New Daiwa Rods, Tenkara RT

Fishing Tenkara Fishing
1

Hello, I just discovered several new Daiwa rods announced Jan 4, 2015 on the tenkarakebari website. Not all of them are Tenkara rods. And I haven’t had time yet to sort out the translation to gain a clearer understanding of what all is being talked about. However, it is clear that there is a new line of entry level. low priced Tenkara rods called テンカラRT , Tenkara RT that comes in 4 lengths from 2.7m to 3.6m. I am not yet certain but they seem to have been developed with the assistance of 片山悦二さん ( Katayama Etsuji-san) who I know was involved with development of Daiwa level lines, and perhaps also with previous level line Tenkara rods.

Anyway, for now here are the links to the tenkarakebari blog post and the Daiwa webpage for the Tenkara RT rods. There is also mentioned a Tenkara Type 4 rod, which I haven’t quit figured out yet. Maybe I will look into it more later. It could be that the Tenkara Type 4 is the same thing as the Tenkara RT, though I did not see it on the Daiwa page, or could be showing up under the Neo page, since Neo is mentioned at the top of the Tenkara RT page too. Though my guess is the Tenkara Bum is out ahead of this and thus far keeping it under his hat.

The tenkarakebari post:
http://tenkarakebari.jugem.jp/?eid=1187

The Daiwa pages:
Tenkara RT
http://all.daiwa21.com/fishing/item/rod/ten_rd/tenkara_rt/index.html

Oh, wait. I think these are new Neo rods:
http://all.daiwa21.com/fishing/item/rod/ten_rd/15_neotenkara/index.html

Main Rod page, where you can see the ones marked “New”, in Red,
http://all.daiwa21.com/fishing/item3/rod/keiryu/index.html

The other rods mentioned in the tenkara kebari pages are these rods:

◎渓流・源流 １９TYPE (mountain stream - headwaters)
◎本流 １０TYPE ( main stream)
◎ゼロ釣法 ５TYPE (zero fishing method)
◎ハエ・万能竿 ６TYPE (fly (a type of fish, Hae) - universal pole)
◎テンカラ竿 ４TYPE (tenkara pole)

fwiw,
D

2

I have a Tenkara RT 270, which I ordered thinking it would be a good small stream rod. As far as I know, it is the only Japanese true tenkara rod made in that length. Big disappointment. It is extremely stiff and reminded me of the TFO tenkara rod. Not at all what you would want for 5-8" brookies. Also, the grip screw cap is a two part cap, which can come apart with rough handling, allowing the rod sections to slide out the back end. I decided not to carry them.

3

The Tenkara Type 4 rod means that Daiwa has 4 types (models) of tenkara rod, the Enshou, the NEO, the NEO SC and the NEO RT. The NEO and the NEO RT are new this year. The NEO, which I have not yet seen, looks like a cheapened version of the Enshou, which is being discontinued.

4

Chris, it is kind of surprising that these rods were so far from what was expected from Daiwa. Though I didn’t expect anything spectacular at a price of about $138. After making the post I checked the troutnews website and these new rods didn’t even merit a mention there. The two most recent entries at troutnews under Tenkara were the Nissin Royal Stage rods in early Dec 2014 and before that an Asis Fly Tying kit in Aug. Not much tenkara news there at all in 2104, other than new accessories like new level line, or folding tamo models. Really the only tenkara rod announced there in 2014 before the Royal Stage rods was the Tenryū rod last Feb. Thus going back to the 2014 Osaka Fishing show.

I would expect Daiwa to announce a replacement for the Enshou rods a the Osaka Fishing show in 3 weeks. Unless Daiwa is lowering their interest in the high end Tenkara market, which I doubt. I have read in many places, on Japanese websites, and both the Tenkara Guides and Discover Tenkara guys mentioned the popularity of the Rinfu rods for Tenkara fishing. If Daiwa is paying attention I’d think they would basically take that rod paint it a different color, and put tenkara clothes on it, i.e. a handle grip of some kind suddenly a new tenkara rod, or maybe suddenly fixing something that wasn’t broke. Actually it looks a lot like Daiwa kept the Rinfu paint and dropped the rod underneath with these low end tenkara rods. ( Ha, it’s not a Type 4 Rod but 4 Types of rods. my disclaimer is I admitted I hadn’t yet really sorted out the translation)

The Rinfu rod:
http://all.daiwa21.com/fishing/item/rod/keiryu_rd/rinpuu/index.html

The 2015 Osaka Fishing Show:
http://www.fishing.or.jp/english/

D

5

Would that it were true. I believe the new Daiwa NEO rod, not the RT, SC or Minomushi (which is actually a 5th model of tenkara rod) is intended to be the replacement for the Enshou rods. That’s the one I haven’t seen yet (although I have ordered one for evaluation). The formal announcement may come at the Osaka show but they would not announce a rod that the retailers do not already know about and have access to. If there is an announcement, I would bet it is of the new NEO rods.

I suspect that the tenkara market in Japan is too small (particularly the high end) and that Daiwa is focusing their developmental efforts elsewhere. The Rinfu rods are wonderful, but were discontinued years ago and there has been nothing to replace them. Daiwa did not design or market them for tenkara, but for hae (also called yamabe or oikawa - a type of chub). They now have no rods at all for hae and it appears they have abandoned that segment of the market. I hope I will be proven wrong, but to date there is no evidence to the contrary.

6 
           Chris I think we may be seeing more changes in the tenkara products from the larger companies in Japan. In my experience competing companies usually monitor closely what their competitors are doing and what one does the other makes a counter move in whatever direction they think gives them an overall competive advantage. 

              Maybe I am getting the translation wrong. I have learned to read Japanese in a limited way, but it?s still easy for the translation to end up being different from what was written in Japanese.

The tenkarakebari blog had 2 recent post about a new triple zoom tenkara rod, the Tenryu TF39TA (telescope adjusting) rod, seen at the Yokohma and Osaka fishing shows. The blog post had a link to a blog post on Dr Ishigaki?s blog wherein it seems to be saying that Gamakatsu has withdrawn from the tenkara market, though it is not yet settled if they will try to revive their tenkara product line. Though perhaps I am getting it wrong.

Here are the web links:
6 Feb 風来坊39TA fūraibō 39 TA
http://tenkarakebari.jugem.jp/?eid=1219

                 10 Feb Tried swinging vagabond (fūraibō)  39TA

http://tenkarakebari.jugem.jp/?eid=1223

              風来坊39TA - fūraibō 39 TA. Is the name of the Tenryu rod. Google wants to translate it as Vagabond. Which I am not sure is correct. The first character is Kaze (wind) and the last character bō , can also translate as ?stick?. So it could be Wind something Stick or some other translation. Maybe it?s better to just call it the Fūraibō rod.

The Tenryu page
http://fishing.tenryu-magna.com/en/ayu/furaibo.html

List priced at 57,000 yen ( about $480) it is much more expensive than the TUSA Sato. And more expensive than the prices I recall for the Gamakatsu triple zoom tenkara rods that seem to have disappeared from their website.

Here is the Dr. Ishigaki blog post. And a bit of the text from the post. Subject to mistranslation. But a lot if this text is pretty straight forward.
http://aitech.ac.jp/~ishigaki/tenkara/2015/yokohama.htm

             とくに今年は、がまかつがテンカラから撤退したのだ。

諸事情で
テンカラ竿は造らないとのことで、
復活するかどうかも未定とのことである。
Especially this year, Gamakatsu withdrew from Tenkara.
Various circumstances
Tenkara rod is not built,
Whether to revive also is undecided.

がまかつのテンカラテスターの小林さんに会ったが、
心なしかしょんぼりしているように感じた。
While (there) met Kobayashi a Tenkara tester for Gamakatsu,
I felt as if he is crestfallen or without heart.

その一方、元気だったのが天龍である。
昨年、赤竿の風来坊を出した。
On the other hand, Tenryu was fine.
Last year, issued a red vagabond (Fūraibō) pole.

名古屋で「風来坊」と言えば手羽先の店だが、テンカラ竿である。
Speaking of “vagabond” (Fūraibō) in Nagoya it is a chicken wings store, but it is a Tenkara rod.
(It took me a bit to figure this one out. Figuring it had to mean something much different. But it meant just what it says. Fūraibō is a chicken wing place. ) ; -)
http://www.furaibou.com/howto.htm

             今年は3段ズームの風来坊である。3.3ｍ－3.6ｍ－3.9ｍのズームである。

振らせてもらったが、どの長さでも振りやすい調子である。
This year is a vagabond (Fūraibō) of a three-stage zoom. Is a zoom rod of 3.3m-3.6m-3.9m. I tried swinging it, it is a flex tone that swings easily in any length.

「でもね、先生、値段が57,000円ですネン」
"But you know, Sensei, price is 57,000 yen " ( about $480)

The Fūraibō TF 39 rod is a lower cost rod at 31,968 yen, about $270. Still expensive but a little less than the price of an Oni 1 rod here in the USA.

Today I cannot find a Tenakra rod page on the Gamakatsu website. Maybe that is evidence that Gamakatsu has dropped Tenkara or maybe there is some other reason I can no longer find their tenkara rods. However, I can still find Gamakatsu tenkara rods for sale on commercial websites.

I have always found the Gamakatsu web site to be one of the more difficult to navigate. But still I could always eventually find the Tenkara rod pages. If I recall correctly there were two pages. One page with a 3.4m and 3.8 m rod and a separate page for another model Tenkara rod that was a triple zoom rod. Multi-Flex I think they called it. I seem to recall they had models of 4m ? 4.5m ? 5m and 3.5m ? 4m ? 4.5m. In the past the Tenkara rods showed up on this search list of Keiryu rods. But not today.
http://www.gamakatsu.co.jp/products/search.php?md=lw&f1=0&f2=0&f3=0&c1=A&c2=A0090&c3=A00900010&ts=22&fw=

Have your suppliers mentioned that Gamakatsu has withdrawn from the Tenkara market? If yes, it is kind of interesting with Daiwa also seeming to cut back on developing higher end tenkara rods. Maybe Gamakatsu has made this change or maybe I’ve stumbled in to the “lost in translation zone” and have started a rumor about something that is not. But if true I would expect to see other companies make some counter move. Maybe tenkara is being left to smaller companies that can react quicker to market changes.

fwiw.
D

7

Chris verified in a post yesterday about the Nissin Kawashi rod that Gamakatsu has discontinued their Tenkara rods. Actually in the 3d paragraph he makes a short summary of changes in product offerings from Daiwa and Shimano too before going on to describe the Kawashi rod.
http://www.tenkarabum.com/nissin-kawashi.html

On the other hand when Tenryu announced their TF 39 Tenkara rod last Feb it was thought at the time that it was their first Tenkara rod. Later I found old Japanese blog entries that talked about a Tenryu Tenkara rod that had been sold years ago before most of us ever heard of Tenkara and before Tenryu also dropped their Tenkara line until they reentered the Tenkara market last February so, I think, we may still see future changes or a refocus to Tenkara in the offerings from Daiwa, Gamakatsu or Shimano.

The Tenryu TF 39 rod has found customers in Japan this past year. It’s priced about the same as an Oni 1 rod. It’s listed weight is 71 grams (2.5 oz) and with its long straight sided cork grip my guess is that it will have a nice balance and a low moment making it easy to cast.

If you’re interested in seeing the Tenryu rod in action on the jun yossy YouTube channel there are posted several videos since last Aug with people fishing with the TF 39 rod. Below are links to two of them.

This one is the shorter of the two at 7:09 minutes. It is the newest video and was posted 2 weeks ago. Two guys are seen fishing with the TF 39 rod.
2015 テンカラ寒狭川解禁
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_l2j4Ga9br8

This second video was posted last Aug and is 23:53 minutes in length. But, you can get a pretty good impression of the TF 39 rod in the first 7 minutes of the video. However, over the length of the video they also demonstrate good fishing, long line handling and C&R techniques. They also land some good sized fish. Larger fish than I see in most Tenkara videos filmed in Japan. The fisherman’s companion is only seen during the last 7 minutes and he is I believe using an Oni rod.
Tenkara 芝川C&R Vol 2 天龍テンカラ風来坊 入魂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXPy_9ERa_A

For an historic view of Tenryu’s past Tenkara rod offerings here are two old blog post, which some people may find surprising.

From 27 July 2009 this blog post shows the box for the Tenryu 0 - 27 Tenkara rod, which was 2.7 meters in length and weighted 47 grams. Makes me wonder why here in the USA there was a resistance to offering a Tenkara rod shorter than 3 meters in length a few years ago.
http://jiiji.naturum.ne.jp/e776408.html

Another post from 8 Nov 2011 shows a screen shot of a Tenryu Tenkara rod web page . The picture is low resolution but it appears to show 2 different Tenkara rod models. There are a couple of pictures of the label section of the rod and the text describes the Tenryu 0 - 38 Tenkara rod listing it as 3.8 meters in length and weighting 60 grams. The text also states or asks - Production end? Tenkara rod has become completely discontinued? It would seem that in 2011 Tenryu ending production of Tenkara rods was viewed with some disbelief too by this blogger.
http://plaza.rakuten.co.jp/tenten2843/diary/201111080000/

This same blogger seemed pleased to obtain the new Tenryu TF 39 Tenkara rod in this post from 27 June 2014. Which he thought has a similar flex to one of the Daiwa rods. I think he was referring to an older model of Daiwa LL 41. The ダイワの華翔 ( Daiwa Huaxiang). If you do a google search with the Japanese name you can find videos of people fishing with that model of Daiwa rod.
http://plaza.rakuten.co.jp/tenten2843/diary/201406270000/

I believe this is the older Daiwa model rod he was comparing the Tenryu TF 39 rod to.
http://www.naturum.co.jp/item/582176.html

fwiw,
D

8

This archived Tenryu Tenkara Rod web page, from their " dead item" folder, shows that Tenryu was a major supplier of Tenkara rods before dropping Tenkara in, I am guessing, 2008/2009.

They offered 7 different rod models - 2 were two-way zoom rods. And the rod lengths ran from 2.7 m to 4.4meters. I think clearly Tenryu’s issue of the TF 39 in 2014 and the issue of the TF 39 TA rod this year is viewed as the return of a major supplier of tenkara rods.

I have to wonder if Tenryu’s new interest is a response to their perceived or expected declining interest by Daiwa and expected loss of interest by Gamakatsu in Tenkara product offerings.

http://fishing.tenryu-magna.com/deaditem/ayu/tenkara.html

Looking at Tenryu’s “dead item” folder I can see that their Tenkara rod page was moved into the dead item folder in February 2009. The move would appear to coincide with the major fishing shows in Yokohama and Osaka which are held in February.

http://fishing.tenryu-magna.com/deaditem/

Anyway, Plat has both of the new Tenryu Tenkara rods on their website. The TF 39 is only a couple of bucks more than the Nissin Zerosum 400. Probably another $40 or so shipped to the USA. Maybe someone with curiosity and money to burn will order one and post a review. Or someone will order one of the Anglo & Company Tenkara rods, another interesting Tenkara rod that looks like it is high quality, and review it. And Oleg at Tenkara Times has just issued the Watershed 360 rod. Lots of new changes in Tenkara rod product offerings this year. Kind of interesting to see the directions different companies are going .

fwiw,
D

9

These interesting comments were on the Oni blog about the Osaka Fishing Show posted Feb. 14th.

"Out of 180 exhibitors there were no more than six companies dealing with Tenkara rods.
Shimano brought three rods, Daiwa five and Tenryu five.

Gamakatsu release new rods only in fall.
Nissin made special Tenkara section with 30 different Tenkara rods.
It was only Nissin that could let you choose from many rods.
To me, our country seemed to be a bit behind in terms of Tenkara considering its popularity in other countries."

http://www.oni-tenkara.com/english/oni-blog/2373.html

Which indicates Gamakatsu may not be abandoning Tenkara after all if they are introducing new Tenkara rods later this year.
And I wonder if Tenryu has three other Tenkara rods not yet offered for sale. I am only aware of two models: the TF 39 and TF 30 TA.
With Nissin displaying 30 rods vs 3 and 5 from other major rod makers it is quit a contrast in focus on the Tenkara market from the different companies.
And the last statement about the growing popularity of Tenkara outside Japan may hint at which market will drive future development.

10

http://www.oni-tenkara.com/english/oni-blog/2373.html

I think you are misinterpreting his comments. I am pretty sure he is saying that when Gamakatsu introduces new rods, they do it only in the fall. I do not believe he is saying they are planning to introduce new rods this coming fall.

I think you are correct about the popularity of tenkara outside Japan driving future development. You noted previously that Tenryu once had a 270 length tenkara rod but for several years there had been no Japanese tenkara rods of that length.

In early 2012 I started importing the 9’ Daiwa Soyokaze rods. Although they were not used as tenkara rods in Japan they were very poplar for tenkara fishing here (and used ones, when you can find one, sell for more than they did new). Although initially there was quite vocal push back from the competition, eventually, TenkaraUSA and TFO followed suit with short rods. This year, Daiwa introduced their NEO RT, which has a 270 length model. Nissin has only just announced additions to their Pro Spec tenkara rods, with the new rods being 270-315 zoom rods. I don’t think a reintroduction of 9’ tenkara rods is the first instance of Japanese manufacturers picking up on developments in the US (I think the first was Sunline bringing back a discontinued orange saltwater fishing line as a tenkara line following a couple years of it’s use for tenkara in the US). I also don’t think it will be the last.