Tufts & Batson: Maplewood’s bamboo fly fishing rod makers

Amelia Tufts and Gabe Batson, partners in Tufts & Batson, on a street off Manchester Road in Maplewood, got their manufacturing license a few weeks ago. Amelia Tufts, 31, and Gabe Batson, 42, are known to make some of the best-casting and finely-finished bamboo fly fishing rods in the world.

They began about seven years ago in Sweet Home, Oregon, where they fished the South Santiam River.

“We made rods and cast them, and figured out what was good, and not as good,” Batson said.

They got more serious about it, and eventually became students of a master bamboo rod maker, Darryl Whitehead.

“The fact that he was willing to teach us, we had no other choice but to learn,” Tufts said. “From there we just stuck with it, and have really dedicated our lives to making the best rods in the world.”

Each rod starts with whole columns of bamboo, split and tempered and cut into equilateral triangles, then tapered down to the dimensions that make the rod. Batson has a notebook of columns of numbers, down to the ten-thousandth of an inch, that define the tapers.

“Each one is unique, as an individual design and taper,” Tufts said. “From there we glue our strips together, put on a cork grip, fit our ferules and hand-wrap on guides with silk thread.”

Batson said Amelia has an amazing eye for wrapping the very fine silk thread.

“Many people have said she’s one of the best in the world. The guides look like they’re painted on, but it’s actually spun on individually,” he said.

Each rod takes about two months to make and sells for $1,500. They get orders from a few miles away, to dealers from California to the East Coast. They said their next rods are going to Japan and Norway.

Batson said making the rods is chance to do something that lasts. He said it’s not uncommon for someone to be fishing with a 100-year-old rod.

“It may seem antiquated or a bit of an anachronism, but in fact, these things are performance instruments,” he said. “I liken them to sports cars of the fishing world. That’s why we chose bamboo over any other material.”

Batson said he knows what it’s like to dream about something, and finally be able to make that dream come true. “We get to do that all the time, and we get to shake the hands, and meet all those wonderful people who are involved in the sport, and it’s just wonderful to watch it flourish.”