It is 53 decimeters. It is a Daiwa Kiyose 53MF which is a zoom rod that can be fished at 4.8m (15.75') or 5.3m (17.25') and is the next longer length to the Daiwa 43MF I just listed this week. Erik was looking for a big water / big fish rod to use in the Green River One Fly competition and I was looking for someone who regularly catches bigger fish than I do to put the rod through it's paces and see what it can handle. He didn't hook any monster trout so he took it carp fishing. It seems to handle carp just fine.

It isn't on the website yet because I had just gotten in a very few rods for evaluation. Erik has one, I have one and one is doing a little surf casting in Equador. The video coming out now does kind of catch me flat footed. I do plan on stocking the rod, though. From the very first introduction of tenkara into the US, there have been requests for rods that could handle bigger fish. About that time, there was a video from Shimano making the rounds that showed a guy in Alaska or Canada catching steelhead with a rod that looked a lot like a tenkara rod on steroids. TenkaraUSA and I were quick to say, no no, that's not tenkara, but the desire to catch bigger fish than a tenkara rod can handle didn't go away.

Since I've come to realize that whether a fishing style is or isn't tenkara (pure tenkara) is of no particular importance if it is fun, I've started handling requests for big fish rods differently. (It is important if you are trying to preserve purity or protect market share. It is not important if you just want to go fishing.) Most of the very long and very strong Japanese rods are horrendously expensive, but the Kiyose MF series is pretty reasonably priced - within reach of someone who wants to give carp fishing a try - and certainly much less expensive than it would be to buy a new 8 or 9 weight fly rod, reel, and line. There is a 63MF in the series, which is almost 21 feet long at full extension, but I wanted to try the 53MF first and go to the longer rod only if the limits of the 53 aren't sufficient to handle the fish people want to catch. Pushing envelopes is a step by step process.

It is tenkara fishing but it isn't a tenkara rod. It is a keiryu rod but it isn't keiryu fishing. I think I'll call it "fishing." I suspect any day now the people who want to preserve the purity of keiryu fishing will complain that I am bastardizing their sport.

You can always tell the pioneers. They're the ones with the arrows in their backs.