Backcountry Notes

This 19th-century print shows anglers using long cane poles

CANE POLES . . .

 

When I was four, I decided it was time I went fishing.  In those days my maternal grandparents had a cabin in the woods in central North Carolina; below the cabin, deeper in the woods, they had built a one-acre pond which was stocked with bass, bluegills, and catfish.  One summer day, after about three hundred requests, "Pop" Slack gave in and outfitted me with a cane pole and a bucket with some minnows seined from the stream below the pond.

After showing me how to bait the hook and how to swing the line in order to place the bobber, sinker and hook apparatus into the water, he said, pointing at the bobber, "When that goes down, you pull up."  Then he went back up the hill to the cabin where he was preparing to barbecue supper.

I waited what seemed like a very long time - - three or four minutes, probably - - and the bobber disappeared below the surface.  I lifted the cane pole and pulled out a very large fish . . . a half-pound bass, actually, but it was a personal best at the time.  Having had no instruction on removing the fish from the hook, I held the cane pole in front of me and high up, and marched up the hill to the cabin with my prize.

In the late '50s, my grandparents Slack bought a retirement farm in Whynot, NC, and author with catch, summer 1960dammed up a stream to form a pond of about 5 acres.  They had it stocked with bass and bluegills; the stream provided populations of shellcracker sunfish, longear sunfish, and minnows.  The lake was very fertile and by 1960, during our summers on the farm, my siblings and I were harvesting far more fish than my grandmother Lib Slack wanted, although she kindly kept that information to herself. 

Then, and throughout my childhood, the cane pole was an easy method of fishing.  Also, in many instances, very effective.  I still have every cane pole I ever bought, and now and then I take them out for some cane-pole fishing.

The cane pole is the simplest of fishing instruments - - basically, a long stick.  When I was young, cane poles were cut from native cane; these days, the ones I see in the store are from China.  Cane poles start at about 8 feet long and run up to 16 feet, sometimes a bit more.  The ones I bought at the hardware store had been cut into three pieces and outfitted with brass or steel ferrules so that they could be broken down for transportation and storage.

Our cane poles were rigged with a bit of Dacron line, a cork bobber, a hook and a weight.  When the line got too old, a replacement rig could be had at the Seagrove Hardware for, I think, ten cents.  The rig came on a piece of cardboard, with the bobber, hook, and sinker already in place.  To outfit the cane pole, you tied the line on at the tip so that you had free line the length of the pole plus 18 inches to work with; the remaining line was spiral-wound down the pole, being hitched off at intervals, just in case you hooked The Big One and the tip broke.

Actually catching The Big One, or even a medium-sized one, with a cane pole was a rare event, but not unheard of.  At one point during the 1960s, the North Carolina record largemouth bass, a 14-pounder, was taken by a cane-pole fisherman.

Long rods made of lancewood, cane, willow, cedar, and other woods were traditional fishing tools in the Colonial and early American Backcountry. These rods were used both for fishing with bait and for fly-fishing. The use of cane poles for bait fishing survives into modern times; during the 19th century, fly-fishing was transformed by the development of wood and then split-cane rods with provisions for a "wind," or reel, and line guides.  See Encyclopedia Americana (1919 ed.), Fishing Tackle. 

This note is from my friend Tom in central Virginia: In my part of the country, my Grandfather looked for "volunteer" thickets of young pines, which grew too thick to walk among them, sometimes even for the beagle hound. He would cut and hang them by the tip to dry, the pines not over an inch to inch and a quarter at the stump but always 12 to 15 feet long. He skinned them and kept them in a warm place for "next year." The tips of these old Virginia pines were as thin as small wooden match sticks, but he tied white, braided line about 4 feet back from the tip and then every foot around the tip up to the smallest diameter. I have seen him catch everything that swam east of the trout zone on those poles. TOM

My cane-pole rigs no longer use the traditional braided line; I have recycled lengths of used fly-line for the main body of the rig and use nylon leader sections for the ends. If I ever do hook The Big One with a cane pole, I won't be worrying about whether the braided line has a rotted spot.

* * *

Two cane poles.  On the right, three-piece, 11-1/2 foot cane pole, made with flamed cane and brass ferrules; circa 1960.  On the left, three-piece, 13-1/2 foot cane pole, made with flamed cane and screw-together joints; late 20th century. After the cane has dried, it is burned or "flamed" to strengthen it.  Since WWII it has been customary to flame the cane in a spiral pattern, as shown.

In order to make a proper cane pole, the cane should be hung by the tip and dried for several months before being flamed, cut, and outfitted.  Most cane poles available now are not made in this way, but are dried by stacking tip-up to form a tent-like mass; they are not flamed but are given a dark varnish coating instead.  These poles will have a tendency to warp and to develop cracks and splits.

The picture below shows the butt, joint, and tip of the illustrated cane poles.