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I''ve been ff'ing for 30+ years, but never fished cane. After looking for the past several months, I found a 7' 4wt with a Dickerson 7012
taper, made by Michigan rod builder Lew Parks. The rod looked excellent online, but was gorgeous in person! The rod has two perfectly
bookmatched tip, and the finish is excellent. In fact, it puts some of my Sage rods to shame! The rod weighs 3.3 oz on my digital scale:
2.8 oz for the butt section, and .5oz for each tip. I couldn't wait to try it, and was quickly on a stream one mile from my house. It casts
wonderfully, and has a faster action than some of the other cane rods I've wiggled. It bends well into the butt section while casting, and
casts were both accurate and effortless. No wierd behavior or learning curve here. I managed to hook into a few bluegill and pumpkinseed, and
they were a blast. I have a Sage ZXL 7'6" 4wt, and the Parks cane rod casts just as far, but is smoother and the line lands more softly with the Parks.
The Parks is also deadly accurate, and beats the ZXL in that department as well. The butt section is hollow built. The handle is made with the best
cork I've seen to date (including my Z-Axis and ZXL rods), perhaps due to the 24 1/4" thick rings that Lew uses to assemble the grip. The grip fits
my hand perfectly, and the reel stays locked into place without ever needing to tighten the slip ring.


I managed to slip away from a birthday party this afternoon, and ran over to the nearby lake. A few chunky bluegill were fun, but then I hooked
into something that bent the rod enough to cause concern to a bamboo newcomer! The line was peeling off the reel and heading toward the middle
of the lake. I had a #12 Green Weenie tied on, and should have re-tied the knot after the bluegill chewed up the 5x tippet. After one of the most
exciting fights I've ever had with a fish, he broke my off at the knot. That was fine, and that thrill alone was worth the price of admission!

I am not affiliated with Lew Parks in any way, shape, or form, but you can see his rods on ebay regularly. The are miles ahead of anything I've
looked at in the same price range, and compare favorably to new and used rods I've been eyeballing at the local Orvis dealer. Actually, that
dealer has about 20 new and used cane rods on display at any one time, and I was most impressed by a Lew Parks that I had seen there
a few months ago. I hadn't heard of Lew Parks prior to that day, but I know him now!

I thought an Orvis BBS III would work nice (and I happened to have a few), along with Scientific Anglers Mastery Trout WF. I couldn't ask
for better performance, but I to have the same line in DT. The only problem with this rod is that I can't stop casting it! It makes me want to
sell my graphite, and go completely cane....it's just that great. I sure would love to know what snapped my fly off this afternoon. The bank I
was fishing has trout, LMB, bluegill, and crappie. The crappie can get pretty big in that lake, but they usually don't make a run like that.