A simple tip

Taking care of your tenkara rod is really necessary if you want to enjoy fishing with it for a long time. One can naively believe in the myth of rod breaking trouts or choose the side of common sense and admit that negligent anglers break their rods themselves.

If you do not take care of your tenkara rod that is not a surprise that one day you will end with stuck sections because of the dust collected within the rod. I have also noticed this winter that catching a big number of big trouts help the sections get stuck.

Many anglers think that they only have to take the stuck sections in their hands, press like a crazy and that the sections will collapse easily.

The pressure exerted on the segments is too high and you might have the bad surprise to break a section. Tenkara rods have a very small thickness of carbon fiber, they can resist to the band done by a trout trying to get free but they can not resist to high pressure on their walls. 

This is not the good way to loosen up stuck sections.

Get two foam rubber pads. These anti slip material will allow you to effectively hold each section and absorb a part of the pressure of your fingers on the rod. 

Put your ord on a table, place a rubber foam pad under the bigger of the stuck sections.

Put another pad around the smaller section that you want to collapse and close your hands on each section. 

Thanks to the pads of anti slip rubber foam you can now firmly hold each segment and make them slide. You can print a slightly twisting motion to your hands to make unwedging even easier.

I hope that you will find this simple tip useful in case you get stuck segments on your tenkara rod and that you will not forget how rod care is important. 

DAIWA NEO-TENKARA LT39 SC ROD REVIEW

A few months ago I did purchase a cheap second hand tenkara rod on the web; a Neo Tenkara LT39 SC from Daiwa and I think that the time has come to write the review about this rod.

This Daiwa rod is made in China and features these characteristics:

-Length: 391 cm
-Collapsed length: 41 cm
-Handle: 27.5 cm
-Sections: 12
-Weight: 3.88 oz

The tip has a diameter of 0.8mm which is really superior to what one can find for similar action rods in other brands, I am thinking of Nissin for example.

The blank of this rod being big, the tip and butt caps are really huge sized! The tip cap is made of wood with a rubber insert and perfectly stays in its place while the butt cap is made of metal with a tendency to unscrew by itself. As it has a coin slot with a slick surface the angler will  have to use a coin or anything to keep it screwed. Note also that this cap has no drain hole. 

The diameter of the blank is high and the rod is fat! At the handle winder the diameter is 16.55 millimeters! That is one the main thing I did not like with this rod. Because of this huge blank diameter handling the rod and fishing with it is really uncomfortable. Indeed every time I go fishing with this rod I have to carry a second rod because I get tired fast. If you are like me subject to metacarpal tendinitis do NOT purchase this rod!

Because of the high weight combined with a very stiff and thick blank the sensitivity of the rod is very low; and what I like with good tenkara rods is their very high sensitivity. 

The "LT" in the reference means "tapered line" as this rod was designed to preferably cast this kind of lines. I did test this rod with a Fujino Tenkara Soft line and I must say that I obtained very decent casts with no effort. It was very different with light level lines. The rod is meant to cast pretty heavy lines. So if you only fish tapered or furled lines this rod is for you.

The rod is sold in a black velvet sock that includes a flyer with basic instructions about the using of the rod and basic security instructions. 

To be honest, I have been disappointed by this rod. Perhaps was I expecting too much from this entry level Daiwa rod but based on my experience I would say that there is no major difference between the LT39 SC and 99.9% of the other chinese made tenkara rods on the market. 

TENKARA CENTRE UK HAYASE ROD 

Like many european Tenkara enthusiasts I know Tenkara Centre UK through their website and their Youtube channel but I had never had the opportunity to try one of their rod yet. I have received this rod from Mike Roden in last May, fished a lot with it and it is now time to review this rod.

Let's start with the specifications.

Length: 12 ft
Closed Length: 22.5 in
Weight: 2.4 oz
Sections: 8
Action: 6:4
Handle: 9.75 in



The Hayase (which means "rapids" in Japanese) comes in an embroidered rod bad that closes with velcro and a carbon fibre tube closing with aluminium caps. The TCUK is printed on this tube, the rod's name being reduced to a sticker.
The least we can say is that for the people at TCUK aesthetic details are more than only details!

The rod has a mate black finish, a very good quality cork handle. Even though I do not consider the cork quality as essential I was not surprised to read a famous blogger considering this handle quality higher than his Winston Rod's one. I think the handle shape is one of  most important factor to have a comfortable rod to fish with and I can tell you that if the Hayase's handle has a pretty uncommon shape it reveals to be very comfortable!

The tip and handle plugs are classic. The tip plug is made of wood with rubber insert while the handle plug is knurled metal with drain hole of course but also a coin slot.

When I did receive the rod the first thing I did was disassembling it and I noticed that the deburring of the rubber insert in the handle plug was not properly executed and that was the reason why I found rubber particles in the cap thread.

I do not hold it against the TCUK team because this "defect" is very common on the market. This demonstrates that one must be careful with his rods to keep them in the best possible conditions to avoid stuck segments and breakage. 

With a name meaning "swift currents" I was excepting a crisp action rod like a Nissin Kawashi for example but the Hayase is a bit particular as the two top sections are very supple and the six other are pretty stiff. This makes the casting very easy and accurate and allows the use of very light tippets which is a good thing to obtain better kebari drifts.

To conclude I consider the Hayase as good rod, with flattering aesthetics and even if I have personal preferences for more minimalist appearance  this rod really answers to a need in the western Tenkara galaxy. 

If you are interested by this rod, visit Tenkara Centre UK. 

NISSIN KAWASHI PROFESSIONAL 320 7:3 ROD

I have been fishing for the last two months since the season opening with the same rod and it is now time to review it. Here is the Kawashi Professional 320 7:3 by NISSIN.

Like all (I think) Japanese Tenkara rods it is sold in a plastic box where the rod is in a cloth bag. It is easy to find rod tubes or to make one by yourself and in my opinion this system is good because you pay only what you want to buy: a tenkara rod.

The general appearance of this rod is quite flattering thanks to dark purple accents on eash of the 7 pieces, the cork is not the best quality on the market but to me it is not so important as I prefer a rod with good conception and realization than exceptional cork quality for the handle. 

The theoretical length is 320 but the real length 315. The closed length is 1'9". This rod is clearly designed for the tight and bushy creeks. 

The theoretical weight is 2.01 oz and the rod I am reviewing today, with its tip plug included, has the exact weight of 2.00 oz. 

The tip plus is made of supple rubber, its diameter necessitates that you screw it in the collapsed rod but this makes you sure that the plus can not move away by itself; the butt cap is made of metal, is knurled and features a rubber insert and a drain hole.

Like any other rod made by NISSIN this one features a perfect assembly, you can check any detail as many times as you want you will not find any defect. 

The best world to describe the rod action is "crisp". I have fished a lot with this rod since the season opening and most of the time in bad conditions because of gusty winds that are so common in my area and I have to say that this rod has a fast and powerful action that can face these winds. 

I did only cast level lines with this rod and I think, after two months of use, that the most fitted line size is 3. This makes false casting useless, to reduce to almost zero the line impact on the water and to keep good casting precision through wind. 

This excellent rod is sold at the reasonable price of 170 USD and I can tell you that once you have caught several trouts on this little beauty it is hard to put it back to the rack!