I cant remember how I stumbled upon the BUYA.com marketplace sight. It looked pretty dodgy and id never heard of it but there was listings for 2 tenkara rods. Both mislabeled and both around 50$. One was listed as the “Oni-Press fishing rod” and the other was listed as “Orvis fishing rod”. Both were listed as 70$ shipping. Everything about looked scammy. The orvis rod was a mint condition TUSA Sato and the oni-press rod was a very rare TUSA Ebisu in unused condition, factory plastic still on the red pine handle. Finding a factory new Ebisu is hard enough but this one has the green bands on it like the Ayu. Ive never heard of nor seen a green banded Ebisu. I emailed John at TUSA and he said a very limited run of these were released before they went with the all black/wood handle version. The place that was selling them is a pawn shop right in downtown Portland, about 2.5 hrs from me. The stars alined because I had to go to Washington this weekend anyways. So I called the shop, verified these were real(and that they were real) and swung in Saturday to get them. They were super friendly and very curious about the rods. I explained what they were after I paid up. One other cool thing is I much prefer the super soft action of the Tusa Ayu and all the parts are interchangeable so I can make a Frakenstien “Ayubisu”If i want with the wood handle with the Ayu flex profile.
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