Hi John, seeing that no one more knowledgeable than me about nymph fishing has responded to your questions, I thought I'd give it a go.

I don't know much about it from personal experience. Only what I've read from time to time having been involved with tenkara nine years now. After 4 months and no reply maybe you have already found the answers you seek, and my attempt is to little to late.

From what I've read most tenkara rods have tips that are too soft/flexible for nymphing. With the possible exception of the Suntec Tenkarabum tenkara rods, as Chris Stewart worked with Suntec to design the Tenkarabum rods for the way many people fish in America vs in Japan. Thus he had the rods designed with nymph fishing techniques as one of the goals for the rod. But from what you wrote I'm guessing they cost more than your budget.

Anyway, using a rod with a stiffer tip than most tenkara rods have seems to be more important for nymph fishing techniques than the length of the rod.

Tom Davis appears to find the Keiryu X 33 has adequate length for nymphing, and a good place to start.

http://tetontenkara.blogspot.com/201...heres-rod.html

I am not sure if Chris still has them available because on the Tenkarabum website. If I mouse over or click on the link in his store section fore the Daiwa Keiryu-X rod it actually takes me to the webpage for the daiwa-kiyose rods. But there is no link on that page to order them. I believe they have gone out of production. Though they may possibly be found on some of the Japanese auction websites or ebay, etc.

However, there is a link on the tetontenkara blog post above that will take you to the Tenkarabum daiwa-keiryu-x webpage. Maybe Chris still has them available and just has a messed up link on his store website. Or maybe he no longer has them, intends for the link to no longer work, but it will if you have an old link to the page.

https://www.tenkarabum.com/daiwa-keiryu-x.html

If a 3.3 meter to is an ok length for nymphing - why not just slightly shorter and go with the keiryu-x 30? That is listed as $5 lower in cost, and a little closer to your budget. (I will try to remember to email Chris and ask about / point out the link error on his website.)

Other guys who are not strict Japanese style tenkara anglers are the guys in Utah, at Tenkara Guides.

Here is link a Tenkaratimes article written by one of them, probably Erik. That includes his youtube video explaining his recommended setup (he is using the Amago rod you mentioned) and it includes a drawing showing the set up. However, the video was uploaded 8 years ago. Before some of the other rods you mentioned were available. Maybe better choices are available now. You could also contact the guys at Tenkaraguides or even Tom Davis. I am confident either would be open to giving you more recent thinking about currently available low cost fixed line rods adequate or good for nymph fishing. [ there is also a link at the bottom of the page to a tutorial for Spanish nymphing, also written by one of the Tenkaraguides guys, complete with another drawing of the different setup.]

http://www.tenkaratimes.com/tenkara-...czech-nymphing


Maybe there is something of interest in this post. The rods used is not mentioned, but I am almost certain, from the painting on the rod, the rod used was a Shimano rod (I don't recall what it was called) that was sold to compete with the Daiwa Kiyose rods, and very similar to it.

https://roamads.org/2014/07/11/the-hybrid-fisher/


Good luck,

David