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Kill Devil Hills, NC 75°
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Jul 4 2:00 am
Riomar P.O. Box 2023 Kill Devil Hills,N.C. 27948 (252) 202-7962 |
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| This article originally appeared in the June/July 2003 issue of Saltwater Flyfishing Magazine. | |
The first time I really conversed with Capt. Dave Rohde, I wondered if he had been sniffing the surfboard resin he works with or the epoxy he ties with. The conversation segued wildly from glassing surfboards, to tying flies, to wrapping rods, to boat building, to favorite travel destinations, to our tastes in women. Granted, the both of us were brimming with adrenaline. We had just been formally introduced after surfing the best waves that tropical storm Kyle threw at North Carolina’s Outer Banks last season, and our excitement was compounded by the prospects of an early run of false albacore down at Harker’s Island. In the surfing world, Dave Rohde enjoys the status of an underground legend – because his laminations are among the lightest and strongest in the business, pro surfers from all over the East Coast want him to glass their boards. He is also an important figure in the Outer Banks fly-fishing scene. Rohde’s personality is so voluble, so gregarious that he seems like a fixture, but he’s actually a peripatetic soul. Listening to his life story for the first time, it seemed appropriate that we were on the move, passing through the warm, late afternoon light on the Ocracoke ferry. Rohde grew up surfing in the Northwest, meanwhile learning to fly fish on the renowned Eel and Trinity Rivers for steelhead. He relocated to the warmer clime of San Diego, and, during flat spells, he mastered the more delicate forms of fly-fishing by casting for trout in the Sierra Nevada. Rohde taught himself to glass his own surfboards, and this new profession taught him to lead an admirably self-reliant lifestyle. In 1983, Rohde moved to Nags head, North Carolina, where he eventually fell in love with Wave Riding Vehicles (WRV), one of the more important East Coast surfboard companies. “ I love the Outer Banks,” Rohde raves, It’s a place where you can really become a waterman in the fullest sense. Where I grew up, you surfed, you fished, you dived, and you knew how to run a boat. Here, too, there’s so much room for discovery.” Rohde’s position at WRV allowed him both to explore the region and to travel extensively. On a surf trip in Chile’s eleventh region, he was delighted by the trout fishing he encountered and spent several seasons guiding at Expediciones Coyhaique and heart of Patagonia. But
for the past decade, Dave Rohde has focused on fly fishing for
sea trout and drum in the sounds, striper fishing
around
Manns
Harbor, and, of course, false albacore at Harker’s Island.
On a snotty autumn morning, we found sporadic pods of fickle
fish. Despite the wind blowing my line all over the deck, I finally
got
off a good cast, hooked one, and performed the little-tunny-two-step.
As I looked back, Rohde stood there beaming. |
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| Written
by: Terry Gibson |
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