Cabelas panfish rod for tenkara?

id love to get the bpl tankara rod, but gasp at the price… an alternative would be right up my ally…

Before I got a Tenkara rod, I tried the Cabelas panfish rod as a substitute.

It sucks.

It's just not made for flyfishing – i.e., casting the weight of the line. It's a pretty good cane pole, but does not work like an actual fly rod, regular or tenkara.

BTW, it also seems more fragile than the actual tenkara rod – the tip on mine broke about the third or fourth time I pulled it out.

My advice: Save your pennies and get the real thing; after all, it's gonna be a few months before spring and trout season comes around again!

The furled lines from TenkaraUSA cast better than the alternatives – they make for a very delicate and precise cast.

Yeah, I tried the cheap alternatives to those too!

Care to elaborate on the cheap alternatives?

One reason i talked my self out of the tenkara.usa line is not knowing if it would work with the panfish poles action.

I tried the running section (back section) from an old weight forward line. That was probably the best.

Plain mono, around 20#. I could make it work, but…..

One Tenkara guy, Charlie Stewart, I think, suggests 14# or 18# flouro line, which is denser and thus casts better. I have not tried it.

The furled Tenkara line has a nice weight and taper to it which casts well and gives a very delicate presentation. For dry flies, it's really the best, IMHO.

For dedicated nymphing, the running line above would be fine, especially with bead head and other weighted nymphs – cuz you're closer to throwing the weight of the fly rather than the line. In the usual mixed situation, I like the furled line just fine.

All the above were on a Tenkara rod. The panfish rod just felt awkward with anything. If I had to use a panfish rod, I would probably go with the running line.

One alternative is to buy a real fly rod and go that route:

You could get an entire fly outfit for 65$ and use the pieces you want: http://www.albrightflyfish.com/fly-outfits/topwater-outfits.html

rod: 3.5oz
rod tube: 4.3oz (something like the BPL tube)

You could even bring the reel with 50yds backing, 85' of line, and leader/tippet, for 5.5oz more and have a more versatile kit @ 13oz

Tenkara rods aren't that expensive at all when you compare them to conventional fly rods. Most of my conventional rods are $500 or more. My Tenkara of choice (Iwana) is only $129. considering the fact that you don't need a reel (another $100 – $300), it's actually pretty economical.

I found a number of furled leaders on ebay. the longest available was 7 feet. If i was going to use one of these would it make sense to extend it with a longer tipet. Or could I use the furled leader with 3 feet of heavy mono between it and the pole?

The other option I considered is to put a light 5' leader on a heavy 5' leader to get the length. I think the leaders tapers would have to match at the join. That will be hard to figure out with out handling the lines.
From the feed back about the crappie rods it seems like a heavier line will be necessary to get a casting action.

If you want an alternative to the tenkara lines I have found only one source – there may be others but after several hours of searching I just got tired of looking. I ordered a few, but have yet to wet them. I highly suggest downloading the .pdf file and looking at the complete line of leaders available…note that listed lengths include an assumed 3' tippet length. These are furled tapered leaders.

http://www.thebookmailer.com/Gear/Leader/leader.html

I found some poles on ebay:
http://cgi.ebay.com/392cm-Telescoping-Freshwater-Fishing-Pole-w-13-Sections_W0QQitemZ370289186452QQcategoryZ0QQcmdZViewItem
QQ_trksidZp4340.m506QQ_trkparmsZalgo%3DNGRI%26its%3DI%26it
u%3DUA%26otn%3D5%26ps%3D63