Charles Ritz fly rod

Question
I was given a fly rod last year by a since deceased friend. I thought I'd dust in off and gear up for some small stream action this summer. My fly shop has various opinions including 'a piece of junk','it's two separate rods',etc. The shorter butt section is fiberglass with "Designed for Lee Wulff by Charles Ritz especially made for Norm Thompon". The other lines are hard to make out but I think I see Ritz Variefour TS/HT. The tip is bamboo for a total length of about 6'2". It's it great shape with just a little TLC I think it's fishable. Any insight's? Thanks for your time.

Answer
Hi John,

Sounds interesting.  Definitely not a piece of junk.  The early Garcia-Conolon fiberglass rods included rods specifically designed by Lee Wulff and by Charles Ritz.  Ritz did also design a rod for Lee Wulff marketed by Garcia.  Norm Thompson Outfitters was a catalog retailer in Oregon..may still be?

It sounds like you have a rod that was designed by Charles Ritz for Lee Wulff and made to be sold by Norm Thompson Outfitters.  Lee Wulff was a world famous fly fisher, lure designer, rod designer, and did as much as anyone to popularize fly fishing.  Charles Ritz was a world famous fly fisher, rod designer, lure designer, businessman and contemporary of Wulff.  Ritz is said to have invented the parabolic fly rod.  Both were associated with Garcia-Conolon during the early days of fiberglass rod development and production as two experts in the field of fly fishing.  Both of their names on a rod would make it easy to sell back then.

It is interesting that the butt is glass and the tip is bamboo.  I have no idea if this is original or not...as an option or as the way the rod was made to begin with.  It is not unheard of to have mixed materials in a rod if that achieves a performance purpose not possible otherwise. I have limited reference material on the Garcia rods and practically no value data in my books.

I would suggest you do some digging into the early days of Garcia-Conolon and NARMCO and fiberglass rods.  Also, there are some online discussion forums dedicated to fiberglass fly rods (see www.fiberglassflyrodders.com for one) and you might post some questions on those sites asking about this rod.

Both Wulff and Ritz liked short rods and did a lot to popularize the use of short rods.  This may be the real thing or it might be two pieces of old rods that someone has stuck together.  It could be an early experiment using fiberglass. It would be very interesting to know the outcome.

Sorry to not be of more help.

Joe