Loved this creek! I’ll definitely be going back when the mosquitoes are a bit less voracious…
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We uploaded a short little video of Masami Sakakibara doing a casting demo at last year’s Oni School. Matt Sment attended and took the video. It’s crazy that all that waving that looks almost chaotic is really ultra controlled and pin-point accurate…
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I was rooting for you to get all of them! Just gives you a reason to go back to that sweet water!
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I compared my four 400 cm tenkara rods on the water last might. Here’s my video:
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Wow Tristan, what a pretty little creek. Thanks for keeping up with the video posting.
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Here’s the latest:
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@tvdavisid In your most recent video of 07.17.2020, you’re fishing with the TB36. At one point you say that it had let you down a few times, but overall it’s one of your favorite rods. I was just curious how you feel it had let you down?
I appreciate that no rod is perfect and each rod has its plusses and minuses. But, I was just curious what you were referring to here?
I’ve had the lillian pull off on two separate TB36s. When I notified the distributor of these rods, I was told that Suntech was aware that it could happen, but that they said “it doesn’t happen” in Japan. I took that that they were not interested in changing anything or that they wanted any feedback.
That left me scratching my head. I appreciate the origin and tradition of tenkara in Japan, but I wish that (some) tenkara rod companies would drop their pride and acknowledge that tenkara is more popular outside of Japan than in, and that we don’t all have tiny trout or brush-free streams.
-Tom
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Also one of my favourite rods but yes the tippet has pulled off my rod on two occasions.
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That’s a bummer, I haven’t had any lilians come off of any of my TB rods, the Traveler, TB36 or the TB40 knock on wood. I’ve fished the TB40 a lot more than my TB36. I wound up ordering the Wasabi 40 and it’s coming from Japan right now. I’m really excited to try it out.
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It’s a very nice rod. It’s more tip heavy than the TB40, IMO. But it casts and fishes nicely.
I have had the whole mechanism come off. The micro swivel…and all. Yes I was freeing a snag on the opposite side of the river, but when the snag freed everything returned to my side of the stream. My line, my fly, and my rod. Only thing wrong is that the line was no longer attached to the rod. So the snag freed first…the energy released somehow caused the swivel to part from the rod. How is that possible?
In general I am not a fan of the the micro swivel tip. It is not a good design joining 3 dissimilar materials. It is not to say, it cannot be done successfully but you are creating room for error.
I did not bother trying to reattach the swivel tip I just put the lilian back on the end by itself. No problems with it at all.
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I also had a Suntech GM SP 39 that the Lilian and swivel departed from while I was playing a fish, and it was not that big a fish! I never did find the lost line, either. So I cut the Lilian material off of a broken rod tip section and glued it on to the SP 39 rod tip, and it has bin doing fine ever since - knock on wood. Sometimes, things just go bad for no explainable reason, so we just have to pick up the pieces and go on about things as best we can. I dearly love fishing with that rod (now the Traveler 39) and was not willing to take it out of use waiting for parts. At the time, I fully intended to order a replacement Tip, just in case, but that rod has never given me another problem. In this case, the blank section was not broken or anything. Evidently the glue joint failed - the extended nipple was still there that fits up inside of the female end of the swivel piece, which made putting on a different Lilian a snap. The rod can still be taken completely apart for drying and cleaning, so everything worked out quite well. I have mixed feelings about the Swivel Tips; I certainly do not feel they are a must have item. In many ways, the simpler the better.
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So I’m here to report another lillian departure. I keep this rod in the USA (primarily in case of breakages) so it doesn’t get as much use as many of my other rods. I reattached the lillian last Saturday,after this Winter’s event, using super glue. On Sunday in a Driftless creek 2nd cast off it came. Fortunately I wasn’t too far from the car so I fished out that creek with my Tanuki Ninja.
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Next time try clear “Gorilla Glue”. Its takes a couple hours to dry but from my experience it will hold it.
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From my years of inserting fluorocarbon into hollow woven gel spun polyethylene (spectra) I can tell you the very best bonding agent for your lilian is rubber toughened superglue (cyanoacrylate).
Amazon has it, about $10 for a one ounce bottle.
Works great when being pulled by a 200# yellowfin tuna, it’ll work great on a tenkara rod.
Be sure to read the directions.
“You can’t use too little but you sure can use to much.”
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I’ve used waterproof ZAP-A-GAP CA+ (Green Label) Medium Viscosity super glue to secure braided loops on fly lines.
They have ZAP CA (Pink Label) Thin Viscosity formulation that might work better for (re)attaching lillians.
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Hi everyone, some time ago I wrote in this forum about my passion for Tenkara and my job as a videomaker. I started in 2009 and in 2016 I created the first season of Piacere Tenkara (Enjoy Tenkara), 6 episodes in which I explain the equipment, build Kebari, show how to make knots and of course fish, fish, fish.
Now the first episode (with English subtitles) you can see it on youtube, let me know what you think.
Thank you
Davide Muccino Zarlenga
(ps: watch it on a big screen, it’s better!) 
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Thanks Davide.
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