Build your own
Although Quarles is rehabilitating from multiple back surgeries, he’s still willing to share his passion for fly fishing by helping people craft bamboo fly rods. The time, effort, patience and knowledge it takes to construct one is substantial. Contact him at dan@qvllc.com or 423-987-0507 if you’re seriously interested in the process to create your own.
Homemade fishing poles have existed for thousands of years. Anglers millennia ago carved them out of saplings or reeds with braided flax or linen as line. Ancient fly fishing was practiced in China with bamboo rods and simple cooked rice as bait on a silk line.
Nowadays, homemade poles have fallen on the wayside with the advent of fiberglass, graphite and carbon fiber. The art of a handmade pole isn't gone, though. Some, like Signal Mountain resident Dan Quarles, still practice the creation of these functional pieces of art.
Quarles got into the craft after he'd retired from UTC in 2007. A fly fisherman since childhood, a chance meeting with bamboo rod expert Harry Boyd led to Quarles studying the 70-plus-hour process of making one bamboo fly rod.
"I make rods to benefit people," says Quarles. "I've never sold a rod for personal gain, period."
He's organized a foundation known as the Quarles Trust which accepts donations as payment for the rods and for instruction on how to make them. Aside from the Boy Scouts of America, Trout Unlimited and Project Healing Waters, a rehabilitative service for veterans, Quarles doesn't make rods for people. But he will teach them how to make their own.
Every time he teaches someone how to make a rod, he expects them to make two: one for themselves, and one to donate to charity.
The rods Quarles makes use special bamboo that only grows in China's Gulf of Tonkin. Similar rods can cost anywhere from $1,000 to upwards of $4,000. But making rods was never about the money for Quarles.
"I'm not trying to get anything out of it," he says. "Fly fishing is definitely a labor of love. I figure hey, I can teach some folks something and help donate to worthwhile causes, too."
Quarles doesn't take on many students, though he is open to helping those willing to put in the time and effort required to make the expertly crafted rods. That is, provided they will use it.
"I don't build rods for people to hang up on the wall; I build rods for people to fish," says Quarles. "You can get a lot of inner peace through fly fishing. Just taking a rod, fording through a creek and facing off against a fish that's what I want people to do."