Quote Originally Posted by CM_Stewart View Post
The Rinfu is a truly fabulous rod, although my impression was that it had been discontinued. ...I was told they were no longer available from Daiwa (may have been a misunderstanding - I took it to mean discontinued but it is possible they were just sold out. I will try to clarify that. If they will be available in the spring I will definitely have them in stock!).....
Chris, It was Keiichi Okushi at Tenkara -Ya that told me the Rinfu rods were sold out until spring. And as Lynn pointed out they are still on the Daiwa website.While the Sagiri two way rods are not. But Sagiri single length rods are on the Daiwa website. It was the Sagari 45 rod that Keiichi-san suggested as equivalent to the Rinfu, though it is a little heavier and is a lower cost rod.

凛風SR (Rinfū SR)
http://all.daiwa21.com/fishing/item/...puu/index.html

早霧ＭＣ（さぎり）(Haya kiri MC (sa giri))
http://all.daiwa21.com/fishing/item/...iri/index.html

If the Rinfū rods are available in the spring it might be interesting to see what people do with them. Especially people who saw them being used in Japan. In general it seems people here use the rods just as they come. But in Japan they always seem to add tennis tape or a foam grip to them or first wrap the grip section with line to improve the balance of the rod. Which I image will shorten the center of gravity lenght an inch or 2. Here are two webpages showing the box they come in and how they added a foam grip:

Packaging:
http://yowzo2.naturum.ne.jp/d2013-01-05.html

Adding the foam grip:
http://yowzo2.naturum.ne.jp/e1562040.html


Quote Originally Posted by CM_Stewart View Post
.... I would not have categorized the Rinfu or Sagiri as keiryu rods but as seiryu rods, or hae rods. In this usage, hae does not mean fly and they are not called fly rods. That is a google mistranslation. Hae is the type of fish, so they are rods for catching that type of fish (called pale chub in English). (The confusion over hae=fish and hae=fly is very similar to the English bow=prow of a ship, bow=knotted ribbon in a girl's hair, bow=weapon used with arrows, bow=bending over at the waist.) Also, seiryu rods and tenkara rods are subsets of keiryu, so the Rinfu would have been listed under the category of keiryu (stream fishing) as opposed to ocean fishing, carp fishing, etc.
In wanting to call them Seiryū (清流) rods you are battling Daiwa's own classification. Again, as Lynn posted, when you go to the Rod index page they link , I think, 18 classes of rods and Seiryū is not among them. It is the link to the Keiryū (渓流) rods that takes you to the page with the Rinfū, Sagiri and Tenkara rods.

Rod index page:
http://all.daiwa21.com/fishing/item3/rod/index.html

Keiryu Index page, where they list 5 classes of rods;Mountain stream/ headwaters, Main Stream, Zero Fishing, Tenkara and the last group with Rinfū and Sagiri rods grouped under the bottom group under the ハエ・万能竿・その他 (Hae/fly - Universal/Versatile Rod - Others) label.

http://all.daiwa21.com/fishing/item3...ryu/index.html

I will have to disagree with you a little about the ハエ竿 translation. But it's not worth splitting hairs to much. It is basically a battle of homonyms. ハエ竿 will translate as Fly Rod. When I first found the term I assumed it was just one of many ways to spell Fly - Rod. The Japanese often seem to have 3 or more ways to write the same thing. In this case it was Eddie Yamakawa who straightened me out about it, I think it was in a post on Anthony Naples old blog.

Eddie explained that Hae was the name for a common house fly and that if a Japanese person who does not fish freshwater streams - if they saw the term ハエ竿 they would think House Fly rod. And that it is only people who fish fresh water streams who would also be aware that ハエ ( hae) also refers to a type of fish. Thus ハエ is the word for a house fly and also for a type of fish. So writing in English Eddie said these types of small fresh water fish are called Flies. ハエ, hae, being like your example of bow or other homonyms, words with the same spelling but different meanings.

If you look up ハヤ ( Haya) on Wikipedia you will find it is a class of fish. Wherein it states that they are also referred to by 2 generic names. ハエ ( Hae) or Flies, and ハヨ(Hayo or Hajo). Thus ends the beating of the dead horse.

Looking around Japanese web sites I frequently see rods with ハエ printed on them. And less frequently rods with ハヤ written on them. I see both types being modified into Tenkara rods. Google ハエ竿・テンカラ竿を自作 ( = Hae Rod - Tenkara Rod Homebrew/self made) and you will probably find a few web pages showing how they go about it. Usually adding some type of grip but sometimes discarding a section to make a shorter rod.

Quote Originally Posted by CM_Stewart View Post
...My personal reaction to the blog post was wondering what the big deal was. People here in the US who have been fishing the Madison in MT, Arkansas in CO, the Green in UT or any larger rivers have been using those techniques naturally for as long as they've had rods available. I think that is the difference between believing that you must look to Japan for all knowledge about tenkara on the one hand (with the admonition that if the masters don't do it, it somehow isn't proper tenkara), and just taking the rods and going fishing, learning as you go on the other. When the first learns that the masters in fact do it that way it is a revelation. When the latter learns they do it that way, it is "yeah, I thought so."
I guess I had a little different reaction. I thought their conclusion was that there are a lot of misconceptions that the tenkara masters mostly used techniques within a narrow range but they found that while the basic fundamentals are narrow, after being well grounded in the basics, the techniques used were quite diverse. Just as I thought the main stream style of the Gamakatsu field tester was a lot different from what the DT guys described. I think of it like my experiences going to an art museums. You see the famous painting of Van Gogh or Dali, kind of weird stuff, but then you see their sketch books and see they were also very skilled at making life like sketches using proper proportions of their subjects. Know the fundamentals and be skilled at them before becoming more creative. But as you stated it's just fishing.


D