About 3 years ago, my Granny Sue gave me my Pa Virgil’s fly rod and reel, which had been hanging from the ceiling of her bedroom for who knows how long. I don’t remember him fly fishing specifically, but apparently he did.

My maternal grandfather, Virgil B. McFarland, Sr, was killed in a car accident in 1989, when I’ve since learned he was only 48. I remembered him being old, but I was only 6 years old then. I don’t have lots of specific memories of him, but the ones I do have are quite clear. Most are of fishing, watching him cleaning fish to eat, and him laughing while the family was together cooking outside in the backyard. It was at least 30 years ago now, but I still get weepy about it: thinking of how the past was enjoyed without the knowledge that it wouldn’t last forever, and the sadness that can come with thinking about what was taken away, and the people who it was taken away from.

THIS, however, is not a sad story.

I remember my Paw Virgil as a very practical man, not given to ornamentation beyond what was functional. He wouldn’t be interested in overt decoration for decoration’s sake, and I think he wouldn’t have been wild about us keeping his fly rod around if it wasn’t useful. So- I set out to make it useful again.

Labels and remnants of model numbers revealed that the rod and reel were manufactured in 1972 and 1947, respectively, and I’d be willing to bet he bought both of them used. While I know the make and model numbers of both, that information matters less to me than that they both belonged to my Pa Virgil.

Specific advice for restoration was provided by a custom fly rod maker named Chris Lantzy (check him out at http://www.flyrods.weebly.com) who responded to emails with very detailed and specific instructions on how to do the restoration work myself. He’ll likely never really understand what he did in helping me with this project. For this writing, I’ll omit the technical step-by-step details of the re-finishing process, only to say that it wasn’t hard, it was just tedious.

The only intentional cosmetic flourishes I gave the rod were these: I made the thread wraps in a color that would look familiar to anyone who knew him and his love for a bright blue truck, and I painted his initials on the rod blank to match the “VM” that he painted on the body of the reel. There is the added touch that the line at the end of his initials can be used as a measurement of exactly 14” from the butt of the rod. That’s the minimum keeping-sized length of the largemouth bass he fished for in Texas. I think he’d have appreciated that.

What I have now is still very much my grandfather’s 1972 bargain-model fly rod, just re-finished, restored and protected for the future. At first look, the rod is a fairly plain-looking tobacco brown in color, but it also glows a deep red in the sunlight, as if it needs to be outdoors to reveal its true nature, to turn its utility to art, its functionality to grace.

When I pick it up, I hold the exact same grip my grandfather did, and it’s not hard to hold his hand there too. It feels lively in the hand when it’s being cast, like it’s been waiting to do this one thing, like the best of dogs, smiling and begging to be run. While it has faults and limitations, it’s going to do a fine job of throwing a line, of bringing fish to hand. That’s the only step remaining in this process, which I plan to continue completing into the future, and I think he’d approve.

Very Very Nice.

Awesome! Love the blue wraps, your Grandpa would be proud!