Arundinaria gigantea
Tom, is this what use use for cane poles? I was always thinking of sugar cane, since you was always eating a piece of sugar cane. ;)
http://www.lewisbamboo.com/gigantea.html
Maybe I've got it wrong. :-\
I'm not familiar with the scientific names of the canes, but, yes, that looks like one of the cane pole canes. They make a good fishing pole. I'm not sure what they sell for retail now, but as late as 10 years ago you could get a lacquered pole for 50¢ for a small 5 or 6 foot one to $1.00 for a 10' one and $3.00 to $5.00 for those in the 15'-20' range.
We used 18 and 20 foot long Calcutta poles for dip nets and for heavy fish in salt water when I was younger. They had butts about 3 inches in diameter and tips almost the size of a broom handle. We could swing a 20 lb., or better, Snook onto the bridge with one. They cost a bunch, around $10.00 each.
Burma cane was a prime cane and was used as trolling, bridge, or casting rods before glass took over. We used it some, but I was on the cusp of its time running out. Burma cane is almost solid, it's hole is very small and you paid more for one that was solid than one that had a larger hole. They made good poles for reels because they were so strong, but, would take a set if not cared for properly. Most everyone's pole eventually took a set from being wet and leaned against a wall.
Those were memorable days when you could find men and boys alike standing out in front of a bait shop and examining all of the poles in a rack. It was a right of passage to be let to pick your own. :)
We had the native canes by the creek were i was raised. But we did not use them for fishing poles they were to thin and whippy maybe cause they were heavyly shaded. There was another type by the house that we used. The trick was to clean them down to the smallest tip, tie a loop on the end and half a brick on the butt and hang them in the barn from the tip till they cured. The weight of the brick would pull them straight. If you cut them in the late fall and let them cure through the winter they make great poles that could last for more than a year.
My middle girls first fish was a 5lb. gar that she foul hooked in the tail with one of them poles it was about as big around as your little finger at the butt and about 8' long. She used the same pole all year.
Tom, we must be behind the times over here. Any bait house worth its salt still has a rack of cane poles out front. I don't know what they cost anymore, 'cause I just go cut my own. They're growing in the ditch on some of our roads.
When I was a kid, back in the last century, they used to sell those great big long ones at the pecan broker's place. Folks would use them to knock the pecans out of the trees.
The native peoples of the Southeast (the pre-Columbus native americans) extensively used the native switch cane (Arundanaria tecta) in many ways. One particular favorite use was as shafts for arrows. There are certain neo-tropical song birds that thrive on the native switch cane tickets in the southern bottomlands. Sadly, this type of habitat is disappearing...............
There is also a serpent called the "cane break Rattler" that hangs around bamboo too.
The Texas Ranger had two particularly fine cane-break rattler skins in his museum Office. I am most familiar with those denizens. Probably stepped over a dozen today :o.
Wildflower has one of those skins as well, think she keeps Jeff in line with it. I can just see it now, Jeff on the floor, stretched out, dog playing, and Wildflower slides that snake skin across his chest, with rattler goin, aw DanG, hope she has a camera on him when she does.
Yep, He sent the Wildflower that and she loved it. You can guess what he sent me.
I remember buying cane poles when I was a yewt in Flour Bluff Texas. I am not nearly as ancient experienced as some but those poles are still vivid in my memory. And they are still available around lakes here during Crappy season. People hanging off every available bridge for 6 weeks many with cane poles. Saw one guy wrap a bungi cord around his cane pole to the "No Fishing From Bridge" sign so he could take a snooze in his lawn chair, on the very narrow shoulder where highway traffic goes whizzing by at 70+ MPH.
Yep we still got cane poles in these backwoods parts.
I have a bamboo pole for salmon fishing. It's an Orvis and I think it was bought back in the 50's. It was grand fathers. I even have a spare tip. The rod was rarely used and is a collectors item.
Orvis Company (http://www.orvis.com/store/product_directory_chart.asp?dir%5Fid=758&group%5Fid=759&cat%5Fid=5112&subcat%5Fid=6705)
Pricey :o
Here is a pic of switch cane ( Arundanaria tecta) from an east Texas bottomland. I am sure that many of y'all have seen it. Not fishing pole cane, but vey valuable to birds and the bottomland ecosystem.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/14370/switchcane.jpg)
Yep. "Bottom"land is right. Many a unruly adolescent Texas bottom has been the recipient of that species after bein caught doing something it shouldn't. :o I recognized it right off. ;D
I guess they don't call it "switch cane" for nothin' ;D.
What some kids got was the 'hazel switch' or the 'wooden spoon'. ::)
Living down in the bottom with the Old Woman of the Woods, for many years, I utilized the switch cane. I made my arrow shafts from them, with intricately shaped, round roofing discs for arrowheads. I also made, carved, smoking pipes from them and hiked upriver from time to time and would sell them to the folks who regularly fished at one of the bridges.
And, of course, for fishing poles and woven camp houses, with palmetto.
The pith inside the cane, well dried, made good firestarter for spark and friction starting.
You could whup a big ol' stumptail into submission with one right quickly. ;D
The switch cane breaks are disappearing. I don't know why.
'Cause the kids are growing up. I had one that would throw the sling blade, maul and spade into the woods when he got some age on him too. :D :D
I've got switch cane all over my place. The dryer it gets, the less of it grows. I'm figuring that the drought has a lot to do with it and wild azaleas too.