Poor Man's Tenkara?

[xvigauge]

My GF recently bought a 10.5 ft Tenkara USA rod, storage reel, and line from Little River Outfitters in Townsend, Tennessee for fishing the GSMNP streams. I thought it was relatively expensive, but hey, anything to get her interested in trout fishing is fine with me. BTW, we are permanently moving to the Townsend area this September, so she will get lots of opportunity to use it.

Anyway, while looking at fishing stuff on line, the Shakespeare Wonderpole came up. It is telescoping and has clips for line storage on the rod near the handle. I thought it was very similar to the Tenkara system even though that is not what it is intended to be; it is for more of the traditional "cane pole" type system I guess. So, I ordered the 10' model. I'm going to tie a 10' or so section of fly line to the tip and a 4' leader onto the line and have a go at it. It doesn't have a nice cork grip nor does it store as short as the Tenkara USA rod, but for less than $20, I think it will work fine.
Joe

 

[james w 3 3]

Congratulations! You've avoided a classic mistake . . . starting your girlfriend with decidedly inferior equipment thus guaranteeing she'll get discouraged and give up. This is not intended as a comment on your rig, but that she's going to have every possible advantage in getting enthused about trout fishing.

My best advice is focus on getting her up to speed with Tenkara, and there's a plethora of videos on YouTube that'll do just that. Success rapidly breeds enthusiasm.

 

[tcorfey]

If you would like an inexpensive Tenkara rod, the Fountainhead Caddis or Stonefly 360 is a nice entry level / low priced rod. You can find them on the web.

The Shakespeare Rod is a Crappie Pole designed for poking/poke poling not really for casting like a Tenkara rod.

Same idea in that you are using a telescoping pole without a reel though.

Have fun...

 

[williamhj]

You'll have them both so do a head to head comparison: same line, same fly, same stream, same day (wind etc) and see how they perform.

 

[pszy22]

My first experience fishing a fixed length line set up with a fly was with a South Bend Black Beauty Crappie pole. Long story short, I caught fish.

You are going to have to come up with a way to attach you line to the rod so that there is an efficient transfer of energy from the rod to the line. I attached a short length of braided line to the tip of the rod, which seemed to work well

THe main downside, the rod gets heavy, fast. I couldn't fish with it for more than an hour or so before I started to feel it in my arm. I'd suggest you let your GF use the lighter tenkara rod while you use the WonderRod. I think that she will have a better experience using the lighter rod.

 

[xvigauge]

Thanks pszy22. That photo gives me some ideas. I think I will affix a short piece of braided line to the tip of the rod and then tie a loop in the other end. Then I will tie a loop in the end of the fly line for a loop to loop connection. That should work fine.
Joe

 

[pszy22]

That's exactly how I had set up the one in the photo. Although in retrospect, you might just want to terminate the connection braid in a knot, as you would on a regular lilian. If you plan to take the line on and off, it gets a bit tedious threading your long mainline to make the loop to loop connection.

You will also find you need to use a heavier line on the WonderRod as compared to your tenkara rod in order to cast. Depending on how you fish, that can be a major disadvantage since the heavier line is more difficult to control as you fish out your cast. The heavier line will tend to droop from the end of the rod. That greatly eliminates the advantages one has when fishing a very light line on a regular tenkara rod.

It may take some tweaking to figure out what is going to work best for where and how you fish. It will not be as optimal as fishing a true tenkara rod, you'll soon figure out if it will work for you. With that in mind, I'd again suggest letting your GF use the better set up when you fish together if you want her to become a regular companion on your fishing excursions.

have fun,