Dan Zimmerman

Hi Harry and All, > > My name is Dan. I live in Berkeley, CA and work at the university as a teacher educator. I was a public school math teacher in Oakland for 17 years before getting hired at Cal. I have been making bamboo rods for a little more than 3 years. I began as a woodcarver, doing my first carving, and getting my first scar, when I was 11. I have done some sculpture and some furniture making. Where I live now, I don't have a shop (no basement, no garage, no spare room) so I work out on a picnic table in the back yard when the weather is good. Fortunately, in CA the weather is good a lot of the time and I have summers off. > > I started by taking Chris Raine's week long rod making class. It was great, I built a rod that I am very proud of, and marked it "No. 1." So I gathered tools and started on my own. I have finished 13 rods to date, most being small stream rods. I have also built 3 Dickerson 8013s for friends, and am working on one for myself, #014. I am also working on a modified Sir D, a 7' 4 wt 4 piece backpack rod. I like to fish the small streams in the high Sierra, including backpacking into the high country where the fish are eager, small, and plentiful. > > I went to the Great Western gathering this fall. I cast a lot of rods and learned a lot from the more experienced people there. I am starting to understand how tapers translate into feel. Thanks, Jerry, for that. I think the next challenge will be trying to design a taper of my own, though at this point it is hard to imagine a better taper (for me) than the Sir D. Thanks to Wayne, and the late Darryl Hayashida for that. > > Thanks to everyone on the list as well. And thanks for the archives, hexrod, rodDNA, and all. And you thought Thanksgiving was last week! > > -DanZ > >