Most people know Cameron Mortenson as the helmsman of The
Fiberglass Manifesto. Through it Cameron
shares with the world all that is stylish and artistic in the world of fly
fishing. He has taken fiberglass rods
and made them cool again, or rather, shown us that we were the ones that had
strayed, forgotten our roots and disrespected our elders. Cameron seems to have a knack for finding
obscure equipment, and builders and manufacturers who are making high-quality gear, and
shining a light on them. Whether or not you are a
“Glass Geek”, your world as a fly angler is that much better for
stopping by his site.
I have a personal connection with Mr. Mortenson- he
discovered this blog within two weeks of my starting it, contacted me
personally, gave me much needed props, and badly needed advice. We’re good friends, we talk every week, and
he mocks and goads me when I’m screwing up or not posting enough. I say all this as a public thank you.
It was an obvious choice, therefore, to
interview the Guru of Glass. Without further fanfare, I give you Cameron Mortenson, the
King of The Fiberglass Manifesto.
We're giving away one of the new Comrade motif t-shirts and two TFM decals, so be sure and enter at the bottom of this post.
FR: Your Website
seems to be growing a lot with the events you attend and the sponsors you’ve
gotten- what do you see as TFM’s role in fly fishing?
CM: From the start I didn’t have any
expectation that my blog would be any different than any other blogs out there,
I didn’t have a burning desire to follow a lot of readership to my
website. My focus from the beginning was to highlight the work that was being
done by the small shops, companies that still
offered glass. About two years into it I decided that I really needed to work hard to network with all the companies. If I heard a rumor I followed up on it, I
really try to do my homework. If you
back up six years, seven years, back when I started fishing glass again, I was
looking for information- I wanted information on the $20 Eagle Claw that I had, information about the other fly rods that I was picking
up. The Fiberglass Fly Rodders forum was huge for that, it was really the
learning ground, the foundation for everything I’ve been able to
do with TFM. As far as a role, I would say that would be to
provide a resource. Websites, awareness and putting out new builds and highlighting the work that rod
shops do. Some of the big
companies have fiberglass rods, (but) they have their own marketing, their own advertisements. There’s a lot of these small rod shops
that are doing some really phenomenal things within fiberglass. TFM is a good
resource for them to have their builds shown off. It’s interesting to be able to help them
out.
FR: Nice, so any particular achievements that you’re proud
of through the blog?
CM: When I talk to
builders who did not think that they could build rods full time or even make
enough money for them to make it worthwhile for them to do. Several builders through the exposure on TFM ,
through the exposure on Fiberglass Fly Rodders, and then just from getting
their rods into peoples hands, they’ve gone from just a few orders, to dozens
of orders the next year. I know one
builder that’s built almost a hundred rods in the last year, almost all of
those have been fiberglass. Typically a
rod will go up for sale on his website and it’ll sell as quickly as 15 minutes
later. Things don’t sit around long and
sometimes these guys will buy one rod from a maker and call up and say “I want
the two weight that you offer and I also want this this and this..." they’re
ordering multiple rods. It’s really neat
to funnel people to the correct builder that is the best match to their budget,
to what they’re looking for.
FR: So you’ll actually help people find a rod builder?
CM: Oh yeah, all the time.
I ask people what’s your budget, because not everyone
drops $600 on a fly rod and you don’t need to.
If somebody says what their budget is, what line weight they’re looking
for, what length, and how soon they need
a fly rod then I can break it down for them,
say "these are the options".
FR: So you’re kind of like a glass fly rod match
maker, as a small part of your…
(laughter)
CM: ...a small part of that. It’s really really fun to converse
with somebody and several months later get an email back and they’re so stoked
about the fly rod and it’s exceeded their expectations.
FR: What do you think is the appeal of fiberglass?
CM: In the fly rod industry,
the graphite side of it, everything has gotten faster and faster every year, it’s
almost like rod companies are one-upping each other on fast action rods. Truth be told, it’s very seldom that you need
to air out an entire fly line. Typically most people fish within thirty to
fifty feet. If you can lay down thirty feet of line you can catch fish- you
don’t necessarily need a fast-action rod to do that. Fast action rods are great for casting long
distances, tight loops etc., but you can achieve those same distances with
fiberglass. In my opinion they’re a heck
of a lot more fun to fish because you can feel a big fish head shake all the
way down into the cork, you have the whole length of the rod that you can use
for leverage, because a medium action rod, you’re going to get that full rod
bend, it’s not going to just be the tip section. You’ve got tippet protection if you fish
light tippets. Our tailwater fisheries ,
anywhere you fish midges, tricos—it’s seldom that I break fish off because of
tippet. You can feel the rod load when
you cast which is good, fiberglass is great in close for roll casting, you can
pick streams apart with a glass rod.
FR: Sweet. Is Glass a
fad or is it here to stay?
CM: Oh I think it’s definitely seen a resurgence over the
last few years, but I think that’s the flip side of everything going
faster and faster. I think that as graphite comes more to the
center again, which it looks like it’s doing, you’ll probably see fiberglass
and graphite meet again. I think
fiberglass will always be a niche, it will never have the marketplace that
it had before, but it really opens the door for a lot of small shop artisans to
do really neat things, and fiberglass is becoming special like bamboo. In some
ways it’s more obtainable because a very high-end glass rod
is going to run you $600.
FR: Do you think that
TFM has played a role in that resurgence?
CM: I believe it has,
I mean I don’t want to get too cocky and say "I’m the reason that glass
is back." The Fiberglass Fly Rodders
forum when I started had less than 300 members, and now we’ve got to be
approaching 2000 members. That’s not
from TFM, it may be a small part, but I thinks it’s every angler who fishes
glass, showing it to their friends …
FR: I think you’ve put a cool face on it though, with the
shirts and the….
CM: I really think
it’s the builders. I could beat this
drum about fiberglass fly rods but if the rods didn’t cast well, if the rods
didn’t look nice, if they didn’t fit applications where people fish, if it
didn’t make sense, if they were too expensive, if they don’t sell, I mean I
could write ten blog post a day and it would just go nowhere.
FR: You crank out a lot of blog posts every week, how do you
balance all that?
CM: I always try to
put content together that is interesting, I wish I had more time do more
legitimate writing on TFM, but with a full work schedule and a family it doesn’t
always allow me to do that. I know
people enjoy having a daily read whether it’s a new rod build, a new video or
tip them off to a new reel maker, whatever it is, it’s neat to be able to put
that content out there.
FR: TFM seems to be
driven by a strong sense of style from the retro designs to the new Comrade
motif—where does that come from?
CM: You know, as far as the T-shirts, when ….
FR: Well it’s more than the T-shirts—I guess I should include
the types of reels, the beautiful rods, your whole site seems to revolve around
a whole philosophy on style.

CM: Well, I’m a real
visual person. I did a lot of art
growing up, I took college level classes when I was in fifth and sixth grade, had
private art instruction and it’s…. (long pause) I no longer have time to paint
and draw, but when I started fly fishing and fly tying-- there’s a very
artistic side to fly fishing, which is probably why I’m so drawn to a lot of
the work that the rod makers do, the fly tyers- I’m blown away by fly tyers,
and even reel makers. Every aspect of
fly fishing has a sense of style to it.
So I’m drawn to things visually and those are the things I end up promoting
on TFM because I figure if I get a kick out of it . . . a lot of times those things
also function very well. Form and
function, being beautiful together is something quite interesting. Putting pretty pictures on TFM makes the website
look better too. I try to be really
picky about the images that I put on TFM. It’s not uncommon for me to shoot on a
week-long trip 2000, 2500 images, but I maybe only use 150 of them. If we were still shooting film, we would be very poor. If you shoot film I
think you spend a lot more time at composition, you were making that click
count, now you can blow through a dozen clicks from a few different angles and
pick one of them out that works.
FR: You’ve been on
several cool looking fishing trips over the last year, so what was your
favorite?
CM: The Michigan trip
last summer was just outrageously cool.
It’s not common for me to get days in a row to fish. That only happens maybe once or twice a year.
I criss-crossed Michigan for the next
five days meeting up with a lot of people I’d met online. I started out with one of the guys from
Fiberglass Fly Rodders, and fished around Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti and caught
carp on mulberries, and then drove directly up and had dinner with Koz and hit
a small stream with him, caught brook trout.
Twenty minutes later I jumped in the boat with you and Philly and we did
the night float swinging mice patterns until 5 AM and was in and out of
consciousness on that….
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We drowned him and deprived him of sleep, but he moused one out |
FR: (laughing)
CM: …I went to Adam’s
house, caught a couple hours of sleep, got up, ate breakfast and then we hit
the Jordan River for brook trout, and then packed up the car, drove up to the
UP and spent the rest of the weekend at Frenchman’s Pond which was nothing
short of a spiritual experience. I
caught a brook trout there. Then I came
back down and fished Bay View, caught smallies in the rocks at Bay View, then
the final day flew over to Beaver Island and caught fish with Steve from
Indigo Guide Service and caught unbelievable smallmouth on the flats. (the) Michigan trip, I had no expectations if
I was going to catch a carp, I didn’t know if I was going to catch a fish at
night, didn’t know if I was going to catch a smallmouth, didn’t know if I was
going to catch a brook trout at Frenchman’s pond. All
the pieces came together, and I caught some really special fish in some really
special places, with some really special friends that I’ve made through the
course of writing TFM.
FR: Any situations
you can think of where you couldn’t or shouldn’t use glass?
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handled by glass |
CM: I’ve flushed all my graphite except one spey
rod, out of the 30 or 40 or 50 fly rods that I have. Those aren’t all my fly rods- a lot of them
are long-term demos, rods that kind of rotate in and rotate back to the
different rod companies and builders. I
know guys that are gonna do shark trips and bluefish and cobia all on
glass. Truth be told a lot of the
saltwater rods have glass in them, they’re either a half or third fiberglass
anyway. Once you get into your
conventional tackle, your tuna rods and stuff like that, that’s all glass. Ted Williams and all those boys down in Key
West forty years ago, they weren’t fishing graphite to tarpon, they were
fishing glass- it gets it done. It would
probably look pretty funny if I had a graphite rod in my hand….
(laughter)
FR: (laughing) after all the T-shirts….
CM: after
everything..
FR- Cameron- thanks for doing the interview, appreciate
it. I’ll wear my new shirt with pride.
Okay, that wraps up our interview. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed grilling him. Keep up with all that is cool at Cameron's site http://thefiberglassmanifesto.blogspot.com/
Now here's your chance to win one of his newly designed Comrade motif shirts and two decals. Enter. Win. Do it now. Contest ends Wednesday March 21 at midnight, with the winner announced the next day.