Fly Fish Craft Japan

Kakuhiro Nonaka has more than 30 year's career as a professional fly rodmaker. Born in the old city of Kyoto, he was a renegade and wanted to become a rock musician. After years of struggle he gave it up, and found a job at Kineya, an antique camera and fly fishing shop. His experience at Kineya taught him valuable lessons; as the sales clerk, and then as the repair technician, he saw, cast, and in some cases took apart numerous classic rods made in USA. It was then that he developed a understanding of the requirements of quality fly rods. That he became an individual rodmaker was a matter of course.

Kakuhiro is one of the few rodbuilders who utilizes hachiku bamboo harvested in Japan. Originally from China, hachiku (Phyllostachys nigra var. henonis) is a common species of bamboo but the quality material comes only from reliable sources. He has a neighbor that deals in bamboo material, and his main clients are high-end craftspeople in Kyoto but he selects hachiku material also for Kakuhiro, whose standards are more rigorous than other artisans. Because the hachiku fiber is delicate and the culm splits very fine, it has long been used for umbrella bones, lantern frame and tea whisks. However the stiffness of fiber is higher than that of madake bamboo, giving the material a unique properties, different from tonkin cane or madake bamboo.