Trout4,

I have not fished the Madison, but from some of the Madison River videos, it looks a lot faster flowing than the San Juan River. There are some fast areas on the San Juan, but I have not used the Tenkara rod on those sections. Most of the SJ water I’ve used the Tenkara rod on has been shallow (at most 3 feet deep) and is easy to wade. However, I did have some trouble with reaching the fish on bigger pools that were deeper. I did not try a longer line since I was not used to landing big fish by “Hand Lining” them. So it was more on getting the fly to them instead of having a hard time to land them via “Hand Lining”. San Juan trout are notorious for still fighting hard while in the landing net. So “Hand Lining” is tough to do on the large San Juan trout. I should mention that I use a telescoping landing net to get extra reach for landing the fish (http://www.riverbum.com/Measure-Net-...ic-Handle-Net/).

As far as keeping the rod vertical, I still put sideways pressure on them by leaning the rod over to the side in order to make the fish swim to one side or the other. I read a post on the Tenkara USA forum about using a Pull/Push method of fighting a fish on a Tenkara Rod:

(https://www.tenkarausa.com/forum/vie...t=geezer#p5224)

“… since I've used the 'right hand on top of handle (pull) and left hand on bottom (push) I've learned how to use the full length of my Amago rod. One of 3 things happens: 1. The small fly (16 or 18 soft hackle) pulls free; 2. The 5x tippet snaps; 3. I bring in the fish. On the last dozen 2-3 lb bass I've caught lately, nos. 3 and 1 have happened, and in that order. When the fish pops the tippet, it's because I didn't get the rod into the 'Pull/Push' method mentioned earlier.”

I’ve used this Pull/Push method (what I called vertical) with leaning to one side or the other to land fish. My hand position for the Pull/Push method is to Pull the top of the handle with the index and middle fingers of my right hand, and Push the bottom of the handle with the thumb of my left hand. I’ve used this Pull/Push method on my regular fly rods and I’ve had a lot fewer break offs. By tilting the handle and leaning to the left, I’m able to steer the fish to the left, and vice versa for steering a fish to the right.

When a fish runs, I push my arms out towards the fish and take a step or two towards the fish. Chances are that when a fish runs while using the Pull/Push method, the rod tilts towards the fish that TenkaraBum mentioned.

These methods work for both the Amago and Iwana Tenkara USA rods. The Amago definitely turns fish better than the Iwana.

Hope this helps. I’m still learning.


Thanks

Vinny