TENKARA FLY-FISHING: Strategies, Tactics & Flies
SELECTING TENKARA FLY RODS “I now own 10 tenkara rods. My name is Karel and I am a tenkaraholic.” Karel Lansky
Clearly one of the key advantages of tenkara over traditional fly-fishing equipment is simplicity. Simplicity with respect to tenkara means less moving parts. Tenkara doesn’t have a reel. It doesn’t require the purchase of fly lines and backing. And the light weight of the tenkara rod and the fact that it telescopes down in size makes it the ultimate portable rod. You could also argue that there is less cost involved with respect to tenkara equipment and that wouldn’t be wrong. Of course, there are many of us, myself included, who support the fishing industry regularly by making sure we have more than enough of everything. That would include probably having more than one tenkara rod over time. In any case, the best insights on buying tenkara equipment are from those who have had years of experience with it. Personally, I use only one tenkara rod regardless of where I fish, big river or small. My tenkara equipment consists of a 12-foot Iwana rod (www.tenkarausa.com), 13 feet of traditional tenkara soft braid line (furled) and a 5X leader between 3 to 4 feet in length. The Iwana rod collapses down to about 20½ inches and the line is easily rolled up on a plastic spool until I’m ready to fish again. Of course, the question of which types of rods are available and which ones might be best-suited to your fishing needs is a rather personal decision. I can ask, as I have in this book, any number of people and get any number of different answers. While there is no formula for deciding which rod to get or which line to use, the good news is that tenkara equipment choices are not as wide and expansive as those options you
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