Oyster Fine Bamboo Fly Rods
Coming home with an heirloom-quality fly rod is just a perk of Bill Oyster's rod-making classes, which the celebrated craftsman holds 22 weeks a year at his Blue Ridge studio in the North Georgia mountains. The real reward is six days of laser-focused, leave-it-all-behind handiwork, starting with splitting and shaping raw bamboo into a hexagonal rod. The work is so engrossing, says Oyster, students often need to be coaxed to stop for lunch.
Sessions sell out more than a year ahead (though you can join a waitlist and hope for a cancellation) and conveniently end on Saturday, leaving Sunday open for losing oneself on a nearby trout stream.
