Bamboo Tips - Contributors
McKean, Peter

< Home < Contributors < McKean, Peter

My name is Peter McKean, and I have been on the List since about 1996 or so, which is a  few years less than I have been building bamboo rods.  I have always had a bamboo rod - the first rod I ever bought for fly fishing, in 1967, I was given a choice by the dealer of a Hardy Jet glass rod or a Gillies Peter Pan bamboo, with the strong implication that the cane would be the better buy.  I still have the Peter Pan, so I guess he was right.

Have gone through the plastics phase and come out the other side relatively unscathed, and returned to bamboo and making the things when I bought a copy of the Carmichael/Garrison book as a gift for my old father in law.

Between The Book and with the unstinting help of a rod maker on the other side of the continent, Tony Young, I battled on through a few disastrous rods; and about that time I found the List.

I am 67 years old, so while the rods may still be getting better, I am starting to deteriorate a bit.  I live and work as a veterinarian in Launceston, Tasmania, Australia, where we have both a climate suitable for the making of bamboo rods and a great fishing resource, with both river and stillwater fishing mainly for wild browns.

PLEASE NOTE THAT I AM NOT ONE OF THOSE ASIAN RODMAKERS WHO WILL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE FLOODING OF THE US MARKET WITH CHEAP, MANKY RODS , SO IT'S QUITE OK TO BE POLITE TO ME.