Author: Luong Tam

Fishing the Oni rod was both wonderful—and frustrating.

The casting was beautiful. The rod loaded smoothly, the line unfurled cleanly, and everything felt effortless in the air. But once a fish was hooked, I began to struggle. The deep, wide arc of the rod bend made it difficult for me to reach the line, and with a long line out, controlling a good-sized fish became challenging.

I realized quickly that this wasn’t a flaw in the rod—it was a mismatch between my skill and what the rod was asking of me.

For the next few weeks, I practiced long-line casting at the Oakland Casting Pond. Through repetition, something became clear to me: casting a Tenkara rod is not about distance. It’s about presentation.

I wanted the fly to land first, followed by the tippet gently laying down on the water—quietly, naturally—so the fish wouldn’t be spooked. But as the line grew longer, it also grew heavier, and too often the line landed before the fly. I hadn’t mastered the cast yet, but I felt confident enough to test what I’d learned on the water.

So I took the Oni rod back to Baum Lake.

Baum Lake is famous for its baetis hatches on cloudy days. The conditions were perfect—steady rises, calm water, and plenty of opportunities. My friends Collin and David met me there. While much of the country was glued to TVs for the final weekend of football, we were standing beside a lake, watching trout feed.

Collin and David sat on the bank eating lunch and watching me fish. Every time I hooked a fish, laughter echoed across the water.

In a lake, a hooked fish usually dives deep—it’s safer down there. But Baum Lake is frequently stocked for the holidays, and freshly stocked fish panic. Instead of diving, they run wildly in every direction.

With the Oni rod bent into a deep horseshoe and a long line extended, I struggled to control the fish. Tenkara rods don’t have reels, so I turned my upper body sideways to bring the line closer to me.

I was the reel.

More than once, a hooked fish swam around my legs, wrapping the line. One fish darted between my feet as I tried to net it—and in that moment, I accidentally broke the rod tip.

I walked back to the bank to join Collin and David for lunch. But watching fish continue to rise, I couldn’t sit still. I grabbed my Dragontail rod and went back out.

A few casts later—fish on. Then the 6X tippet snapped. Again and again, I broke fish off. Over time, the break-offs became less frequent.

Looking back, the lesson was clear: it was all about adjustment.

With the Oni rod, I needed a firmer hook set than I used with the Dragontail. The rods asked for different inputs—different timing, different control.

That night over dinner, Collin and David were still laughing.

“Bro,” one of them said, “after watching your fish-landing performance today, we realized we paid way too much for Cirque du Soleil last month in Las Vegas.”

We all laughed.

Fishing was over.

The next morning, I stayed behind to fish while they headed out early for the holiday. The weather was perfect—cold, overcast, and the fish were hungry. For two straight days, I stayed on the water nearly eight hours at a time, grabbing a quick PowerBar for lunch to take full advantage of the conditions.

By the end of the second day, the fish finally slowed down—and my body did too. My right wrist was sore, then painful. By the time I left, I could barely turn the steering wheel with my right hand.

The drive down the mountain toward Redding was tense—snow and rain reducing visibility, my wrist throbbing with every turn. Once I reached Redding, the road flattened and my thoughts settled.

I started replaying the last few days.

The Oni rod was beautiful to cast but demanding when landing strong fish with a long line. The Dragontail was heavier and less refined in balance, but much easier to control fish—especially with a shorter line on faster water like the Merced River. Yet when casting long lines, fatigue crept in quickly.

I kept wondering—what if there were a rod in between?

Not better. Not ultimate.

Just a rod that fit me.

Later, I realized the fatigue came from several factors: unfamiliar wrist angles, Japanese grip habits my body wasn’t accustomed to, hours of repetitive casting without adequate rest for muscle recovery, and the increased torque created by the rod’s length acting as leverage while landing fish.

That’s when the idea began to take shape.

What if I built a rod that matched my body, my casting style, and the way I fish?

A rod that was light, balanced, and effortless to cast—because casting mattered to me. After all, I spent as much time at the casting pond as I did on the river.

The idea of building a custom rod wasn’t sudden.

It was inevitable.

From fishing experience and data collection to first prototypes

After the long-line fishing trip at Baum Lake, I wasted no time. Despite a wrist that was still sore, I dove straight into research—digging through reviews, watching videos, reading forum discussions, and studying online shops. I was searching for what I thought might already exist: a Tenkara rod that fit me, evaluated through the combined lens of a rod builder and an engineer.

I couldn’t find one.

That realization became the trigger.

I’m trained as a design engineer by trade, and I’ve spent years working with manufacturing and hands-on building. Designing and building a custom telescopic rod, from a complexity standpoint, is far less demanding than building a split bamboo fly rod—which I had already done. The challenge wasn’t whether I could build one. It was how to approach it correctly.

I started the same way I approach any engineering problem: data collection.

I carefully analyzed rod tapers, section counts, lengths, and on-water behavior. But when it came to materials, reading wasn’t enough. I needed to feel them. I purchased all kinds of rods and rod blanks—some through online marketplaces, others from custom Tenkara rod suppliers—to understand how modern materials affected rod action.

Coming from a bamboo background, I had always understood rod action as largely a function of taper. In bamboo, taper is everything. Change the taper, and you change the rod.

Modern Tenkara rods are different.

With contemporary materials, rod action is no longer a single-variable problem. It’s shaped by material properties, construction techniques, wall thickness, section transitions, and taper working together. The rod isn’t just a profile—it’s a system.

Shortly after the holiday season, I began building my first prototypes—right out of my kitchen.

I didn’t have factory equipment. I wasn’t cutting blanks with power saws and water cooling like the factories you see online. Instead, I used what worked: an old serrated kitchen knife, which turned out to be surprisingly effective, and a water stone to smooth the edges. I taped sections together using duct tape and masking tape, focusing purely on function, not appearance.

Once the prototypes were assembled, I took them to the casting pond to gather feedback. Experienced fly casters gave thoughtful input on balance, grip, and feel—but the most valuable feedback came from an unexpected group: children.

Experienced casters could adapt to almost anything. Children couldn’t.

They were drawn immediately to the prototypes that were light, easy to cast, and forgiving—because their wrists were weaker and their movements less refined. That feedback was honest, unfiltered, and incredibly revealing.

After several rounds of casting, feedback, and fine-tuning, the direction became clear.

Building a modern carbon-fiber rod entirely on my own would be extremely expensive and would require specialized equipment and manufacturing experience far beyond a home setup. From an engineering and practical standpoint, it made far more sense to commission the work to a professional shop—one that already had the tools, processes, and expertise—while I focused on design intent, testing, and refinement.

That decision marked the next phase of the journey, It was time to find a shop that could help turn these experiments into a real rod.

Before I Knew the Name

This year marks ten years since I first released a Tanuki rod.

It feels natural to celebrate, but celebration doesn’t quite feel right. What feels more honest is reflection.

Before there were rods, designs, or names, there was a trip to Yellowstone National Park — a trip that quietly redirected my path. I didn’t know it at the time, but that experience would shape how I fish, how I build, and how I think about simplicity and restraint.

This journal begins there.

⸻

Back in the early 2000s, on one of my fishing trips to the Yuba River in California, I arrived at one of my favorite fishing spots. To my surprise, there was already another angler there — an Asian fly fisherman quietly sitting on a boulder, watching the sunset.

Instead of rushing to fish, I took the opportunity to talk with him. We chatted as the sun slowly disappeared beyond the horizon. His name was Taka, a student from Japan studying in California. As the light faded, caddisflies began to rise, and soon the river came alive — fish breaking the surface, almost as if the water were boiling.

We fished together, unhurried and fully present. Each of us landed three to five fish. There was no rush, no competition — just the river, the evening, and the moment.

On the hike back to the parking lot, Taka casually said something that stayed with me. He mentioned that he would have had even more fun if he had brought his 14-foot Tenkara rod from Japan.

“Wow,” I said, surprised. “That must be heavy — and hard to cast. What’s a Tenkara rod?”

He smiled and replied simply,

“It’s very light, easy, and effective.”

“Really?” I asked, doubtful.

“Oh yes,” he continued. “It fits the American style very well — easy, fun, and efficient.”

That word — Tenkara — lodged itself in my mind. At the time, I didn’t really know what it meant. My thoughts were elsewhere. I was deeply interested in building my own split bamboo rods. Rod building had been my passion since I was nine years old.

But that quiet evening on the Yuba planted a seed.

⸻

About ten years later, while fishing with Kevin Chan, the word surfaced again. Kevin mentioned that he had worked and lived in Japan for a while.

“What is Tenkara fly fishing?” I asked.

He answered without hesitation,

“The highest form of fly fishing.”

“How so?” I pressed.

“It’s simple and easy to learn,” he said. “Tenkara fly fishing is really about presenting a fly — or manipulating it. It’s like Go, the Japanese board game — easy to learn, but hard to master.”

That phrase — the highest form of fly fishing — planted the seed deeper.

Discovering Tenkara

Years later, in 2014, during a Memorial Day weekend trip to the Firehole River in Yellowstone, I finally experienced Tenkara firsthand. A fellow angler from Denver was fishing a 330 cm (10’6”) Tenkara rod and was consistently out-fishing me.

He noticed my curiosity, handed me the rod, and showed me how to use it.

The rod felt incredibly delicate compared to my 2-weight Sage fly rod. I was cautious, making a gentle cast. On the very first drift — bang — a 10-inch brown trout grabbed the fly and charged downstream. It felt like a monster.

The rod bent deeply, almost into a horseshoe. Instinctively, I reached for the reel — then realized there was none. Panic set in. Afraid I would break the rod, I lowered the rod tip the way I would with a fly rod. The line straightened, and the fish broke off.

The angler laughed.

“I did the same thing my first time,” he said.

I handed the rod back to him.

“Isn’t it fun?” he asked.

I was stunned by how natural it felt — how light, how direct, and how alive the experience was. In that moment, the seed that had been quietly resting for years finally sprouted.

When I returned home, I rushed to the computer and spent endless hours researching Tenkara rods. What began as a quiet curiosity turned into a deep pull.

That was the beginning of a journey I didn’t yet understand.