Using crappie pole as tanago rod?

I've used branches from trees, top sections of spinning rods, and even the top three sections of an 18m pole. The best of all these was the top 3 sections of the pole, the only downside of this is cost £13,000 new! and that was several decades ago! obviously cheaper ones are available, and I was given this by a freind who was sponsored by the company that made the pole.

The bass pro cane pole looks to be good for most micro fishing situations, and the top one will be better for long range fishing.

Tenago Rods are about the rod. If you use a long rod that is not a tenago rod then you are just using a long rod. It will work but there are advantages of a tenago rod one being the weight. when reaching the long distance out it will be your advantage to have the lightest rod possible. Tenago rods are also much more like a fly rod the way they bend.

Tenagobum (CM Stuart on here) has a lot of good info on his website. I had a gatherign of peeps wanting to try out the rods and he sent me 3 or so rods to try out. They are way more fun than a crappie rod. the bend and play you get out of them is what makesit different not the fish you target. I use tenago hooks but I use the american standard ultralight. The next step up is tenkara and that is a big price jump but also a jump in length of rod.

Tanago tackle can be useful just like bluegill tackle and hooks are useful for bluegill, but

most of the time I'm not fishing in a tiny dirty canal below a bobber for tanago.

My standard rod is the 16ft. Black Widow, some crappie rods are to soft at the tip and you

can't hold the bait steady, too stiff and heavy, like when I use a carp or fly rod and the response

is always off.

If I had it to do over again I never would have called the rods "tanago rods." As Professor Fish has indicated, tanago fishing is one very small and specialized subset of micro fishing, and tanago are but one of several species that the rods were intended for in Japan (and not even the primary one at that). At the time, though, I had become intrigued by the tanago fishermen's quest for smaller fish rather than larger fish, which is the one aspect of that fishing style I wanted to promote (much more so than the "tiny dirty canal" aspect). Rods intended specifically for tanago fishing are considerably shorter than the Soyokaze that I have left, or even the Kiyotaki rods I've gotten in to replace the shorter Soyokaze, which I can no longer get. The better ones are bamboo and would sell for hundreds of dollars each.

One thing that intrigued me about the Soyokaze rods in particular was the extremely soft tip, which I am pretty sure Professor Fish would find too soft for his taste. Personally, I like the fight as much as the catch, and I wanted a rod that a micro could actually put a bend in. The tip has to be pretty soft for that to happen, a lot softer than most crappie rods, which are designed to be able to lift a fair sized crappie up out of the water and away from underwater brushpiles. A fair sized crappie would give you quite a fight on either a Soyokaze or Kiyotaki.

So, you needn't worry about defiling tanago fishing by using a Black Widow for microfishing. You probably couldn't deflile it more than I already have by calling multi-purpose rods "tanago rods."  You won't actually be tanago fishing anyway, because there are no tanago here to begin with.

You will find the Black Widow to be a lot stiffer than the Soyokaze or Kiyotaki rods, so I wouldn't expect much of a fight, but if what you want in a rod is just something to position the bait and then hoist the fish to your hand, it should work fine - perhaps even better. And let me stress, there is nothing wrong with that approach. I make no value judgements here. It's just not what I was looking for when I found the Soyokaze.

There are "zoom" rods - telescopic rods that are designed to be used at two (or even three or four) different lengths, but most are longer and I suspect all are more expensive than you are looking for. The shortest I've run across can be fished at 2.4 and 2.9 meters (roughly 7'10" and 9'5") and would sell for about $115. The next longer length would be roughly 9'2" and 10'10" and $120. They are made by Nissin in Japan and are quality rods. They collapse to 20.5 inches long and weigh just 1.75 ounces and 2.1 ounces, respectively. They are trout rods rather than tanago rods, but would be more sensitive than a crappie pole.

I am actually very glad you asked the question, otherwise I would not have looked for these rods. The longer of the two should make an excellent rod for tenkara fishing in small streams, and the shorter one for very small streams.

Thanks CM_Stewart! Michael and I are still comtemplating what rods to get or use for micro fishing. Personally, I lack a light rod for that type of fishing and I've been looking at an UL Shimano Exage that Eli bought and let me try out. I like the feel of the rod and that it is very, very portable (being a telescopic rod that collapse down to a very short carrying length). The longer tenkara rods offer better reach and more precise bait positioning though, so I'm flip flopping between the two. I do like the idea of a responsive tip to visualize the bite from a tiny fish, but at the same time worry that my clumsiness could lead to many broken tips in the future, haha.

I'll look at a few more options again, but your response help shed more light on what I would value and it helps to make decision on the best compromise for what I need.

What exage has Eli got ken?  I have the 10-30gr 7' one that packs down to about 13",I assume the ultralight one is a bit more flexible. I've used my exage for micros a few times but I always prefer a light pole or an lrf lure rod. One pole that I really like for micros at a distance is a 3mtr carbon pole with a lithium weave, it has absolute zero tip bounce and also a built in elastic for landing bigger fish.

I'll have to look for the info again. The tackle store where I was planning to purchase from just renewed their online store and the rod is not longer listed. Maybe Eli can chime in with his Exage model. (On a bright note, they had a float reel on sale for $100! I may pick that up next. )

I remember it was a shorter rod (I think it was under 6' and it was a telescopic UL model).

Daiwa has just announced a new line of tanago rods ranging from .93m to 2.45m. Strangely(?) their rod lengths come out to almost exactly 3', 4', 5', 6' 7' and 8'. Maybe they've been reading this board and see the potential for micro fishing in the US.

No word yet on pricing (though I am sure they won't be in the Black Widow ballpark). I'm also not sure when I can actually get them in stock.

When I first announced over on the NT micro forum that I was going to get in the Soyokaze rods, the 5' length, which it turned out I couldn't get, seemed to be what some of the more experienced micro fishermen wanted. What lengths do people here think I should concentrate on? 

It turned out that the longer Soyokaze rods (9', 10'2") make really nice short tenkara rods, but I'm thinking of the new Daiwas as specifically for micro fishing. 

the 3' one sounds perfect for what we want! I would use a shorter length like that for sculpins and loaches that are right under my nose. Can I ask what lengths they pack down to? I do slot of sculpin fishing in Italy and I know a tiny stream in Denmark full of 1" trout that would be ideal quarry for a short rod like that, but I would need it to pack down small enough to fit in my bag.

All of their new tanago rods pack down to 24.5 cm (about 9 3/4"). The 3' model weighs just 12 grams (.4 ounce).

Awesome! that would fit in my mobile lure fishing bag incase a micro opportunity pops up. I have found stone loach to be very hard fightes for their size on the top three sections of my soyokaze, but I think an actual 3' rod would be much nicer to use.

I guess it's best to hold onto my money until these new Daiwa tanago rods are available. Keep us posted CM_Stewart! I think a 5' rod is probably best for my personal style. The packing size is just fantastic!!! Like Hugbot said, it's convenient to just keep it with your tackle and have it available when the opportunity arise!

I'm holding on too,  I'll be looking into the 3' and 4' ones as my 6'6" soyokaze should cover all situations where a little more reach is required

As a very rough guess, I do not think they will be available before mid-November. I may not know anything about pricing until just before they are ready to ship, but I will try to keep everyone informed.

The top two sections on the 3' and 4' rods and top 3 sections on the 5'-8' rods are painted orange. I would have thought just the tip section would have been sufficient.

Thanks for the pics! They look sweet!   I hope the price is right...do you think it'll be cheaper than the Black Widow when you say it wouldn't be in that ballpark? New to all this tanago gear so I don't have much clue what is worth how much. I do know I like slightly shorter rods when minnow fishing...

They will not be cheaper. They will be several times the cost of a Black Widow, which runs from $12 to $25. The Black Widow is all fiberglass, probably weighs at least 5 ounces for the shortest (10' model), collapses to probably about 40" and is designed to catch 10 inch fish (with the understanding that if some guy happens to catch a big largemouth or catfish rather than a crappie, it better not break). They are rated for 12# test line.  The Daiwa rods are graphite, weigh anywhere from .4 ounces to 1.6 ounces, collapse to less than 10" and are designed to catch the 3 inch fish you are actually trying to catch. The specs don't give a recommended line size, but the rods they will replace in Daiwa's lineup are rated for lines ranging from about 3/4 of a pound up to a bit over 2# test.

They are really apples and oranges.

However, I have come across another pole that you might be interested in. It is a 1.5m pole (about 5'), weighs 1 ounce, collapses to 16" and is fiberglass so it should be in the same price range as the Black Widow. I have ordered one for evaluation but I don't know when I'll receive it. I won't be nearly as nice as the new Daiwa tanago rods, but will be much better suited than a Black Widow for close in micro fishing.

How do you think the prices will compare with the soyokaze and the kiyotaki? I've been looking at some tanago rods on the sugamo site and they all seem to be hundreds of dollars!

I wouldn't even want to guess. However, as the prices for the rods at Sugamo suggest, micro fishing (or at least Tanago fishing) in Japan is a serious pursuit worthy of high end equipment.

I just hope it's not too much, but surely there are no features on these rods that would cause them to worth much more than the soyokaze?

I hate to say it, but the rods that are probably the most comparable are the Nissin rods, which run from $130 to perhaps $250. Other than the fiberglass rod I mentioned above, the Soyokaze,as nice as it is, is truly on the low end of rods from Japanese companies.

Damn, at that price they must be one hell of a good rod, i think I'd still get one though! 

Wow! That just puts these rods out of my budget range.   I'd like an update on this 1.5m fiberglass rod. 1oz isn't really all that heavy to me and I can be happy with it.

Why would anybody pay that kind of money for a minnow rod when a fricking stick will do the same job??!!

I DON"T GET IT!  I can buy four decent rods for that price to catch big fish.  Real fish.  Sorry, don't get it.  Are minnow fishers becoming elitists?  Damn.  Simplify to get people into your sport, please.

Why? Because some people prefer to have nice equipment - even if a cheaper (or much cheaper) alternative exists. In that respect, fishing rods are no different from watches, cars, beer, TV sets, houses or any other consumer product for which anyone could buy a bargain basement alternative, but few do. People line up to buy iPhones, when a cheap Nokia will make phone calls. People buy Heineken when they could drink Grain Belt beer. Does that make them elitest?

No one is suggesting that you or anyone else must or even should buy expensive equipment. No one is going to look down on you if you don't. If you want to use a stick by all means do so. If you want to fish for "real" fish, do that, too. What I don't get, at all, is why it bothers you if someone else does want to buy a rod that's nicer than a stick and costs more - even if it's a lot more. Why would you or anyone else care what rod Ken or TheHugbot or MichaelAngleo or anybody fishes with?

Elitist? not at all. I doubt anyone here cares what kind of rod you have or what kind of fish you fish for. There was a recent thread in which a couple of the more experienced guys were talking about buying $6 poles from ebay or Amazon or wherever. No one made any snide comments. The Hugbot's early comment was that he's used  tree branches and parts of old rods. Does that sound elitist?

If you don't get it, fine. If you don't want to buy a Daiwa rod, fine, don't buy one. But please don't call me or anyone else here elitist. The very idea that "minnow" fishing is not "real" fishing and therefore is not worthy of anything other than the cheapest equipment is what is elitist.

This topic is really sad.

Remind me to buy some Orvis stock; if they ever start making microfishing tackle you guys will turn me into a millionaire.