Show Time Fly Rod Craftsmen Are Among The Cast Who Will Show Their Stuff At 37th Annual Big Horn Sports And Recreation Show

Steve Moran has come a long way since he got a handle on customizing fishing rods 15 years ago.

What started as a part-time service for Spokane anglers has bloomed into an international business.

Moran hand-carved his niche with scrimshaw designs in fly rod reel seats. The craft evolved into a business for making custom wood rod handles in the shop behind his South Hill home.

The most recent shipment of his products went to Germany, but his work can be found in custom rod shops around the country and in Cabela’s catalog.

Moran is one of many regional outdoor industry talents whose work will be on display Thursday through Sunday during the 37th annual Big Horn Sports and Recreation Show at Spokane Interstate Fairgrounds.

The show, which will fill three acres of building space at the fairgrounds this year, is the Inland Northwest Wildlife Council’s annual fund-raiser for wildlife conservation.

Top names emerging from the heap of entertainment and seminar speakers include Jim Zumbo, editorat-large for Outdoor Life magazine, quick-draw artist Bob Munden and Larry Schoenborn, host of the former TV series “Fishing the West.”

Kids can catch fish at huge fishing ponds and hunters can enter their trophy big-game mounts in a display for scoring and judging.

Row after row of outdoor products and services will line the fairgrounds buildings, along with outfitters offering everything from moose hunts in Canada to raft trips in Idaho.

Moran has been part of the show for about 11 years.

“The Big Horn Show keeps my tail busy with three or four months of custom building and rod repair work,” said Moran, who worked as a furnace operator at Inland Foundry until his hobby bloomed into a business.

“I get my national and international work from The International Fly Tackle Dealer’s Show in Denver.”

Moran has three main products:

Reel seats, the cylinder at the end of a fly rod handle where the reel fastens to the rod. This is the choice spot for Moran to apply his personal scrimshaw touch to match the client’s personality. Usually it’s a favorite fish, fly pattern or insect.

Rod handles made of exotic woods such as cocobolo, zebra wood, figurative maple or black walnut burls.

Complete hand-made rods.

As with any quality hand-crafted item, there’s more to Moran’s work than meets the eye.

The beauty of the wood handles is on the outside. The time is invested inside.

To lighten the handle for better balance and less arm fatigue while casting, Moran bores the inside of the handle and fills it with cork rings.

A wood handle has several advantages over traditional cork, he says. Wood lasts longer and can look new forever, with oiling and care.

Moran’s craft is always evolving. His first scrimshaw reel seats were made of deer and elk antler. But the Oriental market for aphrodisiacs has sent prices for antlers into orbit.

A new synthetic called Micarta looks like bone and comes in colors ranging for ivory to black. “It turns easier, holds up better and looks nice all the time,” he said.

Moran said he snickers at his early work. Experts say Cubans practice 10 or 15 years to be adept at the art of wrapping their nation’s best cigars.

A serious rod builder is always improving, too, Moran said.

Only someone who’s labored over the details of building a fly rod could appreciate the ease with which his practiced hands do their work.

He sat in his shop with a spool of thread mounted on a table. He fastened a line guide on a rod blank with tight perfect wraps - in less than two minutes.

“I have a $600 rod wrapper on the table over there, but I never use it because it’s too slow,” he said.

Not counting the time needed to build the special handles, Moran can build a rod from top to bottom in six hours, plus two hours of drying time for each of two coats to produce an immaculate finish.

“You never stop learning slightly better ways to wrap and put on better finishes,” he said. “To keep competitive with other good rod builders, you have to explore new ideas to give your customers more for their money than they can get from a factory rod.”

One of his secrets to a perfect finish is a box that dries the finish on the rods at 120 degrees.

Amid the constant change, some things remain remarkably constant in his business.

Brown trout continue to be the most popular scrimshaw art for his reel seats. The caddis fly is the insect most anglers immortalize.

But getting good cork is harder and more expensive each year, making his wood handles even more appealing.

“The beauty of working with wood is that you never know what its going to look like until you turn it,” he said. “Sometimes a block will turn out so beautiful, I can’t stop until I’ve put the whole thing on the lathe.”

Despite the selection of rich woods, the blond fiddleback maple continues to be the best seller for rod handles.

“It looks the most like cork,” he said. “Traditions die hard.”

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