Stupid 19-year-old me shut the trunk of my car with the tip of the rod sticking out and destroyed it.
The loss of that rod still haunts me now, some 50 years later.
Oh, bummer!!
That’s like my Dad telling me many years ago about his prized fly rod, given to him by a semi-wealthy Dr. friend of my grandpa’s. (They were all fishing pals.) Dad claimed it was worth almost $200 back then, 40+ years ago. After Dad died, I could NOT find it, tho’ I did end up with some other more medium price gear. Maybe he sold it - I just don’t know... :-(
An old friend of mine was showing off his antique coat rack. (He had no dates or anything, just how good it looked.) It was a coat rack.
“Yeah, a friend dropped by, and his friend owns the antique store in town. I had just moved in, and had a bunch of bamboo fishing rods jammed in the corner just making a mess. Most were my grandfathers. So anyways, he said if I wanted to get rid of them come down to his store and we could make a trade. So I got a nice coat rack and he got a pile of old fishing rods!”
I’m guessing the rods must have been from the late 1800’s to perhaps early 1900’s. But my friend was born in the late 20’s, so they could have been even older.
I cringed, but just said what a nice coat rack it was. And he was happy so that’s fine.
Sorry for your loss. My late FIL taught me how to fly fish and then taught me how to build my own rods and how to make repairs in the field.
His philosophy was that if your going to fly fish, your going to break your rod, so best learn how to build/repair them.
I taught my dad those same tricks. He was confined to a wheel chair but he loved to fish. Problem was packing his gear to his fishing spots and inevitably he would get his rod tangled up in his wheels.
After the lessons, he saved a ton of money not buying several new rods every year.
Fish on dad!