December 2008

I met Lauro in Sansepolcro, Tuscany (Italy) at the first European Gathering in May this year. Lauro is from Bresil and a young, bamboo rod maker, one of the very few in Brasil. He is 33 and a trained mechanic and fly fishing guide. Lauro likes fishing for trouts in the North of Patagonia, near San Martin de Los Andes, and in Chile. Lauro is a very friendly and open person and also a very inventive rod maker who manages to get things done with what surrounds him. Like his planing form that he built himself from a metal piece in 6 months....Incidentally, many master rodmakers did the same in the very beginning, like Alberto.

I interviewed Lauro while he was making his 11th cane rod, with a taper design by Rolf Baginski and a line #5 rod.

Ciao Lauro! Your name sounds Italian and you also speak Italian. How comes?
Ciao Ale, how are you? Yes I am a descendant of the many European immigrants who arrived in Brasil in the 19th Century. The Rosset Family came from Trichiana, near Belluno (Northern Italy, Friuli Province), and from my mother's side from San Daniele Po, Cremona (Lombardy). My grandparents do still speak Italian at home, precisely venetian dialect actually...

We were very happy to see you in Sansepolcro. How was this experience in your eyes?

Thank you! actually it was really a pleasure for me to be there with a good company such as yours. And imagine, I just arrived there and there it was: the Brasil flag in full pomp! What a honour!

I decided to come after I saw the announcement on the Internet and so I started to get ready. I contacted Moreno Borriero who gave me all details. Well, there were only 15 days left but I decided that the opportunity was to important for being missed. I would have liked to come with my family but my wife had to stay with my daughter Vitoria Isabelle who was only 1 year old. So there I was, 10'000 km from home and in the old Europe in order to learn something more about bamboo rod making...

What did you learn in Sansepolcro? What was the high moment in your opinion?
Sansepolcro has been an important moment in my short rod maker life. Probably not for a navigated rodsmith but for a beginner of the "galopa", as my grandfather calls the plane , such as myself, to be in the middle of so many celebrities of the bamboo rod making stage has given me a better insight, it has raised my attention to detail for my future rods...

I think it was important to see so many excellent bamboo rods from all over Europe. And I particularly remember the lessons which I was given by, Terenzio Zandri, Hoagy Carmichael and Roberto Pragliola.

When did you start making bamboo rods?
My hometown is 950 km from Sao Paulo. I went there for work one day and I thought to be paying a visiti to my friend Gregorio, a rod maker and a tackle shop owner. When I went in to his shop he was working at a cane rod with the plane. So we started talking about what he was doing: making a bamboo fly fishing rod. He told me that it was not difficult, that he had many books on how to make one and he told me he had two finished rods. When I saw the finished rods I immediately fell in love with them. One was a Marta marie and one a Yellow Rose if I am not mistaken. So beautiful! At home I couldn't but think of them and about what Gregorio told me. SO I started looking for books and the tools needed for making one myself. But only after two years of readings and researches and when I found some spare time I finally started making my first bamboo rod...

Tell me about your planing form, you told me you made it by yourself. Wow, my compliments! It must have been difficult, how long did it take and did anybody help you?
The planing form is a special story....Gregorio gave some websites' addresses to look for information and alado Thomas Penrose website. So I went and bought the parts for making one. As soon as I started the problems begun but. By then, gregorio was in the USA and I was alone in my workshop. I drilled the holes and put the bolts but the planing form would not open nor close well. So I borrowed a drill-machine by a friend and looked for a straight table and finally I could make straight holes and the planing form could open and close well this time. For the 60° grove I used a soft file. To make a long story short, 6 months later tha planing form was finished but what a job!

Lauro, we all noticed that you uses another kind of bamboo, can you tell us more?
Yes, here in Brasil we have many problems to get chinese bamboo. It's nearly impossible to get it. So we use a local bamboo which is also very good in term of fibers quality although they are not as large as the tonkin bamboo, actually narrower and more densely concentrated in the external part. This bamboo is called Madake (Phyllostachys Bambusoides). I think it's good to make small, delicate light rods and not so good for longer rods. The plant is quite tall and thick, very resistant and it has a good distance between nodes.

Which tapers do you like?
I think that each situation needs a different rod action, expressely designed fot those particular circumstances. I personally love progressive rods.

How do you temper the bamboo strips, at which temperature?
I carried out some experiments and I feel safer if I quickly flame the cul first and then leave it in the oven at 170°C for 40-45 minutes. Then I leave it to cool down slowly. I then make my own reel seat with brasilian wood and my own ferrules with brass. The agathe of the stripping guides come from near from my home town but I don't have the skills nor the technology to make small guides. Soon I will be trying at making brasilian stripping guides in many colours.

How many bamboo rod makers are there in Brasil?
We are four. Roberto Saldanha in Rio de Janeiro, Gregorio in Sao Paulo, then another rod makers I forgot his name, and then myself here in the South.

Here in Brasil we have many kind of fish for fly fishing, be it in a river, on a lake or at the sea and I fish exclusively with bamboo.

Once a year or more often I go to Patagonia, an incredible place indeed. And I go there also only with bamboo rods because for small or large fish the magic of fishing with a bamboo rod is an unique experience.

Grazie Lauro! Lauro, we really hope to be seeing you and speaking with you in person again!
Ale thanks to you...and let me know how things went at the gathering in France!

From makers of bamboo fly rods Lauro Rosset to the main bamboo rod makers page