djo's nice item on Doug Buskirk in The Missoulian puts the following thought into my head: is Missoula about to be a new focal point for makers?
I have been long aware that some makers move their shops to 'better' climates in order to optimize the curing of cane. For instance going from SCal to the AZ foothills, or from the PNW to Idaho. The thinking is that drier (and maybe higher altitudes) make for better cane behavior. Sometimes I suspicion that once these sere, dried out items are constructed and make their way to my humid SE PA abode, the N/S ferrules get tighter. Haven't quite needed a truss to avoid herniation - yet.
Anyhow, who springs to mind besides Buskirk is Marty Karstetter and another 1 or 2 whose work I have seen in The River Otter and the Grizzly Hackle. One of these uses a cool bear paw stamp on the reel seat cap. And if John Zimny moves from DE to Hamilton once his wife retires, that adds to the cluster of makers.
Now Missoula, to me, has several distinctions: an amazingly high ratio of libation providers to pop (at least before the boom of the last years); a university campus where one can ffish wild trouts; great steaks, even for MT, and a high ratio of fly shops (maybe Bend has a higher shop/pop ratio).
So now, are they headed to a high caner/pop ratio? Can anyone recall the names of these other makers?
tl
les
I have been long aware that some makers move their shops to 'better' climates in order to optimize the curing of cane. For instance going from SCal to the AZ foothills, or from the PNW to Idaho. The thinking is that drier (and maybe higher altitudes) make for better cane behavior. Sometimes I suspicion that once these sere, dried out items are constructed and make their way to my humid SE PA abode, the N/S ferrules get tighter. Haven't quite needed a truss to avoid herniation - yet.
Anyhow, who springs to mind besides Buskirk is Marty Karstetter and another 1 or 2 whose work I have seen in The River Otter and the Grizzly Hackle. One of these uses a cool bear paw stamp on the reel seat cap. And if John Zimny moves from DE to Hamilton once his wife retires, that adds to the cluster of makers.
Now Missoula, to me, has several distinctions: an amazingly high ratio of libation providers to pop (at least before the boom of the last years); a university campus where one can ffish wild trouts; great steaks, even for MT, and a high ratio of fly shops (maybe Bend has a higher shop/pop ratio).
So now, are they headed to a high caner/pop ratio? Can anyone recall the names of these other makers?
tl
les
Andy
!!!!!!
