Darrol Groth

Hi Ralph,
I've been meaning to send this to you
for posterity. Hope this finds you and yours well and
happy. Since I'm late with it I thought not to break the
thread on the List.

In 1996 I sobered up
subsequent to having sold my soul for a while in order to
move up the corporate ladder in the mental health care
profession. It's very ironic that such as the
"healing arts" can be so cutthroat. I had
long since given up on fly fishing and fly tying, having
grown up in Wyoming/Colorado and having spent the last part
of my formative years fishing salt water in Pomano Bch,
Fla. Being drafted in the Vietnam era I wound up in
North Texas after I got out of the service and went to work
here as a children's therapist. My brief
stint in Administration taught me that money was not so
important and that I was not mean enough. So I went
back into the "trenches" to work with kids.
No longer drinking to occupy my time I
decided to get back into fly fishing. I dusted off my
fly tying kit which still contained hooks at .75C a box and
a then legal Condor feather. I also began to
collect fly fishing books. Being addictive, soon
"How To" books weren't good enough - I liked
the Lore and Literature as well. Soon just books were
not good enough - they had to be First Editions, the
signed, First Editions.
My quest for books led me to the
Rodmaker's List and Bill Fink when he was selling his
library in 2002. I began to correspond with Bill and
amazingly (to me) he took a shine to me. Of course we
didn't communicate long before the talk turned to bamboo
rods. I never thought I could afford a decent rod and
knew I was incapable of making one as I had screwed
up every home repair and craft project I had ever
attempted. Before long I intimated I might want a rod
and again amazingly, Bill told me to name my own price for
one of his! Later when It came, a nice little
nodeless, Penta 3 wt. with Garrison appointments, I had
never seen anything so perfect and beautiful. I was
hooked.
Bill began to encourage me to make
my own but that was unthinkable. I got some books,
most notably George Barnes' (which I called Gizmos
Galore) and knew it was impossible. In a few
weeks, I had just returned from fishing and there was a long
cylindrical package waiting. Inside were some horribly
dog legged strips and instructions for a 2 Strip
Quad with the order: Do it!
That first one took 80 hours but it
wasn't half bad. Except nobody had told me that
Bill sort of eschewed cosmetics, so it was a long time
before I showed it off at a Gathering - but I was really
hooked then and on my way. Not long after, Mark showed
me the Nunley method for splitting and I made my first Hex
under Tony's watchful eye. This rod is a Garrison
209 with the G-man's own silk (compliments of
Hoagy) on it and danged near perfect. Later I
attended Catskill where Bill, George and Tom waggled it
and pronounced, "Yup, that's a 209." It
was also signed by Hoagy. That was 35 rods ago.
It's hard to explain but making
rods and getting to know all the wonderful people associated
with bamboo has not only given me my life back but also made
that life so much more worth living. That's why I
will always do everything I can to help some one who is
starting out and I will never be able to repay 1/10th of
what it has given me. I know many feel that way and I
just feel so comfortable with every one. Like feeling
like a zebra in a herd of horses for all those years and
finally finding a herd of zebras to belong to.

Darrol Groth
Vernon, Texas
Just give me one good
reason-'n I won't ask you any more.
Just give me one extra
season- so I can figure
out the other four.

- John Prine