2015 isn’t over, but eastern Iowa got 11 inches of snow last night. The temperature will be back up to 51 on US Thanksgiving, so the snow won’t be on the ground too long for now. But combined with course preparation and teaching pressures, if there are going to be more days on the stream this year, there aren’t going to be many.
At my age, time just whips by. The annual routine of academic life somehow helps speed it along. Returning to fly fishing might have helped slow it down a little. Looking it up, James and I waddled forth to face the new world of tenkara fishing on Saturday, April 11. We had shiny new rods, me a TUSA Rhodo, him a Nissin Fine Mode Kosansui 320 keiryu rod. I was wearing a brand new Patagonia convertible vest. The only flies we had were the three sakasa kebari that came with my TUSA all in one package and the three sent by TenkaraBum with James’s kids’ starter package. We had no real idea what we were doing. We caught three brook trout.
It does, now, seem like a long time ago. We have half a clue what we’re doing now. We fish almost exclusively on self-tied flies. The rod collection is up to 8. Here and in following posts is my year-end(ish) impression of some of the main bits of gear we used as we learned to fish this first year, starting with rods.
Tenkara USA Rhodo. I’ve read all the head-shaking in favour of Japanese rods and I don’t doubt it’s basically correct. In fact, I’ve bought or will soon buy the Japanese alternatives. Maybe it’s just first love. The Rhodo was the first rod I held in my hand, and at this point it feels like an extension of myself. I fished it as my go-to rod all year long. I know how it behaves. I can cast it now without thinking and it does what I intend. Pound for pound, especially at $215, maybe a Nissin Pro Spec ($165) would be a better starting point for a short zoom rod. (At this writing, the Rhodo can be had for $150 in TUSA’s Thanksgiving sale). Maybe next year I’ll move on. But I wouldn’t trade it. It’s bendy, with a penny rating of 15 and an RFI of 4.3 when fully extended, and it’s fairly light at 59g (all from Tom Davis’s reviews and measurements, http://tetontenkara.blogspot.com/p/rod-flex-index-chart.html). I learned to cast massless wet flies with it (to the extent that I actually can, but they go where I want them to go, so…), starting with an amano kebari our first time on the water. But toward the end of the year I increasingly fished tungsten bead nymphs and for all the talk about the unsuitability of soft full-flex tenkara rods for this, I’ve never experienced any issues with hook sets. I almost always fished it fully extended at 320, shortening it only in rare situations with extreme tree canopy or other obstacles. I was always fishing with too long a line in these situations (I fish it normally with a 10′ number 3 level line and about 4 feet of 5X Scientific Anglers tippet), and I never got around to fishing the shorter configurations with a line as long as the rod. It’s quite possible the alternatives are even better (a Nissin Pro Spec 6:4 rates at 11 pennies and RFI 3.5 at the same weight, a Tenkara Times Watershed 330 at 11.5 pennies and RFI 4.3 and is lighter at 53g; I hope to try both in 2016). But the Rhodo is plenty good, two years after its introduction.
Nissin Fine Mode Kosansui 320. When he was temporarily out of the 270, Chris Stewart included this with his kids’ starter set. I’m happy about that. James has never had any issues with the length. This is James’s rod. I’ve fished it as my sole rod one full day solo, and rigged with weighted nymphs as an alternate rod on two days. This is a superb rod at its price point ($110). If you wanted to try tenkara on small streams, it would be a vastly better starting point than any of the similarly priced me-too Chinese rods. It’s a different critter than the Rhodo. It’s both considerably lighter (1.6 oz without tip plug, according to TenkaraBum) and far stiffer, with a pennies rating of 25. Every time I take it from James to free a snag or whatever I marvel at its feel. When you’re tossing around weighted buggers or nymphs like we do a lot of the time, the flex differences are all but moot. I found it a strange experience casting kebari because I’m just not used to the stiffness. It has a very bendy and sensitive tip and James certainly doesn’t have any trouble getting the kebaris where he wants them to go. I think the stiffness and backbone helps him now that he’s started regularly catching trout. He instinctively raises the rod with both hands and lets the fish have the flex. He fishes it with either a 4 or a 3.5 level line. I used a 3 level line the day I fished it exclusively and I had no trouble casting kebari once I got used to it, though I mostly just tossed around buggers. The light weight and the backbone make it a great rod for a youngster (James was seven when he started with it, and cast it single-handed from the beginning with no issues).
Dragontail Tenkara Tatsu and Shadowfire. I don’t know for sure, but I think these are probably in the category of rebranded alibaba.com rods mentioned by Jason Klass. Certainly the “Moonlit Fly Fishing” vest I bought from the Dragontail site that James uses is – you can buy it on Amazon with a bunch of different monikers slapped on it. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing untoward about this. I just didn’t realize that’s what a lot of these cheaper small-outfit brandings were. James loves the vest. On their merits, I’ve made what I think about the Dragontail branded rods pretty plain. I fished with the Tatsu only once and didn’t warm up to it at all. It’s stiff (29p, RFI 7.9) and heavy (3.1oz). It’s cheap, I guess. I fished two full days with the Shadowfire (19p, 5.2, 2.9oz) and while it’s also a bit heavier than most mid-to-high-end Japanese 360 rods, it’s also much cheaper. I enjoyed using it and if you want to try tenkara while spending less than a hundred bucks (it’s currently selling for $79.99) for a twelve foot rod, there really isn’t much downside to it. I managed to break the tip of both rods (lilian pulled off at its mount on an extended cross-stream snag where I couldn’t reach the tip of the rod; still don’t really know how the Tatsu broke) and replacements were cheap and shipped instantly. I basically think there’s a lot of value at the Dragontail Tenkara site, and all my interactions with them have been top notch (I also bought my Shimano folding net from them). I just think anyone who really gets into tenkara is pretty quickly going to want something more than cheap Chinese rods.
Nissin Zerosum 6:4 400. This is the nicest rod I’ve cast so far. I bought it while fixating a bit too much on the advice to fish a shorter line on the longest rod you can get away with. On most of the streams I fish, a 400 cm rod is longer than you can get away with. As a result, I fished it for part of one day (truncated when James filled his waders on an early trip) and for a full day when my other rods were all laid up and awaiting new tipsets. If I’d started with a rod this long it might have been different. But I knew the stream pretty well by the time I took it out, and I knew the stream from fishing a 320 cm rod. It was hard to get used to working the pools with the longer rod and some water was much more difficult to access. The flip side was that I had almost thrillingly longer range when I could exploit it. I fished with an eleven foot number 3 level line. Kebaris almost cast themselves. I wish I could use it more, and plan to take it on western excursions next year to larger rivers and alpine lakes.
Just recently I got a Nissin Zerosum 7:3 360 for my birthday. I also bought a Suntech Suikei GM 39 zoom rod. And while the latter is supposed to be superior to the TUSA Sato, I’ve hankered for a Sato all year because I love the Rhodo so much. The Sato is currently knocked down from $215 to $150 in the TUSA Thanksgiving sale, so I just ordered one. I haven’t had a chance to fish any of these yet. Other rods on the wish list that I expect will be purchased and fished in 2016 are a Tenkara Times Watershed 330, a Nissin Pro Spec, and a Suntech Kurenai. And I suppose everyone pretty much has to buy a Suntech TenkaraBum 36.
