Tuesday, February 4, 2014


A few months ago, I ran into an acquaintance while he was fishing on the Rhine. We spoke for a few minutes, and when the conversation turned to fiberglass for some forgotten reason, he mentioned that he had an old glass rod at home that he never used anymore, and asked if I'd like it. Naturally answered in the affirmative, and didn't give it much more thought. A few weeks later, we all met for beer and some fly tying at our local bar, and he brought along this:

I love delving in to the history of an older rod, and a quick search on the Fiberglass Fly Rodders forum not only provided me with some interesting background information, but also informed me that the JET series is a relatively sought after vintage rod. According the the Hardy numbering system, which in 1965 started using a single letter to denote the year, and assuming I'm reading the rather illegible code properly as a "z", this rod is from 1971. I'm not sure what the first letter is because it looks like an "m" to me, but according to the link that's not possible...

The JET series of rods were designed by the famed John E. Tarantino, an expert caster and member of the Golden Gate casting club, who worked for the Fisher rod company designing rods and blanks for companies like Hardy and Scientific Anglers. As interest in Fisher-designed rods grew, Hardy had Fisher build a duplicate plant in Alnwick, England, from which Tarantino's JET (his initials) series were produced and sold from 1967 to 1975. Tragically, John was shot and killed during a robbery in San Francisco at the height of his career as an internationally renowned rodmaker.

John E. Tarantino
Come March, I'll throw on a Battenkill III reel, (Sadly I don't have an appropriately sized Hardy reel!) take it down to the river and add my own little contribution to the history of this beautiful old rod.


  1. That is an amazing story. Thank you for sharing your friends generosity. That is a great piece of fly rod history. You will enjoy this rod and put your stamp on it's history.

  2. This link might help with determing your rods age /Mfgr date

    I have recently acquired a pair of these rods which I hope to fish with this season.
    A fellow of the angle

    1. If I had been completely observant and fully read your "post" I would/ should have noticed that you had already included the same link under your highlighted hyper-link thing... but a lot like actually fishing you sometimes miss or do not always pick up on certain "triggers"
      One other thing regarding numbers/letters on these old rods I am still myself unable to determine what the number(s) on the sections represent. I noticed that on your rod the number 35 is present and I have other Hardy "glass" rods that have single /double numbers. I can only guess that they may be the individual numbers for the particular production run? Any other ideas or info would be welcome!

      A fellow of the angle