I sold a hundred of them 20 years ago, all handmade.

And I caught, between my son and I, we probably caught 5,000 steelhead, literally. So, you know, I catch trout every, like this summer on our creek, I got three, one night that were 16, 19, and 23 inches on my three-way, on dry flies. You don't get any better than that, you know? I mean, and there were still fish feeding. I walked away. I said, honey, I don't need any more. I had a glorious night.”

“... And then I have another, a buddy that has a cottage up the creek, and he just bought a rod shop to build rods. However, he hasn't set it up to run it yet. But he will be under my arm.”

Well, I think we covered all the questions.

Is there anything you would like to tell, or let the world know that there's something they should know?

“Well, yeah, if you can get one, better buy one. You know, designing a fishing rod is not as easy as you think. And my nine foot four weight took me seven tries. My eight and a half foot three weight only took me three, but I had an eight foot three weight before that.

You know, and I don't think people realize how much design time, because each one of those rods took me 40 to 60 hours. 60 on a three piece, 40 to 45 on a two piece. That's a hell of a lot of time. And design time.

So, you know, good rods, well designed, to me have to cost, because there's a certain level of experience and expertise, what do you call it? And design time that go into it. And you got to pay for that.”

“... each one of those rods

took me 40 to 60 hours...”

People ask why pay so much money for a bamboo rod? I tell them, you just don't pay for the rod, but also for all the hours and years the maker spent to get at the point where he is now.

“And the good ones are hard to come by. You don't find good fishing rods, really, really high quality casting rods around everywhere. They're not around every corner.”

“And when I was making those old fiberglass rods, I cast every night. And this sounds crazy, but I would take the electric drill, clamp them and spin the tips of them to thin them out with it spinning with sandpaper to create a rod that I like better.

And people don't realize how much you can change a rod by just doing a little bit of tape or change and changing the weight of the guides and the finish and all that other stuff. Like my fishing rods get one coat of varnish that's sanded down flat and then one more coat and that's it. You know, they're very thin varnish on those.”

“And it's hard to make them nice and dead flat that have good edges on the corners. The corners are the critical part. That's where the varnish wants to be the thinnest. And so you don't see very many bumps and wrinkles and stuff on them there. That's the hard part to get a nice finish on them.”

“And if it wasn't for him (Per Brandin), I wouldn't be making a hollow rod today. And of course, of the book by Hoagy. Yeah, between those two.

I called Hoagy a while ago. Well, when did I do that? Probably three years ago. I said, Hoagy, I just got to call you and tell you. I said, you have made a really significant part of my life, although you didn't realize that you did. I said, I just want to say thank you. And we had a really nice visit after that, you know. And I mean, I had seen him at some of the shows and stuff, but it's different with all those people around than it is just being able. One on one. I saw him last March. Yeah, I saw him last March and he didn't look really healthy. He's lived a wonderful life.”

“So, you know, because where I was raised is very rural, or it was our town, town had like even right in downtown on Main Street, there was a Chevy dealership and a Ford dealership. You know, and a little tiny, tiny stores all around. That's all changed and that's all got fancy and big time. But it was country I mean all farms around us.

“... we didn't have much”

And we didn't have much. In fact, when my when I was five years old, my aunt, we were at the local gas station, and Mrs. Julie I was playing with this fishing rod and this is Julian the owner said, Leon, would you like that rod, and it had a, it was a casting rod with a green Hornet Bronson reel, a plastic handle that held the rod and a steel rod junk, you know, and she says would you like it and I said yes, and it said 3.95 on it. I don't have any money... And my aunt was there and Mrs. Julian said to my aunt, you can have it for 2.50 Elizabeth.

So, I got that. And it didn't have line on it so my dad gave me some line. And old daredevil spoon to cast in the yard. I wore the paint off of the outside of that thing sitting in a wagon casting in the front yard, every day after working in the garden. We didn't have much you know, but I used it I just love deficient thoughts.

You know, all those books from the library. You know, Ray Bergman and Ted Trueblood and all of those were so good for me. I mean just as fast as I could get them. I would read them.”

So, well, Leon, thank you very much for your time.

“And Jay, thank you for the opportunity.”

Here are a few pictures of Leon's incredible work.

Thank you Nate Stansfield of Freestone Vintage Tackle for allowing to use these pictures!