Roll Casting for Rainbows 

You summed it up nicely!

Hello and thanks for watching. Great wondering! Chum salmon had already moved up the river and were still laying eggs. Rainbows char and grayling position themselves behind the salmon and feed on the eggs. We had about an 8ft leader setup with a weight at about 4-5ft and an egg pattern below it. The weight keeps the bead (egg pattern) down so it can be carried in the current just above the bottom....like a real salmon egg. Very effective and had a rainbow or char just about every cast with the occasional grayling.

And so much fun

Hi TJ - thanks for watching the video. Jeremy works the lines on the rod with ease and confidence for sure. He is an amazing caster with a regular setup too. It's funny that you asked this question about rod position because I was right there with you. Here's his reasoning: Jeremy typically fishes with a rod and reel. He also does a lot of saltwater fishing and guiding in Hawaii. In Alaska he often targets the big rainbows - which typically go aerial, a lot. Many of the saltwater species he targets also go aerial. The "move" he made with the rod down and tip essentially in the water is a position you go to when fish jump. The idea is that you are keeping tension on the line and reducing the chance of slack, which can provide an opportunity for the fish to throw the hook. When I fish for tarpon (on tenkara or reel), I respond the same way. If the fish goes up, my rod tip goes down. If you are familiar at all with our Fish Geometry presentation this will make sense to you: If not, think of a triangle. The angler is one point, the rod tip the second point and the fish is the third. When you are in a right angle (90 degrees) with the angler as the base, you have tremendous control over the fish. If you begin to close that angle and reduce it to say, 45 degrees (meaning the rod tip will begin to point closer towards the fish) you lose control and can not fight. Plus either there is slack in the line or the fish has begun to run. On the opposite end, if you open that angle to say 145 degrees, you also have very little control over the fish. This is because all the pressure is being placed on the top of your rod - which is the most flexible portion of the rod, and you're not using any of the rod's backbone. You will also over stress the top sections and probably have a break too. So, during a play, you always try to stay in the "power curve" of your rod and maintain the optimal fighting angle between you and the fish. This ranges from about 65 degrees to about 130 degrees. When Jeremy turns the rod he is responding to the fish and working to maintain those angles, never permitting there to be any slack in the line for constant, steady, even pressure and load distribution. If he held the rod up and the tip up, when the fish jumped, he would most probably have lost it. Make sense?

@@ZenTenkara Yep, I fish Tenkara exclusively so I'm familiar with the geometry. I tend to catch the trout that jump into my net but I exclusively fish smaller mountain streams

@@tj6111 Got it. Around here we kinda do it all. The small streams, the midsize and the big ones...even the ocean. LoL!

thanks!

Gary I agree. We use our rods in different ways depending on the circumstances. I would not do this in the high streams in Rocky Mountain National Park. But I also wouldn't be targeting 22-30 inch rainbows, dollies or chum salmon in that location. We like to demonstrate various ways to use our tenkara rods and help people understand that they are wonderful in their "traditional tenkara" settings but also extremely effective in non-traditional tenkara settings as well. We often refer to this as American Tenkara and Fusion Fishing. In the States we simply have much more diversity in our waters and number of species. Not everyone has access to a small high mountain stream and 8 inch trout. But the rods are still excellent and productive.

@@ZenTenkara Thanks...I do appreciate your enlightening me!