This is extremely painful, but must be done...

FAOL Community Fly Anglers Online
1

I have mentioned that I have been digging around, reading as much good info as I could find on Tenkara. Well, I found another forum where one post in particular answered an lot of questions and, regrettably, made a lot of sense.

A person there, like here, was talking about using a telescopic crappie pole to try since they had not found a fly blank that was suitable as yet for a Tenkara rod. The same answer was given there that has been given here that a crappie pole would be too stiff. However the poster went on to say that a fly rod would not be a wise choice, either. “Oh, brother!” I think. “Another guy with his nose in the air over this.” I read on and he explains that due to the way the joints fit together, the fly rod would very likely come apart when you hooked up with a larger fish instead of just snapping the tippet. He goes on to explain that the telescopic rods, with the way the joints fit together keep this from happening.

I was stunned that I didn’t see this to begin with. He was absolutely right. I had just been handed a heaping plate of crow to wrap myself around. It made sense and I could not argue with it. I don’t like having to eat crow.

That isn’t all. It gets worse. The same poster went on to recommend using Cabela’s Telescopic Panfish Pole. He mentioned he had used the 10’ model (there are 10’, 12’, and 14’ models) and it had worked well for him. I look them up and they are CHEAP with a capital inexpensive! Between $15 and $25! They collapse to smaller than the rods from Tenkara USA, too. If this person who has done quite a bit Tenkara fishing says they worked for him, it should make a very nice and inexpensive way to try it. The lines from Tenkara USA are only $20, so you can try it out with very little effort for less than $40.

Now, mind you, I still think a section is going to stick, but at $15, I am going to feel a whole lot less ticked off when it does than I would at a c-note plus.

All of this is tormenting my ego to no end, but it gets even worse and if all of the above was not enough reason to make this post, this clinched it. The poster with all of the good information was none other than one of the guys I kept arguing with here, CM_Stewart. I do hope that Mr Stewart
will accept my apologies.

2

Well, that is correct if you tied the leader to the tip top of a fly rod. Maybe I am missing something, but what if you tied the tenkara leader to a long butt section of mono, and then tied that to the gathering guide on the butt section of the fly rod. It would not pull of the top section. Who says that the leader must be affixed to the tip of the rod? “Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought”…Szent-Gyorgy

Or what if you did use a small light reel like a 2 wt on a long 3 wt fly rod with a tenkara leader? I know it wouldn’t be a true tenkara rod but it would allow folks to try before buying. That would keep the rod from separating.

I know that the Greys 10 ft. 3 wt Streamflex rods are very popular for euronymphing.

http://fly.greysfishing.com/en-us/products/rods/single-handed/streamflex/

3

Kevin,

Well, that is correct if you tied the leader to the tip top of a fly rod. Maybe I am missing something, but what if you tied the tenkara leader to a long butt section of mono, and then tied that to the gathering guide on the butt section of the fly rod. It would not pull off the top section. Who says that the leader must be affixed to the tip of the rod? “Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought”…Szent-Gyorgy

Or what if you did use a small light reel like a 2 wt on a long 3 wt fly rod with a tenkara leader? I know it wouldn’t be a true tenkara rod but it would allow folks to try before buying. That would keep the rod from separating.

I know that the Greys 10 ft. 3 wt Streamflex rods are very popular for euronymphing.

http://fly.greysfishing.com/en-us/products/rods/single-handed/streamflex/

4

I am sure there are tons of ways to skin this cat, and your ideas sound workable, maybe. But I think getting in to the reel thing defeats the purpose of Tenkara completely. If you are going to put a reel on there, grab a 6’6" 2 or 3w and go to town.

Using the heavy mono to act as a tether for rod sections is a better idea to me. Tie the mono to the butt and tip, then the leader to the mono. I would use heavy mono, though. I’ve had 2 pound rainbows snap 6 pound test mono.

Once that rod bends, though, you get slack in that mono and the tip is still likely to pull off. Maybe run the mono through the guides. Then you stiffen the rod, maybe. I don’t know.

I don’t have a Cabela’s nearby or I would run over and look at those panfish poles. I am going to have to convince someone to make the pilgrimage to Sidney sometime this winter with me. :slight_smile: I’ve never been to Cabela’s even though I have bought a fair amount of camping gear from them on the web. I’ll “save shipping” and have the wife nervous all the time I’m gone. Sounds like a good enough reason to me. :slight_smile:

5

I think you misunderstood my plan. I naturally assumed you would run the mono through the guides before tying it to the butt of the rod. Sometimes stuff gets lost in translation.

Good luck on your pursuit.

6

If you dig around enough, you’ll find posts where I’ve recommended a Grey’s Streamflex, too. (Just not for tenkara fishing.)

I hooked the biggest trout of my life on a Cabela’s 10’ Graphite Panfish Pole. It broke the pole. To be fair to Cabela’s, it really was designed for panfish.

I stand by what I wrote in the post that kbproctor cites (apology accepted by the way). Without trying to go back and find all the posts I’ve ever made about tenkara, I strongly suspect, though, that it was written before you could actually buy a real tenkara rod in the US. Now you can.

By a truly remarkable coincidence, just last Sunday was the first time I fished with the 10’ Cabela’s pole since I broke it - well, since I broke it the second time I mean. The first time was just like kb suggested. A couple of the segments near the tip kind of stuck together one day, and I didn’t realize that you had to be pretty careful not to put any sideways pressure on the segments when collapsing the rod, and I broke one of the segments. Unlike the Tenkara USA rods, these come with no guarantee of replacement if you happen to break them, so I cannibalized my 14’ pole to replace the broken part. (The 14’ pole is really too heavy to cast one handed for very long at all, so I knew I’d use the 10 footer instead. Actually, the 12 footer is a bit heavy, too, and the ONLY time I fished with it I got a blister on my casting hand. Cork grips really are nice. Expensive, but nice.) Anyway, so I was fishing my favorite stream with the 10 foot pole and I hooked the biggest trout I’ve ever hooked in my life. I couldn’t lift it and I couldn’t move it. I knew it was a fish instead of a rock because I could feel it moving. At one point, putting as much pressure as I dared on the tippet, I got him up enough that I could see his tail as he fought to get back down, but that’s all I ever saw of him. After what seemed like a long time but was probably only 15 or 20 seconds, he decided he’d had enough and moved upstream to the next pocket. Where I was standing, I couldn’t follow him fast enough so I just pulled back on the rod. My knots held, my tippet held and my rod broke. This time the break took out two segments, the second and third up from the grip. Surprisingly, at the same time the tippet finally snapped, so I was able to salvage the front part of the rod. Unfortunately, the comparably-sized segment from the neither the 14 footer nor the 12 footer (I was willing to sacrifice it as well) quite fit - or at least they were snug enough that I didn’t want to force them. So, I didn’t fish the rod again until I got to thinking about tight little brookie streams, and decided what the heck, I’m probably never going to fish either the 12 or 14 footers again, and I certainly can’t fish the 10 footer when it was broken, so with nothing to lose, I jammed the segment from the 14’ rod into the 10’ rod. With only a little extra pressure it actually fit. So, I fished with it this past weekend to try to compare it more closely with the Tenkara USA 11’ Iwana. Of course, by now I’ve gotten so used to the extra length of real tenkara rods that it really seemed too short. It was also much stiffer than I had remembered. The action, as could be expected I suppose, just wasn’t the same. I could cast with it, but not as light a line and not as easily.

So with the benefit of having fished with all three of the Cabela’s telescopic graphite panfish poles, AND all four of the Tenkara USA models (who else can say that?) here is the bottom line: Oh, before that, kb must have missed the part about fishing with 14# golden Stren as a line, 'cause that’s what I used back then. OK, bottom line: You can cast a fly with a Cabela’s graphite panfish pole and 14# golden Stren. You can catch fish. I recommended it before you could buy a real tenkara rod. There is no way I would recommend it now. This is the way I look at it. If you like it, you’re eventually going to upgrade to a real tenkara rod and line and once you do, you’ll never fish with the Cabela’s pole again. Money wasted. If you don’t like it, and you might not because it wasn’t designed for tenkara, you’ll never know if it is because of the equipment, which really is a pretty poor substitute. If you don’t like it (money wasted again), you won’t ever try the real thing, and might miss out on what is a really enjoyable way to fish. So yes, you can buy the pole for about $15 and the line for about $7, but either way, you’re going to be wasting your $22. And if you don’t like it or if you break the rod (and remember, I didn’t like the 12 footer or the 14 footer, and I broke the 10 footer twice) you’re out of luck. What I recommend now is that you save your pennies and get a real tenkara rod and line. It will cost more, but it is lighter, better made, and unquestionably better at casting a fly - and comes with a guarantee. If you break it, they’ll fix it; and if you don’t like it they’ll send your money back. As they used to say, “Yer pays yer money and yer takes yer choice.”

7

Interesting observations.

I want to apologize for any part I had in stirring up the earlier Tenkara threads. When folks start talking about the newest thing I have an impsih urge to throw sand in the gears and sometimes folks don’t realize I’m not really knocking their new enthusiasm. (I recall a part of a book about jury presentations that told of case in which Daniel Webster represented a man who made wagon wheel that had broken. As Dan’l descibed it, the wagon wheel was a veritable equal of those on Phaeton’s chariot. Oh, he waxed eloquent. Came his opponent’s turn and he faced the jury. "Gentlemen,: he said, “Look at it. It’s a wagon wheel.”)

I am quite certain Tenkara rods work. I’m just equally certain that the technique, at base, is nothing all that new.

8

I probably did misunderstand. I seem to have been a bit off the last few days. Well, a bit more than usual. :slight_smile:

CM, I don’t think the $22 would necessarily be wasted. I have a little Eagle Claw $24.95 fly outfit I let the grand kids fish with. It is a pleasant surprise in that it actually fishes and casts pretty well. Some folks think that I can not see myself fishing Tenkara style all that often, but once in a while, it could be kicks and grins. A waste of money would be spending $150 or more on a rig and fishing it once a year or once every couple of years.

9

KB,

The rod I’m going to try with my approach to this cost all of $7.95…it’s a Shakespeare 13 foot 4 section pole…I had to modify it some, it had those pesky little metal clips on the butt section, so I took those off and wrapped a grip over where they had been.

I know it will do what I want it to as far as the cast part goes, I’ve been playing with it already.

Still don’t know how it will hold up to the fish…but I’ve hooked and landed bass and catfish on such a rod when I was much younger, so I’m willing to give it a go and just see what occurs.

Whre I’m planning to use this pole there are lots of little 9 to 14 inch rainbows, and some really big browns…I figure if I hook one of the browns, I won’t stand a chance. That’s okay, though. Sometimes the fish wins.

Buddy

10

My 2 cents is that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with ANY of this stuff! Experimentation and innovation are how we got all of the “traditions” we have today. And I’m a huge fan of getting more and spending less.

We’re all supposed to be about the open and free exchange of concepts, techniques, ideas, and such on these Internet forums. Sometimes I’m not the most diplomatic guy on Earth. But it is never my intention to rub anybody the wrong way.

I have a saying I use OFTEN with students and the AFFI instructors and various program volunteers I work with when folks start to get stressed or uptight about this stuff:

Remember: it’s just fishing.

Sometimes I say that to remind myself, too.

11

Guess it’s my turn to apologize to one and all for my part in the brouhaha. I don’t really know what is it about tenkara that gets me so worked up, but I guess it’s that with it, I finally felt “aha, this is what fly fishing should be.” Simple, relatively inexpensive, and very, very effective (for the size of streams I was fishing and fish I was catching). I am very surprised that I have become a passionate voice for tenkara. Before, I was always pretty comfortable keeping my opinions to myself. Perhaps I should again.

Because of it’s simplicity and the lack of a reel, I can certainly understand why people who haven’t tried it compare it to cane pole fishing or dapping, with comments that almost inevitably refer to using bait.

I do get a little riled when people who have already been told that it is fishing with a fly rather than bait, and that the rods are light and sensitive enough that they really don’t compare to the cane poles people used as kids, continue to make those comments - which really do confuse people who are just trying to find out about a type of fishing that while not being at all new, is new to them.

So I’ll back off, with the parting comment that before I was able to get a real tenkara rod I tried A LOT of poor man’s substitutes, including the same cane pole I myself fished with as a kid 50 odd years ago, and the same 13’ 4-section Shakespeare model Buddy will be using. All of them worked to some extent, but none of them have the action or the sensitivity of the real thing. None will cast as light a line, which besides the simplicity, is what I think tenkara fishing is all about. Finally, the light, sensitive rod and the extremely light line it can cast really do make it about as far away from cane pole fishing as you can get and still be fishing. It may be just a pole but until you actually try it, you won’t understand that it just isn’t like any other pole. At least in my opinion - as always, your mileage may vary.

12

Tenkara goes back to the origin of fly fishing as noted by Aelian in 200 AD. A 6 ft rod with a line and fly attached to the end was used to catch fish.

“They fasten red (crimson red) wool around a hook, and fix onto the wool two feathers which grow under a cock?s wattles, and which in colour are like wax. Their rod is six feet long, and their line is the same length. Then they throw their snare, and the fish, attracted and maddened by the colour, comes straight at it, thinking from the pretty sight to gain a dainty mouthful; when, however, it opens its jaws, it is caught by the hook, and enjoys a bitter repast, a captive.”

Rod guides and reels were not invented until much later with fishing reels first noted in the late 12th century in a Chinese painting.

Tenkara is the modernization of a technique, that is over 1800 years old. It’s back to an older, simpler method but it is nothing new. Modern method? NO! Modern materials? YES!