A Journey Begins

Tom explains a fly rod Split bamboo rods are the foundation of modern fly fishing heritage dating back to the late 1800s. Many rods are truly works of art; they represent the attainment of near perfection in the embodiment of form and function. There are more bamboo rodmakers today than ever, attesting to bamboo's value and longevity. Illustration by Bryan Christie Design Reel Seat Many varieties of highly figured, beautiful, domestic and exotic woods are available for reel seats. Reel seats are typically available with uplock or downlock screw fittings or slide bands.

Reel Seat Cork Check A highly polished nickel silver cork check provides a beautiful transition between the cork and the reel seat.

Thread Either traditional silk or nylon thread is used to hold the guides onto the rod, or for decorative wraps. The wraps are carefully coated with several coats of varnish.

Agate Stripping Guide A traditional-style real agate stripping guide provides an extremely long-wearing ring guide.

Ferrule A precision nickel silver ferrule joins the tip and butt of the rod together.

Snake Guides Hard chrome-plated thin wire stainless steel snake guides, spaced increasingly far apart starting at the tip top, guide the line.

Varnish As a protective coat, most rods have several coats of a flawless, clear, marine spar varnish -- although some are impregnated with resin or coated with an oil finish.

Rod Shaft Worldwide, bamboo rods are predominantly made from Tonkin bamboo cultivated in the Guangdong Province of China. Most rods are made from six strips glued together. The tip of a rod is approximately the diameter of a wooden match and the butt a little bigger than a wooden pencil.

Quality Bamboo rodmakers spend hours creating a rod. Rodmakers honor the material's natural beauty and its heritage by making sure the rod is straight, the varnish is flawless, the wrapping is precise, the fittings are buffed to a high luster and everything is assembled perfectly.

Tip Top Guiding the line is a hard chrome-plated tip top with a thin wall stainless steel tube and thin wire loop silver soldered in.

Tom had never built a rod in his life when he bought Winston, but he loved them, and even before he taught himself how to make them, he believed that a holy grail existed. Brash and cocky, he'd asked an older builder for a perfect rod, and the guy sneered back, "Sonny, you can't afford a perfect rod." But that implied there was some equation, a formula of method-plus-love that could, one day, result in perfection. He owned three Winston rods when he and a partner decided to buy the entire company in 1973, using the money he'd earned running his parents' motel.

The first Winston rod he ordered changed his life. In the shop, he asks bamboo assistant Zac Sexton to go find it in the storage room. Five minutes in that room would make one of the classic-rod Internet forums melt. Tom waits in his chair, and some time passes. It's hard to say how much. Around Tom, time seems to slow and bend. His focus and calm rub off, a contact high, and a visitor's anxiety and stress recede, then disappear. It's a remarkable thing that doesn't quite seem possible once you've gone away.

Zac comes back a few minutes later with a silver metal tube, which holds a Winston 7 ½-foot, 5-weight bamboo rod, serial No. 9664. Tom was a guide when he bought it, for $150. It was 1967, he thinks. Zac slides the red bag out of the tube and holds it in his hand. The sewn-on label says "San Francisco, California," which is where the company was based until Tom moved it to Montana.

"San Francisco Winston," Zac says. "God, this is like ancient history in angling. I mean, before this, I think they just had clubs when they'd go fishing."

Tom went down to the Ennis post office when the rod arrived. He put line on it and took it out to the stream. The first time he cast it, he knew something was wrong. He sent it back, but it soon returned, and word arrived with it: This rod is fine. He knew that wasn't true. Six or eight inches from the top, there was a kink, where the taper was off, which bent the rod, which kept the fly from landing in the right place. It was a bad rod.

Zac's experience with bamboo rods has been with Tom, or with other makers who share Tom's sensibility, so he's shocked to see what used to pass for excellence. "None of the guides are lined up, either," Zac says. "The tip tops are all off. Son of a bitch, Tom. Did you get your money back?"

"Oh, no," Tom says.

After he bought the company, the mission was simple: Never let anyone be disappointed. He overbuilt every rod, limiting profit margins. Winston became known around the world for craftsmanship, for making slow- to medium-action rods that put accuracy and feel above distance and power. His secret lies in his ability to taper the rod with, as he says, "extraordinary smoothness and the perfect balance between the tip and butt." Taper refers to the thousandths of an inch of width a rod loses for every vertical inch of length. It is the most critical part of rod design, and the most mysterious. Finding the right formula involves, first, math; then, for bamboo, a steady hand shaving thin strips of wood; and, at the end, casting and fishing the rod. Books can teach every part of the process except this one, the ability to understand how numbers translate to tiny differences in loading speed and action, and how that realized equation will move through space. A rod's character is defined by its tip, so there's little margin of error the higher a designer goes. Basically, when there's less and less, what you do with it matters more and more.

Tom built the rods he needed to feel connected to the world around him, and other anglers loved them, too. Winston was about "evolution, not revolution," and the industry began to change. It's known around the mountain towns as the "A River Runs Through It" effect. Fly fishing boomed, and newcomers wanted rods that were easier to cast, more forgiving, stiffer, set up for distance. Those rods dominated the market, and Tom felt squeezed, under financial pressure to change.

Instead, he sold the company, determined to chase his dream of a perfect rod. Tom Morgan Rodsmiths was born. Soon after, on a walk in Washington, D.C., he felt weak and he couldn't figure out why. The last time he fed himself, two years later, it was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, because that's what he'd always packed on fishing trips. He didn't give up, and Gerri didn't run, and his new rods are considered better than the best he ever made for Winston. It shouldn't make sense, that the best rod designer in the world could become paralyzed and make better rods, but somehow it does. It makes perfect sense.

A Beautiful Mind

When Tom is in his shop, which is crowded with machines he invented, he becomes more than a very smart man trapped in a broken body. For a few hours, he fights for the things his disease has taken away, and he is whole.

His company has yet to mail a fiberglass rod; they still don't meet Tom's standards. Four years ago, he announced them and orders poured in. With each passing month, the rod forums buzz: Are they out? Are they out? "It's embarrassing to keep telling them they aren't ready yet," he says.

But he refuses to settle. He throws away a lot of nearly perfect rods, some $4,000 bamboo models ending up as tomato stakes. Except, perhaps, for the vacuum cleaner named after a hooker in Butte -- Dirty Jean -- the trash can might be the most used thing in the shop. A single glue seam is enough. His close friend and well-known guide Brant Oswald describes Tom's obsession as a "quest for him to produce the greatest fly rod that's ever been built."

This obsession colors everything that happens in the shop.

There's a mad-scientist vibe around Tom. He lives on his back, in search of solutions. One morning not long ago, Tom came into his shop, driven in his chair by Gerri, and complained to Zac that he hadn't really slept the night before. Zac asked if something had broken with his respirator. Oh, no, Tom explained. He'd been up all night trying to solve a problem.

Each invention is the only one like it in the world, designed to improve an individual step of the process, moving the rods a little closer toward perfect. There's a machine that rough-cuts big, raw slabs of bamboo. There's a cork jig he designed, across the room from a diamond saw he designed. There are machines free-standing in corners and resting on tables, and when visitors come to the shop, he takes his time explaining the genesis and use of each one. He's particularly proud of his Morgan Hand Mill, so much so that he now sells them to professional and amateur makers. Like each of his inventions, it is at least partially the result of his disease.

Atlantic Salmon Atlantic salmon are found in the Atlantic Ocean and in rivers that flow into the North Atlantic. Illustration by Jack Unruh

The poetry lies in the obscure, technical details. Most bamboo rods, including Tom's, are made of six milled strips, tapered to a specific diameter, with each strip cut on one side to a perfect triangle of 61.5 degrees. For the long history of rod making, this was usually done by hand, with a pattern, as much about feel as science. His disease stopped Tom from holding a strip, much less milling it into a precise angle. So, he thought about the problem and a device took shape. Each piece was described so accurately to a machine shop that it became real. He had it made, then refined, then refined again. Eventually, it worked, and now anyone can set the taper dial and, with a few strokes over a strip of bamboo, cut perfect 61.5 degree angles. The hand mill does what his body won't let him do.

Tarpon Considered among the great saltwater game fish, tarpon can grow up to 8 feet long. Illustration by Jack Unruh

Each invention creates more work for everyone around him. So, after the latest innovation for the hand mill, Gerri put her foot down. There is a scale, with his quest on one side and her sacrifice on the other.

"No more," she said.

"One thing that Gerri thinks that's true," he says, "I have too many ideas."

Individually, these ideas are marvels of engineering, but together, they are an ethos. Tom demands control over his world. If he stays disciplined and accepts no shortcuts, from himself or anyone else around him, he can defeat the thing that has tried to take over his life. He controls his disease, and even his thoughts, never giving in to all that might undo him.