“I’d always wanted to go into the Peace Corps,” he said, “but the Army got me first. Adopting kids is just a chance to return to society some of the opportunities that came along my way.”
A short man with a thick, graying beard, the gold wire-rimmed glasses resting on the bridge of his nose pin him down in your mind as a kind of cross between your college poetry professor and an old-time train conductor. His friends call him gentle and kind, a model craftsman. With his feet propped up on the table in the rod shop, a sandpaper square in one hand, a new piece of cane from Tonkin in the other, he looks a lot like a philosopher, a sage, the wise character in a book someone should write someday.
A Gene Autry tune drones away on the stereo in the dusty rod shop–“yeehaw music,” Glenn says. Later on in the night it might be Buddy Guy or some Mississippi Delta Blues, and even later, Joseph Campbell’s “The Power of Myth” tapes, or a recording of the Dalai Lama’s latest book.
“Anything to keep the hands moving,” says Brackett, who works about 8 months out of the year, along with partner Jeff Walker, filling rod orders for Winston that pile up faster than a spring snow in the Highlands. One of the most respected rod builders in the world, Brackett’s dedication is this: Twin Bridges guides often see him riding his old ten speed home at six or seven in the morning on their way to gas up for the day.
It takes 4,500 steps to wind up with a finished rod. There’s a hundred feet of travel in each section of an 8′ 6 wt.
Two years: That’s how long it takes to build a rod from beginning to end.
“Who’s crazy enough to do that?!” Brackett says. “How much does one of your rods sell for,” I ask, hoping to answer his rhetorical question. Brackett, whose rods are famous for their seamless design, flawless varnishing, perfect node work and classic action, is reluctant to answer:
Boy are you out of date. Mention Walker to the Boo Boys and you’ll get the cold shoulder . That happened three years ago. trying to romanace the cane is like squeezing blood from a rock. If you started off with a synthetic or even glass you’ll never be a cane to the heart fisher which means you got to be over 60 to be a real fisher of trout with cane. Like shooting with a semi auto vs a English sxs shotgun
It’s worth noting that this article was originally published in 1999. The original date of pub is up on the header in tiny font. Perhaps Mr Bellefe missed it.