Bamboo spey rods have taken a bit of a revival of late, and as such, many Americans are buying up Sharpes spliced spey rods for use in their salmon and steelhead fishing. Although the long 15' and 16' rods are some beasts and the modern fisherman would struggle to use one of these all day, the 12' and 13' rods are entirely useable and their prices are now steadily rising.
Though my contemporary bamboo speys are quite different to the speys of 7 decades ago or more, they still raise an eyebrow or two, and casting them for 3 days is quite a workout. This June I went to the Wye for a day on a very good salmon beat at Bigswear and managed a silver bar from that iconic river, made ever so more satisfying to have landed it on cane and a classic styled reel.
My aim is to achieve a similar feat with this greenheart and hopefully a Malloch reel which was probably used on rods like these.
It seems the older I get the more "traditional" I get, and more fuddy-duddy!
So many very fishable salmon fly rods have been adapted, many butchered, into carp type rods. I don't own any greenheart Spey rods but I do cherish a Sharpes spliced joint split cane blank that I rebuilt into a short 'switch' style double hander. It always raises a few eyebrows with other anglers but for a few hours of grilse fishing in the right conditions it's a unrushed delight to fish. It casts admirably with a modern Barrio floating switch line and poly tips and is a joy to land fish with.
The link to salmon junkies is a great read