Tom Rowland Podcast episode 1033 is a conversation with Bill Oyster of Oyster Bamboo Fly Rods in Blue Ridge, Georgia, and Capt. Rhett Morris about building fly rods by hand from bamboo. Bill explains how a four-year waiting list and 3 AM work nights pushed him to stop selling only rods and start teaching people to build their own, a change that now fills 24 classes a year. Rhett shares the permit he caught on a bamboo rod he built himself.
You can watch the full conversation in the player above, or press play in the player at the top of this page to listen.
Bill Oyster is the founder of Oyster Bamboo Fly Rods in Blue Ridge, Georgia. Before building rods, he was a professional road cyclist, an Olympic trialist, and the number one rider in the SEC. A crash in 1996 ended his racing career, and a 1970s book by Everett Garrison and Hoagy Carmichael inspired him to try building his own bamboo rod. His custom rods are known for hand-engraved hardware and high-end detail.
Bill says a few thousand dollars is a typical starting point for a bamboo fly rod from an established maker, with $2,500 to $3,500 as a baseline benchmark. The price reflects a tremendous amount of time, materials, and effort. Bill says he could never build a $500 bamboo rod because the hours simply do not allow it. His most elaborate custom rods can take weeks of engraving on the hardware alone.
Bill was working seven days a week until 3 AM and had a four-year waiting list, yet when he did the math he realized he would never earn a middle-class income building rods alone. His first student came in 2000, after a man's wife called and would not take no for an answer. Small after-work classes followed, and Bill kept adjusting the format based on what his students wanted until it became the structured class he runs today.
Oyster Bamboo runs 24 classes a year with 10 students each, which is 240 students a year. When this episode was recorded, classes were full for the current year and the next, and Bill expected to publish dates for 2028 in October. A separate wait list lets people slip into earlier classes when spots open. Details are at oysterbamboo.com, and Cassie handles scheduling.
Yes. Bill noticed that students who went home with a rod that was nearly finished often never completed it. He built his class so every student leaves with a finished, fishable rod and nothing left to figure out on their own. The class runs about six days, students do the work themselves with guidance, and the rods are meant to be fished rather than hung on a wall.
Yes. Bill says Oyster Bamboo has offered a full line of saltwater bamboo rods for more than a decade, from 7-weight to 12-weight, and about a quarter of the rods they make are for the salt. Every saltwater rod is eight feet long rather than nine, because the shorter length balances better with a reel and is easier to hold all day. Capt. Rhett Morris caught a permit on a 10-weight bamboo rod he built in Bill's class.
I have followed Oyster Fly Rods for a while, and I reference Bill's story all the time even though I had never met him. Rhett Morris told me about building rods with Bill when he was on the show earlier, and he made the introduction. I wanted Bill on for a business reason. He took a product that technology passed by decades ago, sold to a small slice of an already small audience, and found a way to build something people wait years to be part of. Press play at the top of the page to hear how he did it.
I had no idea Bill raced bikes until I was doing research for this conversation. He did not start riding until college, and he went a long way with it. He told me about the wreck that ended it and the strange stretch afterward when real estate was booming and he could not make himself care about it. Fly fishing was his escape the whole time. The way a single book turned into his first bamboo rod, and where that rod is today, is worth hearing in his own words.
Bill had done everything people told him to do. He had a waiting list measured in years and rods that were known at the high end. He was also watching the sun come up in his shop. I wanted to understand the moment he sat down and did the math, because I think a lot of people who love what they do have been in that exact spot. Bill tells it plainly and honestly, and his answer about the difference between a hobby and a business stuck with me.
I think selling knowledge instead of only the product is one of the smartest moves I have heard of. Bill will not take credit for it. He says he just paid attention to his customers. His first student came because of a phone call he thought was a rod order. The next group of guys seemed to be stretching the class out on purpose. Every rule in his class today came from something like that. You have to hear Bill walk through how the format came together one adjustment at a time.
Bill shared a story about Lefty Kreh that he believes let him know he was on the right track. Lefty was already one of the best in the sport and still could not make a living. The advice he got changed the way he worked, and I think it explains a lot of what Lefty went on to do for anglers. Bill uses the same idea in his showroom when someone is deciding between buying a custom rod and building their own. Listen for what he tells them about taking a rod to church.
If you only listen to one part of this episode, make it the pen-and-paper moment and the Lefty Kreh story. Press play in the player above, or scroll back up to watch.
Permit was my main fish when I was guiding, and I think they are one of the most difficult fish in the ocean to catch on fly. Rhett decided to build a 10-weight with Bill, named it The Permit, and took it to the flats with his friend Bobby G. It did not happen the first year or the second. Rhett describes the day it finally came together, and he compares it to something in his life I did not expect. I could hear in his voice how much it meant.
About two and a half days into every class, Bill says somebody announces they are going to be his first failure. I have my own list of priorities when someone steps on my boat, and I asked Bill what his are for a student. His number one rule reminded me of something every fishing guide should know about handing back a fly rod. Rhett added his own approach to running a charter after more than 30 years, and the three of us landed in the same place. Their answers are worth hearing.
Bill has built rods for President Carter and for a British royal wedding gift arranged through the US State Department. He has also guided the Carters, and he shared what they are like on the water. I also asked him about the practical limits of bamboo, from spey rods to modern fly lines, and why every saltwater rod he makes is eight feet long. His answer about modern lines surprised me, and I think anyone thinking about fishing bamboo should hear it.
Yesterday's conversation with Bill and Rhett is one I have wanted to have for a long time. I used to look at the bamboo page in the Orvis catalog and wonder why anyone would pay that much for a rod with no guarantee. I understand it now.
I think you do not have to fish to get something out of Bill's story. If you love what you do and the numbers are not working, this hour is worth your time.
Press play in the player at the top of this page to hear the whole conversation, and visit oysterbamboo.com if you want to get on the class wait list.
Bill Oyster, Capt. Rhett Morris, Oyster Bamboo Fly Rods, Riley, Cassie, Bobby G, Lefty Kreh, Stu Apte, Everett Garrison, Hoagy Carmichael, A Master's Guide to Building a Bamboo Fly Rod, President Jimmy Carter, Rosalynn Carter, the US State Department, Orvis, the Orvis Helios, the University of Florida, Georgia Tech, the University of Georgia, the Toccoa River, Blue Ridge, Georgia, Biscayne Bay, the Upper Keys, Powell, Wyoming, Cody, Wyoming, Key West, More Fish Florida, and oysterbamboo.com.
Bill Oyster is the founder of Oyster Bamboo Fly Rods in Blue Ridge, Georgia, where he builds custom bamboo fly rods and teaches 24 rod building classes a year. A former Olympic trialist and professional road cyclist who grew up in Powell, Wyoming, he has built rods for President Jimmy Carter and a British royal wedding gift, and his shop offers a full line of saltwater bamboo rods. Capt. Rhett Morris is a Florida fishing guide with more than 30 years of experience and has built two bamboo rods in Bill's classes.
Transcript
Tom Rowland Podcast — Episode 1033: Bill Oyster & Capt. Rhett Morris
In this episode: Bill Oyster on going from pro cyclist to bamboo rod maker, the pen-and-paper moment that ended his 3 AM work nights, how one phone call turned into 240 students a year, the Lefty Kreh story that guides his classes, and why Blue Ridge, Georgia is home, plus Capt. Rhett Morris on the bamboo 10-weight he built and the permit he finally landed on it.
Tom Rowland: We have a story today of entrepreneurial excellence. Bill Oyster makes fishing rods out of bamboo. If you know anything about fishing, that is kind of an antiquated, out-of-date technology, and it is very, very expensive. There are lots and lots of man-hours involved in it, and honestly, there are other materials that are better. But what intrigues me so much about this story, and how it can be applied to so many other things and so many other businesses, is that this man, Bill Oyster, was building custom bamboo fly rods, which is basically antiquated and out of date, and he realized that he was never going to make a middle-class income. He was working his fingers to the bone. He was working till 3:00 in the morning, and he decided that he needed to change what he was doing if he wanted to continue to do what he loved, which was making these bamboo fly rods. And so he started selling something else. He started selling knowledge rather than the actual product, and that changed everything for him. Now he has a two-year waiting list. He operates 240 students a year, and people are really, really trying to get in there to have this experience. If you're an entrepreneur, this is a story that, no matter what business you're in, can resonate with you. Hit Subscribe, and let's get started with Bill Oyster of Oyster Rods with special guest Rhett Morris.
Bill Oyster: This is Bill Oyster with Oyster Bamboo Fly Rods, and this is the Tom Rowland Podcast.
Tom Rowland: All right. Bill, Rhett, how are you?
Capt. Rhett Morris: We're good. Doing very well, thank you, sir.
Bill Oyster: Good. How are you, Tom?
Tom Rowland: I'm doing great. I'm doing great. And I gotta say, I'm really excited about this podcast. I have followed Oyster Fly Rods for a while, and I think your story is incredible. And the more research I did today, I learned even more about you getting ready for this. I had no idea that you were a bike racer.
Bill Oyster: Yeah. That's kinda how it started.
Tom Rowland: Well, tell me about that. What kind of bikes were you racing?
Bill Oyster: I was racing road bikes. I used to do a lot of running and, uh, I guess I just fell in with the wrong crowd when I was at the University of Florida. Everybody rides bikes down there just to class and stuff. And I was a pretty good runner, and one of my buddies, well, he was an acquaintance really, he was on the University of Florida cycling team, and he said, "Man, you need to come out and ride with us sometime." And I was like, "All right." I was too ignorant to be nervous about it or anything, so I just showed up, and turns out I was pretty natural at it, and it kinda went out of control from there, so.
Tom Rowland: Is that your personality? Do you latch onto things and go for it all?
Bill Oyster: Oh, yeah. For sure. I'm an all or nothing person.
Tom Rowland: That's probably why all three of us are on this podcast right now.
Bill Oyster: Yeah, for sure. So I went and did that for a while. I was an Olympic trialist, number one rider in the SEC, and then turned pro for a couple of years. So I've always had strange low-paying jobs, I guess you could say.
Tom Rowland: So when you were doing that, did you have a vision of maybe, like, Tour de France? Was that the road that you were on, or is there a different way you could be a professional cyclist?
Bill Oyster: Yeah, that was the road that everybody's aspiring to. And I didn't start riding until I was in college, so even though I took off pretty quick, I always felt like I was a little bit behind, you know? Over there in Europe, they're racing since they're five years old. And then, of course, as everybody knows now, when we did have to race against the Europeans, they had some added benefits that not everybody had access to. So by the time I honestly reached that level where I was ready for that kind of a move, I was already in my mid-20s, and they've got guys over there that are 17, 18 years old in the same position. I had a pretty good wreck and busted myself up pretty good, and I just decided it was time to move on to something else. I'd gone about as far as I was probably gonna be able to go with it.
Tom Rowland: Where did you have that wreck?
Bill Oyster: Strangely, it was just near my home, just training. I had a stage race coming up that next week, and I had just finished the '96 Olympic trials, the US Pro Championships, and the Tour of America, all the biggest races in the country. And now we were going to, you know, kick some local butt and make some money at some regional races. I was just out playing around with friends on mountain bikes, just a little fluke thing. I've had countless wrecks and accidents, but this one just caught me just right, and it took me out for the rest of the year in '96. I had a team that made me an offer for the following year, but I didn't wanna just do the same stuff over and over if I realized I wasn't gonna be heading to Europe and doing that. So then it was just time to do something else.
Tom Rowland: So you were 26 at the time? Is that what you said?
Bill Oyster: 25, 26, something like that. It was in 1996, so maybe I was 25.
Tom Rowland: Okay. So 1996, you make this decision that you're gonna move on from cycling. How does that lead you into the world of creating bamboo rods?
Bill Oyster: Right. Well, so what happened, I was planning on riding several more years. I was still improving. I figured I'd make it to at least 30 years old before I had to think about earning a living, really. So this came all of a sudden and unexpectedly. I went to Georgia Tech, University of Florida, and University of Georgia, but never did finish a degree because I bounced around and changed majors. So all of a sudden I'm trying to figure out what to do for a living, and I never even considered the fly fishing thing. That was my hobby. Even when I was a bike racer, any time off, you know, I was traveling to races, but I'm reading Fly Fishing America as we're driving across the country. That was my escape from all that. It's non-competitive, non-painful. All the while I'm trying to figure out how to make money, and at the time real estate was booming, and my wife's family had businesses in mortgages and building and real estate. And I was like, "Well, that's a good way to make money," but I was terrible. I just couldn't bring myself to be motivated for money. You know what I mean? I tried. I tried to amp myself up about it and think of things I could do with all that money, but in the meantime I was just sneaking off and going fishing all the time. So really that's where my focus was, in the fishing. I was teaching casting at the fly shops, fly tying at the expos, anything just to be around it. And I had a lot of friends in the industry, which I never even considered as an industry, but it turns out there are people making a living that way. One of the things I got interested in purely for fun was the bamboo rods. I always just thought they were beautiful and cool, and I was looking to buy one, but I didn't have any money at the time, and they were expensive. But I was like, "I at least need an old bamboo rod, few hundred bucks, something with that kind of romance and feel of it."
Bill Oyster: And while I was trying to educate myself on the subject, I came across a book called A Master's Guide to Building a Bamboo Fly Rod, written sometime in the 1970s by Everett Garrison and Hoagy Carmichael. That whole idea just kinda captivated my imagination, and I was like, man, the only thing better than buying one would be if I could build my own. That would be really cool. And because it wasn't a business idea, it didn't require me to do any math. It just required me to try, you know? So that's what I did. I read all the books on the subject I could find twice over before I got up the nerve to order some bamboo with money I didn't have. And six months later, I'd piddled my way through the worst looking, worst casting bamboo rod ever made. I caught a million fish on it, and I still have it to this day strung up in my living room.
Tom Rowland: That's so funny. That is really a great introduction here. And we also have Rhett here. Rhett, you introduced me to Bill, and I really appreciate that. Your story is that you just built a rod with Bill, right?
Capt. Rhett Morris: Yes.
Tom Rowland: Have you built more than one or just one?
Capt. Rhett Morris: Yes. So the way I found Bill was completely by mistake. I was walking down the street in Blue Ridge, Georgia, the first time I'd ever been to Blue Ridge in my life, in 2018, and I saw a sign 150 feet away that said Oyster on it, and I thought maybe it was an oyster market or something. My dad and I were like, "Yeah, let's go get some oysters." I like oysters. So we make our way down there, and I'm like, "Oh, this is a bamboo fly rod shop. That's pretty cool." And I walked through the front door of that place with a thought in my mind, which was, I don't ever wanna own a bamboo fly rod, because I don't wanna walk backwards in time doing something that's already difficult enough with the high-modulus good stuff we have these days. And I'm checking it out, and then I saw in the back they're teaching rod building classes for these bamboo rods. Not only do I not wanna buy one, firstly because of the cost, I certainly don't wanna pay to build one. That just seems absolutely double crazy. So I walked up there and I'm looking in the window, and luckily Bill's right-hand man, Riley, saw me. If he hadn't turned around and looked at me and we caught eyes and he could see the little gleam going on in my eyes, we probably would've looked around the shop and walked out of there, and this would've never, ever come along. The best way to describe it is I could just feel that there was something really special going on in that building. He made the time to come over quickly and talk to me, and as soon as I spoke with Riley for about 10 minutes, I started to realize, holy cow, this is happening at a level that I have never perceived. I've loved fly fishing since I was a little kid, got my first fly rod when I was 12, and have been hook, line, and sinker. But the hair on the back of my neck started to stand up, because I was beginning to realize that I cannot continue to love the sport of fly fishing without doing this.
Tom Rowland: He got you.
Capt. Rhett Morris: Oh, man, I'm telling you. And then Bill came out right after that, and it was lunch break. Everybody goes through the showroom and heads on out to lunch, and Bill sees me talking to Riley and comes over. And the thing that really struck me about speaking with those two guys on the first day, Tom, was the fact that I started to realize real quick how incredibly high level this was, and at the same time I was witnessing how incredibly low level these two guys' egos were. Because generally when you come across somebody who's doing something really special and they know it, they're happy to tell you how great they are, and that's all good for them. But I've never been really attracted to that kind of ego deal. And there's Bill and Riley in the middle of lunch break with their hips back on the counter, ready to sit there and talk to me as long as I wanted to talk to them about this, because I think they could feel that I was that into it. You've met people, we've all met people in our lifetimes that are really into fishing, especially fly fishing, and you can speak to these people for just 10 minutes and understand that you have a common thread that supersedes time. And that's what happened, and that's how I got started with Oyster Bamboo.
Tom Rowland: And so did you think that you were going to just create any fly rod, or did you have an idea that you would create a saltwater fly rod?
Capt. Rhett Morris: No, I came back... You know, they're two years out on their waiting list to build a rod, so my wife kindly booked me a class two years later. So I show back up in 2020, and I'm gonna build a little six-weight, because obviously you just catch little freshwater trout with bamboo fly rods. And I built that rod, and there was one guy in the class there for his 10th rod, and a couple other guys were building their second and third rods. And I'm thinking, "Man, I came up here to do this 'cause this is a once in a lifetime thing." It's a little pricey for me and my family, but I'm starting to realize this is not a one and done type of thing. So I built my rod, and it was an amazing experience, much higher level than I thought it would be, 'cause I already thought it was gonna be amazing. And then I take the rod and I cast it with an old dirty six-weight line. There's a video on Facebook of me carrying 50 feet of line and making a 90 to 100-foot cast in slow motion in a valley up there in North Carolina right after we built this rod. And I'm like, "But what is this thing? How can an old piece of bamboo, solid, soft, do this?" It really blew my mind. So I told all my buddies about it, and I think I had three or four of those guys go back with me for my second rod, 'cause they said, "If you ever do this again, please will you call us? We have to go with you." So that was my second rod, and that's when I built a 10-weight, and it's actually named The Permit. Bill kindly inscribed this most beautiful engraving of a permit on the back of the butt section of the rod for me. At that time, I had caught my first permit already on fly, and I just thought how incredible of an experience was that, and how much more incredible could it possibly be if I did it with a bamboo fly rod that I built with my own hands?
Tom Rowland: That's incredible. First of all, both of you are doing something that is very difficult to do. You could just say fly fishing is difficult to do. I saw a quote when I was looking for something Bill had said, and it was something about taking something that's already hard to do and making it harder, which is what you're doing. But that's the beauty of fly fishing. When I first got into fly fishing and was learning about it, I got into this avenue of creating your own things. It was fly tying. That's what most fly fishermen do. You start tying flies and you just try to replicate what you've seen. Then you get a little better at it and you're like, "Well, what if you added this to it or that to it?" And you make it your own. And then there were guides on the river that took it another step further, and instead of creating a rod, they built a wooden drift boat. That's what they did all winter long in their garage. I just became very enamored with that in fly fishing, that you can tie your flies, you can create your rod, you can build a boat. You can go all in this crafty way in this type of fishing that other types of fishing don't really allow for. I thought about building a rod, like wrapping the guides and doing all that, but this is this whole other craftsmanship that's really incredible. And I wanna ask Bill, because I'm gonna tell you in just a second the reason that I really wanted you on here, and it's a business reason, because I think what you've done in business is truly incredible. How many rods, before you started doing these classes, how many rods could you turn out as a professional rod maker?
Bill Oyster: Oh, just when it was just me working alone?
Tom Rowland: Yeah.
Bill Oyster: So it's strange. I couldn't make very many at first. I would make a handful a year, and then you get more and more efficient. My initial idea, and this is relevant because I had no money and was interested in these bamboo rods, was, man, if I could make a functional rod that cast well and looked good, but people could afford. That was initially kind of my draw to the bamboo. But what I figured out was I'm way too meticulous, I'm way too particular, and I'm way too slow to do that sort of thing. I couldn't make a $500 bamboo rod. It's just too many hours spent.
Tom Rowland: Right. And some of these bamboo rods, the price of a bamboo rod by a well-known rod maker could be $10,000? I don't know, what do they go for?
Bill Oyster: A few thousand bucks is a starting point for these things. 2,500, 3,500 just as a baseline benchmark, which sounds like a lot, sounds sexy, until you see what goes into it. A tremendous amount of time and materials and effort. People ask me, "Well, if you're gonna teach all these classes like we do, how do you keep from training your competition?" I'm like, "Well, we show them what it takes to make a bamboo fly rod." And if they're smart enough and successful enough to be able to come to our class, they're usually smart enough to see a bad business idea when they see it, right? It's simple math, generally speaking. But numbers-wise, if I was making 40 rods in a year, I'm doing everything. That's emails and sales tax forms and trade shows and all of that kind of stuff. And then my personal rods started to become known for the higher end side of things. Where my natural talents lie wasn't cheap and fast. It was in just doing it really, really well. So what I finally decided was I'm gonna have to do it the way it comes natural to me and hope to God somebody will pay for that sort of thing. So I just started using my artistic talents, my particular brand of OCD, and built them the way I knew I could build them, and thankfully it found a market. But the fancier they got, the less rods I could make. Maybe the dollars didn't change, but the number of rods went down when I've spent three weeks engraving the hardware for a rod, never mind making the rod, you know?
Bill Oyster: So those numbers went down, and then one day I had to sit down with a pen and paper. I was working seven days a week, day and night. I mean, literally I would work till 3:00 in the morning, seven days a week. Going into trade shows, trying to fill a rack to bring with me, I'd see the sun coming up in the shop and run and jump in the bed to try to trick myself into thinking I got some sleep. It was very unhealthy, actually. And finally I put pen to paper and I was like, "This just doesn't work. I did what everybody said. I'm charging this amount. I have a four-year waiting list." If you wanted one of my rods, you literally put down a deposit and waited four years. And I did the math and I was like, "I will never make a middle-class income like this." My wife will always have to be working a job just so we can raise our kids. So I realized that if I wanna be in this as a business... If you wanna do it as a hobby, that's 99% of the guys you see online. If you wanna do it as a business, you have to think that way as well. It has to make sense.
Tom Rowland: So at this point, that seems like a real crossroads where you're thinking, "I love doing this. I'm working really hard at it." Obviously you enjoyed it to spend that kind of time doing it. How did it turn into this other idea, which I reference all the time, and I've never even met you before? I just think it's such a genius thing for you to go from building the rod by yourself and putting that kind of time and details into everything, and charging whatever for something that has been surpassed by technology, so there's only a small number of people that want it. The people that want it really want it, like a super fine shotgun or a well-crafted thing, and they wanna pay for it. But that's a small number, and you're already working in an industry with a small number of people with fly fishermen in general, right? So then you narrow it down to the smallest of the small. But then you somehow came up with this idea that instead of selling what you're making with your hands, you sell your knowledge and you teach other people to do it, and you're getting, what, class size, say, eight students here? Is that 10 students now?
Bill Oyster: Yeah.
Tom Rowland: Okay, so my notes said eight. But now you're doing 10 at a time. I think that is the most genius idea I've ever heard of, and you pulled it off. How did you come up with that idea?
Bill Oyster: Well, so I feel like I get unfair credit for being a good businessperson and figuring these things out. The only thing I can really take credit for is just recognizing good things when they come my way, and then keeping those, and bad things we reject. It's a nice thing about being a small business. It doesn't take years to make a change. We can go down one road, and if it doesn't work, we can instantly adjust. And everything we do with the rods, everything we do with the classes, has really come from paying attention to our customers and listening to them and what they want. The first class I gave was in 2000, and the only reason I gave it was because the guy's wife called and started talking to me, and I thought she was ordering a rod for him. And after talking to her for 15 minutes, I realized she wanted him to learn how to make rods. He was wanting to learn, and she put out a call to me to see if I would teach him. And I had to explain that I don't do that. I don't have time for that. I'm four years backlogged. But like any good wife, she wouldn't take no for an answer. So finally I was like, "You know what? Just come on." He was a local guy, and I said, "You come when you want, and I'm gonna be there working anyway, so I'll just show you what to do, and you can work on your deal." And he would work a few hours in the evening a couple times a week, and eventually we got through the process, and it went fine. But I was like, honestly, with the time I spent with him, I could have made two or three rods myself. So if I ever do that again, I can't just do privates, right? Sure enough, I naturally started getting phone calls, people asking about it, and I'd take their names down. When I got three guys together, I said, "You guys come over after work." They were all local guys, so, "Come Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6:00 after work." And they had a great time, so much so that I think they were intentionally sabotaging themselves so they could always come and hang out every Tuesday and Thursday and make fly rods. I feel like they were just trying to stretch this on forever. So I was like, all right, if I do that again, there's gotta be a start and a finish date to this thing.
Bill Oyster: And every element's gone that way. You try things and you see what works and what doesn't work. Eventually it was a seven-day class, and we would go till midnight. Because what I discovered was there were a few people doing some class-type stuff at the time, but nowhere were you going where you actually finished it. You'd go and make the blank, and you might put a grip on it or something. And what I realized from dealing with my students is if you gave them anything to send home, you could tell them, "Oh, it's basically made now. Just go home and wrap your guides on and varnish it and you're done." You would see that person two years later and ask, "How's that rod fish?" And they'd never finished it, because you take a week off, and then you go home and you're doubly busy because you've been gone for a week. So I was like, I want guys to leave my class and fish their rods. I don't want anything for them to figure out on their own. I don't want to tell them half the story to try to protect my business in some way. I want you to come to make a fishing rod and leave with a fishing rod. And they loved that. It made a big difference.
Bill Oyster: And I think the best thing I saw at the time that let me know I was on the right track was a quote, and it was Lefty Kreh and I think it was Stu Apte. I could have a name wrong, but I'm pretty sure that's who the guys were. The story was, Lefty was becoming a real stud in the fly fishing scene. He was doing things that people hadn't seen. He's landing these big fish. He's at the shows. People know him. And he finally comes to Stu and he's like, "I've been doing everything right. Everybody knows me. I'm doing better than anybody at this, and I'm pulling off stuff nobody else can do. And I still can't make a living." And Stu, as I remember it, said, "Lefty, nobody gives a shit how good you are. They wanna know how good they can be." And that's 100% the truth right there. When people come into our showroom and they're looking at our rods and they're blown away, and then they notice that we do classes, even if they were looking to spend 10 or whatever grand on a rod, I always tell them, "I can make you a rod that you won't see anything like. I'll blow your mind, and you're gonna go home and show all your fishing buddies. But if you come to a class and make a rod, however it turns out, you're gonna take that rod to church and show people." Once you do it yourself... That's the only reason I ever did it, was to try to do it myself. That was really the point. So the same thing that inspired me works on other people, too.
Tom Rowland: Well, I tell you, I don't know if it's a quote or just something I heard one time, but the best way to get what you want out of life is to help others get what they want out of life. And if you do that as a fishing guide, like Rhett, he helps people land these dream fish, and then it comes back to you. I believe that. And that little piece of advice, if that's a true story, which it very likely could be, Lefty took that advice, and he went on to write so many books and do so many videos and do so many casting lessons to help people become better, and he ends up a legend. I mean, he was a legend before, but I guess nobody cared, right? Like you said.
Bill Oyster: Right.
Tom Rowland: But if he can help you be better, then that's what really makes the difference. Now, there's another part of this story with Rhett that I also find very, very interesting. You chose to try to catch a permit on a bamboo rod that you made yourself. Did you also tie the fly?
Capt. Rhett Morris: No, I did not tie the fly. In fact, the preceding three years, Tom, I was fishing my patterns that were kinda similar to those of my buddy who needs to be mentioned, Bobby G. He's a famous guy based in Biscayne Bay, and we go down to the Upper Keys and back. I have tried with my fly, and he's always gracious about it. He's like, "Put whatever you want on there, man. They're your shots. You can waste them any way you want."
Tom Rowland: That's a perfect guide-ism right there. And finally, after a while, "Here, just put this one on, please."
Capt. Rhett Morris: Exactly right.
Tom Rowland: So a permit was my main fish when I was guiding, and it is incredibly difficult to catch. I think it could possibly be one of the more difficult fish in the ocean to catch. A lot of people will put it right up there, though they've never tried to catch a hammerhead shark on fly or something like that. There are other fish out there that are really hard to catch on fly, but a permit is right up there at the top, and you choose to do it in a way that is super cool. You're gonna build this rod through Bill, and then you're gonna take this journey to catch a permit, however long it takes. I love it. So tell me, how did you decide that your next rod was gonna be for permit?
Capt. Rhett Morris: Well, fishing with Bobby, I'd caught two or three permit at the time, and I had been trying to do it with other buddies in other places, and it was a pretty miserable failed attempt. Once I got with Bobby, I was like, dear Lord, if you get on this guy's bow and you can put it where it needs to be, your chances go way up. Once I realized that, it became a much easier task than I had perceived it to be. The first day I ever caught a permit, I caught two in the same day. They were all 15 to 20 pounds tops. Didn't matter. It was a permit on fly, sight-fished. It was an incredible experience, and at the time, for me, it was by far the most amazing fly fishing experience I'd ever had. So after getting in tow with the Oyster gang up there and figuring out how incredible that all was, there was no doubt in my mind the very next time I went back: I'm building a rod to try to go catch a permit on a bamboo fly rod. I told the guys all about it, Bill did the beautiful engraving on the back for me, and I went down there with Bobby. And Bobby's like, "You do realize this is still the hardest thing there is to do with a fly rod, right? What are you bringing a wooden stick out here for? What is that thing?" And I cast it, and he's like, "Okay. All right. I guess we might have a shot." So the first year goes by. I only have two days a year that I do this with him, in our slow time, and we get done with the trip, and he's like, "Man, I think next year you probably wanna bring that Helios with you, because on those windy days, it's still a really hard thing to do." So the next year I came and I brought my backup Helios, and it was blowing really hard. The most difficult thing to do is not rush your final cast. And when you're standing up there on the platform, rushing that final cast gets to be something you always end up doing, especially when it's a little windy. It just doesn't come together for me. So I caught one on the Helios that year, and then I think last year was our third year, and we had some shots. I probably had 15 shots with the bamboo. I had seven or eight fish follow the fly and get right up to it. It was close enough over those two days that Bobby was like, "All right, I think we can do it. Don't stop bringing it. This is getting pretty difficult, but I do have some faith in what you're trying to do." And so this year, the first day I had 17 shots, and my line was a little dirty, and you know it doesn't take much when you're trying to put that fly in a hula hoop-sized area at 50 to 70 feet and you get that one good chance. Plus it was my first day back on the bow, and I got the yips and all the rest of that going too. So we got through that day, and Bobby's like, "Man, we had some good follows, and it was pretty close. I think tomorrow's gonna be the day." So we get back out there, and the wind was down, and we found some fish pushing around. This big single comes up, and we see it, and then we don't. And Bobby's like, "Just give me 75 feet at 11 o'clock. Just get it there." I made a nice long cast, and as soon as I started moving the fly, the fish just kind of shined when it turned and came straight to the fly. It tracks up behind this fly, and both of us are like, "Oh, God, this is getting really close." You've got your heart in your throat, and it just took that fly. I came tight, and the way Bobby is, he never gets excited until the fish is on the reel, because there's still a whole bunch of bad things that can happen when you've got 40 feet of line at your feet. The fish moved off. Classic couple big head shakes, moved off a little bit more, and then went for it for real. Got it down on the reel, and we both got pretty excited, and it ran out into the deep water, and we chased it around. And when that fish finally came up to the boat and we grabbed ahold of it, I'll put it on par, and my wife would probably smack me in the back of the head if she heard me say this, but I would put it on par with the day that my daughter was born. It was a soul-shaking experience, and I truly mean that.
Tom Rowland: Wow. What about comparing that one on the bamboo rod that you built by hand to the first one that you ever caught? Was it the same experience or way different?
Capt. Rhett Morris: I tell you what, Tom, it blows it out of the water by a measure that's really hard to articulate. So we catch this fish, quick pictures, back in the water, and I'm just completely blown away. If Bobby would've given me an oar and said, "Because of this amazing thing, you're gonna row the boat in," I'd have happily done it. I was so charged up. And later that day, I caught another fish over 20 pounds that came up to the fly. It had gotten pretty windy, and I was on my Helios by now, and I was just tired. It was the end of the day, and the fish came up and tracked the fly hard, and when it came to the fly it was getting hot, and the fly went into a tennis ball-sized chunk of Sargassum weed. And the permit just flares up on the Sargassum weed, and I just did a couple little twitches, and that fish's head... You've seen a tarpon eat a fly out of the water? That's what that permit did. It was the most spectacular permit strike on a fly I've ever witnessed in my life. Same thing with Bobby. We both about fell off the boat. It ate it, and that was number six for me. Every permit except for that one, you hook it, they head shake a little bit, they run, they head shake. Sometimes they won't leave the boat and you're getting all nervous. This fish was so hot when it ate that fly, it went down, one little head shake, and it mashed it to the floor. It ran across the top of the crown of that flat and was out in deep water 200 yards into the backing. Maybe it was 100. It felt like it was 250. You know when a tarpon or a bonefish exits with the NOS button mashed down? That's what that permit did. It was the most exciting permit I've ever caught, and in my heart and soul, it did not mean half of what that fish on that bamboo fly rod meant. Not even half.
Tom Rowland: Yeah, the only comparison I have to that is when I first started tying flies and I caught a fish on a fly that I tied myself. It wasn't the biggest fish, it wasn't the best fish, but I can still remember it like it was yesterday. If Bill was to describe that fly, he would describe it like the first rod he ever made. It was the worst looking hunk of feathers and thread, a million thread wraps around the top. You could barely get the line through the eye. But I fooled that fish with it, and it beat a million store-bought flies. That's so cool. I just love that this whole thing is happening, 'cause I've been wanting to do this podcast for a long time.
Tom Rowland: Bill, did you get a text from Rhett when he caught this fish?
Bill Oyster: Oh, yeah. We heard all about it.
Tom Rowland: Well, yeah, I'm sure. He's pretty excited about it. What'd that text sound like when it came through?
Bill Oyster: That was an excited angler right there. And, you know, we get a lot of those, honestly. We always tell people when they leave, because a lot of times at the end of the week, surprisingly, they're sad. You'd think they would be excited, right? They just made their rod. But they're sad to leave the experience they had this week. So the parting word to most of these guys is, "Catch some fish, send us some pictures. We wanna see what you're doing with the thing once you get it out there." And we got that one in, a big, beautiful permit, so you can't do any better than that. Rhett was obviously very excited, and he's caught a million fish, so one that gets him excited is gonna be a special one.
Tom Rowland: Yeah, well, that's kind of the thing with fly fishing, that you can get deeper and deeper and deeper into it. That's about the deepest level I've ever heard of, building a rod from scratch and catching a permit on it. Most people wouldn't even understand why that's even a thing, but I certainly do, and I think it's super cool. Rhett told me that you were very humble in the lead-up here, and you're describing the way you've built this incredible business very matter-of-factly, like you just listened and adjusted. But there had to be some challenges along the way. What challenges have you encountered, maybe from the beginning?
Bill Oyster: Oh, yeah. Well, from the beginning, you know, I'm choosing an industry that is on the decline, that is getting worse and worse.
Tom Rowland: Because of the technology that's coming out with the graphite rods?
Bill Oyster: Right. In 1990, these were already outdated by 30 years and quickly being marginalized. And there were no classes or anything when I was learning, because all the guys that knew, it was kind of the old school way, they just weren't sharing. There were a lot of guys talking, don't get me wrong, but what I discovered was those weren't really the guys that knew, typically. The guys that knew were taking it to the grave with them. In fact, I got some dirty emails and letters, especially when I started teaching classes. Guys were angry. I got a letter from a guy in another country, and he said, "You'll put us all out of business in two years if you teach classes like you're doing."
Tom Rowland: Did that discourage you?
Bill Oyster: No. I think, for whatever hardheadedness of my personality, if you wanna inspire me to do something, tell me not to do it or that I can't do it. That has been one of the biggest impetuses in my life. If you tell me there's no way, that's when I set my head to something and make a way. I don't even remember what the original question was.
Tom Rowland: Well, we were just talking about the challenges, and you said from the beginning you were...
Bill Oyster: Right, exactly. So from the beginning, if you were gonna pick a way to make a living, you'd be hard-pressed to find a worse one. You could make handmade VCRs in 2026. The custom VCR player business. That's what I tell people if they're wanting to be a fishing guide or wanting to be this or that and they're nervous about it. I'm like, "If you have a passion for it, if I can make a living doing what I'm doing, you can make a living doing anything." If you're the best at whatever you're doing, people will find you, especially these days with the internet and all this.
Tom Rowland: Yeah, but it's more than that with your story. You could have been the best, maybe you were, but you said you had to put the pencil to the paper, and you were like, "I'm never gonna get where I wanna go like this." No matter how good you get. I only push back on that because you can be the very best and still not make it. What separates somebody like yourself from the people that are the best or right up there with the best is that you were so creative in your thinking, and then you were willing to give your knowledge and information and help to other people. That's the real separator, because these other people you're talking about did not want to. They were gonna take it to the grave. That's a big difference. And it's also a big risk. What if they were right? They could have been right. You could have put yourself out of business and put everybody else out of business. But I guess you look at it and say, "Well, how many people are buying bamboo rods anyway?" I used to read the Orvis catalog, like you were studying the fly fishing magazines while you were riding bikes. Every product, every rod, every single thing, and I'd just dream about going to one of these locations where these pictures were shot. And I remember in the Orvis catalog, they would have their graphite rods, and these had a 25-year guarantee, and this one costs $400, and there's a little more expensive one, and then they would have a page of bamboo rods. And I didn't know anything really about fly fishing back then, and I'm looking at it like, "This rod's $3,000. It has no guarantee. Why would anybody want that?" I ended up guiding out of an Orvis store, and they would have one or two bamboo rods over there, and they were the same one or two that would sit there all year long. I just couldn't understand why anyone would want that. But now I do see that people would want to learn how to do that. There are anglers that just really like the slow feel of a bamboo rod, and it is incredible to cast a nice one. But learning how to make one, that's a whole different deal, and you tapped into that. So you have to give yourself credit. I'm certainly giving you a lot of credit for it. It's creative thinking.
Bill Oyster: Yeah. What I discovered was, really, we're in the service industry. Same with the fishing guide. You're not there to show yourself off. You're there for them. If they go and catch 20 permit in a day, but you screamed and yelled at them the entire time and they had a miserable experience, they may show those pictures to friends, but they're never coming back. And that's the way it was, I learned, with the classes early on. It didn't matter what you knew, how technical, how far in depth. The people needed to enjoy that experience and feel the reward of that experience too. And not just enjoy it, like we come work for a couple hours and I take them fishing. That would be fun, but we'd never see them again. In our classes, you're making them. You're doing it. It's hard. There's cussing, there's sweating, there's bleeding, and it's a real challenge. About two and a half days in, people are like, "I'm gonna be the first failure you've ever had." But we seem unconcerned, 'cause we are, because we know where the process is going. So it's just a real feeling of accomplishment. It's just like permit. You can catch plenty of bigger fish than a permit, but it's the challenge of it and the challenge overcome that makes it special to you. And then when you throw in the bamboo rod, especially when you're talking saltwater, which is something we put a lot of time into, people try to understand, "Why would I wanna do that?" And I say, say you catch giant tarpon. That's equivalent to elk hunting, right? You do this on a bamboo rod, and now you're going elk hunting with a longbow. It's not easier. It's not more efficient. It's not cheaper. It's not lighter. It's not any of those things. But it's somehow more special. And there are people that appreciate that. And honestly, there are some fly fishermen that act like they don't get it, but it's somewhere in them if you fly fish, because you know you could put on a live shrimp or a live crab and catch more fish. For some reason you've chosen a more difficult but more rewarding path. This is just another step down that road.
Tom Rowland: Well, just like you were talking about with fishing guides, you could know the fishery better than anybody else, and you could be capable of catching more fish, and maybe you do catch more fish than anyone, but if you're not nice to your clients, then you're struggling. People will still fish with you because they like to catch fish, but that person is not gonna have the every-year clientele booked years out that somebody who might not be as good, but is really nice, will have. I have a list of priorities that I use when I take somebody on the boat, but I would like to hear if you have a list of priorities for your classes. When somebody signs up for your class, what is it that you make sure they experience when they go through it?
Bill Oyster: The number one thing I want them to experience is that they did it themselves. Obviously we're there guiding them, we're there if they run into problems, but we're never trying to take their tool away from them, do it, and make them feel incompetent. It's like grabbing somebody's fly rod out of their hand, making the right cast, and handing it back to them. Yeah, the fly is where you wanted it to be, but that was not an experience they paid to have. You know what I mean?
Tom Rowland: That's exactly right.
Bill Oyster: So it's the same thing. It's important to me for them to leave, and they can be as thankful as they want to us for our help, but they know that they made it. We show them what to do, and then you're gonna do those things, whether it's right or wrong, and if it's wrong, you gotta redo it. I want them to have the experience of struggle and overcoming, and walking away with something they feel like they did themselves, because they do when they come here. We don't magically do it for them in the middle of the night, even though they accuse us of that sometimes because they can't believe it's coming out the way it is. That's our number one experience. We want them to work hard. We run a tight ship. It's a lot to pull off in six days with 10 people with maybe no experience building anything with their hands, and we're doing a craft where we're using metal measuring tools. We're using micrometers on basically a wood. But we want them to feel that they came and they did it. They did it themselves, and they can do it again.
Tom Rowland: That's really cool. I would ask Rhett the same thing. When you take a charter, do you have a list of priorities that you want your client to experience?
Capt. Rhett Morris: Yeah, of course. One of the things I think a lot of captains overlook in our industry, first off, is just comfort. I put a lot of extra money and time into designing really comfortable seats, whether I build them or pay for them. Comfortable fishing rods and reels that are clean, work very well, fit in your hand the right way, and aren't just a shambles when you get there, with not enough line. And then, beyond that, it's all about your attitude. Show up, and it doesn't matter how difficult the start of the day was or what happened yesterday. This is a brand-new day, and you're there to help them get as much out of that day as they can. That's what's helped me become successful over the years. I've been doing this over 30 years, and right out of the gate, the passion carried me pretty far. Then as the fishery changed and you couldn't just go out and put two or three hundred fish on a hook for somebody, or go out and get five snook over 10 pounds on fly sight casting in a morning, it really moved more into the controllables. Control your controllables is what I tell all the guides I've started over the years. You're spending your day in a business that's full of uncontrollables. When you look at it as a business, and once you realize you really are in the service industry and you control the things you can control to provide a decent experience, then you're gonna make it.
Tom Rowland: Yeah, I agree with that. I have three. First is be safe. Gotta make sure nobody gets hurt, they're comfortable, they're safe, and they're gonna make it back. Second is that they have a really good time. You are an entertainer. You are trying to make sure that they're having a good time. You're making them feel comfortable. You're getting something out of the cooler for them. You're helping them. And the third is that they learn something. When I've told people that before, they're like, "Well, what about catching fish?" I'm like, "Well, way down the list is catching fish." But whether it's what you said or what Bill said or what I said, it's all the same kind of idea. If your mode of operation is those things, safety, entertainment, and learning something, and that is what you're concentrating on, it becomes rote. That's just what you are doing. Now you can focus on catching fish, because all of these are taken care of. But if the only thing that you're focusing on is catching fish, or making sure that this person builds a fly rod, maybe you lose your patience, and it destroys the whole day.
Capt. Rhett Morris: 100%.
Tom Rowland: And what I see that Bill's done, and I haven't taken this class, and I would like to, is you're obviously creating an environment where people like it. They feel good. They're having a good time, and they're getting all of these other things you're saying. But then they're going home with something that they can be really proud of. What I also like about your story is you're saying, "Don't put it on the mantel. This is a tool, and you should go out and use it." Because I would think there would be a lot of people that just think, "Well, I put so much time and effort into this, I'm just gonna put it here. It'll never get broken, and I'll fish with the rods I've always fished with." But that's not what you're suggesting. You're suggesting that they use it.
Bill Oyster: Oh, absolutely. Even our nicest custom rods, where they're all hand engraved with gold and all kinds of crazy things, there's nothing better to me than when those rods come back just beat to hell. Just scratched and scuffed and worn out. We can always slap a new coat of varnish on there. These are fishing utensils first. I'm a fisherman before anything else, and these are the rods that I use. I can't be catching the fish of a lifetime and end up with an Orvis Helios in my hand in a photo, right? This is all I've got to use, so I'm gonna make certain that they're up to the fishing task first. And there are bamboo rods that are 100 years old that are still being fished. I don't wanna name names, but the highest end graphite rod you can imagine, 100 years from now, is gonna be graphite splinters. At the very least, it's gonna be 100 generations old technology, and nobody's really gonna be interested in it. But something about a handmade thing of a natural material, the longer it sticks around, it just kinda collects stories, and you pass it down through your family. You buy a bamboo rod to pass to someone, and then hopefully that'll pass to someone else after that. But absolutely, they're made to be fished with.
Tom Rowland: So I would imagine with something as special and handcrafted as what you're making, you get some requests to build these rods for someone to give to somebody. Have you built them for somebody we might know about?
Bill Oyster: Oh, sure. A lot of people know the President Carter rods that we've done. We've got some pictures on the website, and we ended up doing about a half a dozen rods for President Carter, who's a diehard fisherman, he and Rosalynn.
Tom Rowland: He really is. He fished with my partner, Rich, a couple times. I didn't get to fish with him.
Bill Oyster: They're no joke. I've guided them a few times up in the mountains up here, and they love to fish dry flies. They don't care about numbers. They wanna hit that fish. They're not there to talk politics or hobnob. So a lot of people have heard of those rods. We've done them for some billionaires. The US State Department hired us for the last royal wedding over in England there, to make the gift for whoever it was. They wouldn't even tell us who it was for for a long time. But I was like, "I don't know what to make. Are we making a 12-weight? Are we making a two-weight? You gotta give me some clue." And so they finally said, "Well, it's for the British royal wedding that's coming up." I was like, "Okay, so they're probably not fishing tarpon then." So we get those guys. We'll make you a basic rod, and we make a lot of saltwater rods. I think we're the only company that I've ever heard of that has a whole line of saltwater bamboo rods, and we have for more than a decade, from seven to 12-weight. About a quarter of all the rods we make are for the salt. It's all over the place with the custom rods, but primarily we get some really high-end custom executive gifts, retirement gifts. They're looking for something extraordinary.
Tom Rowland: That's definitely extraordinary. Are you limited with bamboo on the length? Are there restrictions on the material, on what kind of rods you can make or how long they can be? Could you make a spey bamboo rod?
Bill Oyster: There are guys that do spey. I've spey fished, but I'm not an expert in it, so I leave that up to those Pacific Northwest guys who are doing it all the time. I don't feel qualified to design those actions. But there are guys that do it.
Tom Rowland: But you're not restricted with the material?
Bill Oyster: I wouldn't say you're restricted, but there are certainly ideal ranges. Just like there are in graphite, there are some things you can do well within certain limitations, and with bamboo you have a different set of parameters. It is significantly heavier. It is less powerful. So you have to find a way to optimize what you're working with. For example, our saltwater rods are all eight feet instead of nine feet. At eight feet it balances nice with your reel, and it's comfortable to sit there and hold all day. You don't feel the weight of it because of that. Whereas at nine feet, oh man, it would just wear you out. A nine-foot 10-weight is gonna be brutal to sit up there and throw in bamboo. So by keeping them a little shorter, that's really what I find to be the sweet spot in the saltwater world with bamboo. So every one of our salt rods is eight feet. We do make...
Tom Rowland: I'm sorry, I cut you off. You do make something?
Bill Oyster: Well, I would say we do make longer than that if needed, like if a guy's steelhead fishing and things. But we're hollow building those rods. We're doing some things to them that we don't normally do to allow us to go over eight feet long.
Tom Rowland: What about modern fly lines? How does that play into your design? A long time ago, lines were level lines or a double taper or something like that, and now we have all of these different tapers. Does that change your design at all?
Bill Oyster: Yeah, it does. A lot of times people will get a bamboo rod, and they'll just assume, "I need to put a silk line on this," or, "I need to put a double taper line on this." And then they might throw it and feel like, "I just don't like the feel of the..."
Tom Rowland: Something sucks.
Bill Oyster: Yeah, exactly. That's what they say. They're not feeling the rod. They're feeling the line. So what I tell people is your favorite line is probably still gonna be your favorite line. Whenever we're designing rods, we're always using the most modern lines out there. That's what we're using to test cast. That's what we're using to develop tapers. That's what we're fishing when we're out there. I use modern reels, I use modern lines. It's the rod itself that really creates...
Tom Rowland: Well, there's your next challenge, Rhett. You can catch a permit or a tarpon or something on a silk line, and then when you get home, you can pull it all out and dry it off in your equipment room, because I think that's what you have to do, 'cause it's an organic material, right? What a pain it was to fish back then. A horsehair line or a silk line, and you would have to pull it all off. That's probably why fly lines were only about 40 feet long. Where are you gonna dry the thing off if it's 120 feet long? And they probably had organic material backing, too. That would be a real disaster when you catch a fish and all of a sudden your backing breaks, because you didn't take care of it the way you need to. So a lot of the modern materials have made it so much easier. I just think this is super cool. Both stories, really awesome. I'm really happy that we got this together.
Tom Rowland: If people want to take your class, I understand that you have a multi-year waiting list to get into a class. What's the waiting list currently?
Bill Oyster: So, we're all full up for this year. We're all full up for next year. We have not released the dates for 2028 yet, but I know we will soon. I think October is when those dates will be published. We always do 24 classes a year, 10 students to a pop. We also have a waiting list if you wanted to come earlier. Because we book so far out, people will book two years in advance and just grab anything they can get. You don't know when your daughter's getting married or when you're gonna get sick or who knows, right? So if we have guys wanting to come earlier, they can talk to Cassie, get on the wait list, and maybe slip in there earlier as well.
Tom Rowland: Wow. Super cool. That's 240 students a year. Is that right? Am I doing my math right?
Bill Oyster: Yep.
Tom Rowland: That's incredible. Did you ever think in your wildest dreams, on the first class that you taught, that you would be putting 240 students through your class with a multi-year waiting list?
Bill Oyster: Never. Not for a second. I was told by anybody who bothered to talk about it that it was a losing battle and it was never gonna happen. So no, I couldn't be any more excited that it has succeeded the way it has.
Tom Rowland: I also saw something on here. Do you also have a place for people to stay in Blue Ridge?
Bill Oyster: Yeah, we do. For a while we operated B&B style. We housed everybody and fed them. But now we're in downtown Blue Ridge, right in the middle of the tourist district with all the restaurants and shops. Knowing people liked to stay there, when we built this building we built an inn upstairs. So we have rooms. I think they're $139 a night or something like that, compared to the Hampton Inn across the street. Last class, those guys were paying 450 bucks a night, I think, in there.
Tom Rowland: In Blue Ridge?
Bill Oyster: Oh, yeah. Blue Ridge, it's gotten pretty wild. But you book and you stay with us. You can stay upstairs. When you hear us crack open the doors in the front, you can just come running down the stairs with your coffee and get to work. You can walk up the street to all the restaurants in the evening and have a good time.
Tom Rowland: Now, how did you decide Blue Ridge was gonna be the home for this?
Bill Oyster: Well, initially, as a kid I grew up in northwest Wyoming.
Tom Rowland: Oh, really? Northwest Wyoming, like where?
Bill Oyster: Powell, Wyoming. It's next to Cody. Everybody knows where Cody is.
Tom Rowland: Okay. Well, yeah, I know Cody.
Bill Oyster: It's the closest non-tourist town to the park there. So I would go out west a lot to trout fish, and I thought, well, maybe I'd head out that way. And early on a lot of people were like, "Oh, I can't believe you won't go out to Colorado and set up, or Wyoming or whatever." But really the way it started was, when we started down this road, my wife, she's a good Italian girl, and her family's in North Metro Atlanta, said, "We'll go anywhere in the world you want, as long as it's in Georgia."
Tom Rowland: Well, you almost got out of Georgia. Blue Ridge is right at the top, at the northern border.
Bill Oyster: Yeah, so I found the best trout fishing in Georgia. The Toccoa River up here, at that time especially, was like nothing I had ever seen in the South. Dry fly hatches you could set your watch by. So we moved up here actually to be near that river. It's turned out to be a completely optimal place for us, because we've got the Atlanta airport less than two hours away, so guys can fly in and get a car service to bring them up to Blue Ridge. They can stay in the inn, and then the car takes them back at the end of the week. And we can do 12 months a year. Wyoming is amazing in July, but it's a different animal.
Tom Rowland: Oh, I know. That's how I ended up in Key West. I tried to spend a winter in Wyoming.
Bill Oyster: Yeah, right. But here we go 12 months a year, and then of course, for my own selfish benefit, we can hitch up the flats boat and leave at 3:30 in the morning to beat Atlanta traffic, and we're casting at redfish and tarpon by 10:30 in the morning. So it's been a really ideal place for me as a fisherman. Now I have no interest in leaving, 'cause I can catch trout out the back door and tarpon a half a day's car ride away. It's worked out.
Tom Rowland: That's so cool. Well, you did it, man. You did it. It's really awesome. Okay, so where do they go to get on this waiting list? 'Cause you're probably gonna have some people getting on the waiting list.
Bill Oyster: So, if you get on the website, oysterbamboo.com, you can see all the details of all this good stuff. I think you can sign up right on the class page for the wait list. But if you have any difficulties there or any questions, you can get ahold of Cassie through the email there or the contact forms. She's the real gatekeeper here. She keeps all of those ducks in a row for us. You get on Cassie's good side, you can get anything you want around here.
Tom Rowland: I have one like that at my house, too. All right, so Bill Oyster, Oyster Bamboo Rods in Blue Ridge, Georgia. We have Captain Rhett Morris here, who was just on the podcast earlier. If you haven't heard that podcast, you need to go back and listen to it. More Fish Florida. It was a great podcast we did together, and that's where he told me the story about the bamboo rod and the permit. So I'm glad we made this happen. Bill, thank you for coming on. I really appreciate it. Next time I'm in Blue Ridge, I will definitely stop by and say hello to you. I like Blue Ridge. It's a nice town, and I have certainly experienced some of that trout fishing around there, and it's really good. And Rhett, I'll see you soon sometime, I'm sure.
Capt. Rhett Morris: That sounds awesome, buddy. All right. Thank you for having us on.
Bill Oyster: It's a pleasure to chat with you both.
Tom Rowland: Thank you. I appreciate it. It was a great chat. We'll talk to you guys later.
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