David Bolin

David Bolin here. From Searcy Arkansas. I'm an accountant (CPA) by trade specializing in bank management. I work for a (healthy) bank holding company in north central Arkansas. These have not been the best of times to say the least. But I'm thankful every day to have a job, a family to come home to, a rod shop to unwind in, and a river to wade. I have too many hobbies. Fishing, rod making, fishing, guitar, fishing, fly tying, fishing, blogging, fishing, etc... But who's counting. Now and then someone asks me how I can afford all the hobbies. I just spend all my four wheeler, shotgun, rifle, ammunition, beef jerky, beer, and cigarette money on fishing related stuff at the flea market. Whoever said fly fishing was a rich man's sport has never outfitted an Arkansas deer camp. I've only bought one new fly rod in a store. That was in my Dad's hardware store in 1980. It's a Garcia 2638-A 7wt "dry fly action" with an automatic fly reel. I upgraded to a used Daiwa LM-X F866U several years later for $50 and a Martin hardware store reel. Started buying defective graphite blanks and building my own rods after that. I've got a whole pile of home made graphite rods. Then the bamboo bug struck. A friend of mine (Matt West) fished his homemade bamboo rods on the Little Red. I thought that was very cool. But I didn't jump in the deep end of the pool until I met a bamboo rod making preacher at the Sowbug Roundup. He said I could make my own forms and the guy in the next booth just happened to have Wayne's book. I bought the book and made the forms. Preachers always seem to make things sound much easier than they really are. Making a set of steel forms falls in that category. I haven't forgiven Harry for that yet, but I'm working on it. So anyway, after making the forms, making rods is a walk in the park. The rest of my story is well documented on the blog. David

www.searcysowbug.blogspot.com