The following video was recently uploaded to Katayama Etsuji’s personal YouTube page. Does anyone recognize the rod that he’s using? I’ve never seen it before.
There was a Daiwa rod years ago that as I recall looked something like that, but I don’t remember the name. However, they way he is waving it around, what makes you think it is a Daiwa? I looked carefully throughout the entire video and never saw a Daiwa logo on the rod.
Legitimate question. It deserves classification that I presumed it was a Daiwa. This came because of his work for them and most of the rods that I’ve seen him using (both in his own videos and obviously those from Daiwa) online have been Daiwa.
Thanks for asking and pointing that out. I’ve edited the title to be more accurate.
I am reasonably sure it is one of these Daiwa rods. ダイワ テンカラ飛仙翔DSG LL35SG .
I think they were made at the same place the older enshou tenkara rods were made. When they were still listed on the Daiwa website they were the most expensive tenkara rod they sold, and I think also more expensive than any current Daiwa tenkara rod being sold. (seems like 5 years ago they were in the range of $500 ~ $600, but maybe that is a false recollection) The model was discontinued before the older Enshou rod models, maybe due to it’s high price leading to lower sales.
DSG = Direct Sensor Grip. If you look closely at the photos on the below linked websites, the grip appears to be a hard grip, made of carbon fiber or other material. So not a soft foam material. The SG on the end of the name may have also been another reference to Sensor Grip.
I am not sure how to translate 飛仙翔 [ Hi Sen Shō or Daisen Sho or Shiraishi, is what google translate makes of it]
But 飛・仙翔 translates as, Flying · Sen Xiang. And I know the kanji 飛 means more or less flying, as in flying through the air. You will often find that kanji used in descriptions of casting the line.
ダイワ テンカラ飛仙翔DSG LL35SG
(there was also an LL39SG model, and may have been a model shorter than 3.5m, but I don’t recall that for certain. From the size of the stream being fished in the video my bet is it is the LL35SG.
Look at these two websites, and see if you think it is the same rod model. I think you will see the same color pattern, shape of the grip section, and the same number of brighter color bands round the grip at the same location.
https://tackleoff.com/products/mountain-stream-rod/tenkara-rod/13368
http://www.shashin-box.com/r-tower/html/2uluh8ax.html
Also his focus in the video appeared to be more on a new camera and the fishing. That I think is a farther indication it isn’t a sneak peek at a new rod model.
Ah, here is a 2014 post from Tenkarakebari website, listed as a reprint of out of date pole. The translation is poor, but good enough to get some insight into thoughts when it was found to be no longer in production. However, it does not list or mention the LL39SG model.
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As usual, excellent research and recall David. Thanks. That definitely appears to be the rod in the video.
He had posted another video about a week ago where he fished this rod for about 60 seconds of the video, towards the very end. Most of that video looked like maybe an Enshou that he was using.
It seems, as hinted at in the tenkarakebari blog post, that at one time Daiwa also made LT rods with the sensor grip. Previously I had only noticed the LL models with the DSG grip. I had completely failed to notice the previously linked 3.9m rod was an LT rod.
DSG LT 36 SG
http://www.sl-planets.co.jp/shop/p/p06314520/
DSG LT 39 SG
http://www.sl-planets.co.jp/shop/p/p06314530/
DSG LL 35 SG
http://www.sl-planets.co.jp/shop/p/p06314540/
You can find a few more post using the following search phrase - the fujisan zasshi (magazine) April 2011 post are interesting.
片山悦二・テンカラ飛仙翔DSG 竿
Nope, not made in China. It appears they were made by Daiwa Seiko ( Thailand) Co Ltd.
That “slingshot” netting technique is quite impressive!
What an amazing looking venue as well.
These rods can now only be bought at auctions. I still have little information about them. Carbon handle, small EVA insert in front of the shaft. They released them in Thailand.
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I used to want one of these rods many years ago.
I bet they are really nice.
Depending on the construction of the handle, they may be very tactile, sensitive and telegraph or transmit feel.
I think sensitivity is important in a tenkara rod. I am looking for feel. It’s funny, foam and cork are insulators, wood handles are very sensitive, blank handles are the best at it.
I think the translation was “Fairy Sho” when I was trying to hunt one down. I no longer want one, I have what I need now.
But I still wonder about tactility because that became more important years later.
I wish that there was an easy way to measure rod sensitivity.
Some rods seem dead, nothing, can’t feel anything telegraphed.
I think this one may have been designed with sensitivity in mind…
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Finding the fountain of youth might help. Our sensitivity to touch declines with age.
But according to some research touch sensitivity can be enhanced by looking at what you’re touching, and by training. You have to get all touchy feely and stuff. 
People who speak different native languages often can see a different spectrum of colors than native speakers of an different language. For example, native French speakers can see more shades of green than native English speakers. A tribe in Africa sees the sky as shades of green not blue. Japanese speakers perceive some colors different from English speakers, oranges and yellows, I think. I wonder if the native language we speak also affects (or is it effects) our sense of touch, too?
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Touch can be very ethereal. I have flown hang gliders and paragliders quite a bit far across the sky. I would take off from big mountains and catch thermals and soar many miles away catching another thermal and ascending and gliding, doing it again and again.
Holding on to the bar, I swear I could feel the little strings that held the battens into my sail, I could feel those little strings as I flew. When I was on a glide, I would concentrate on how the glider felt through the bar, the sensations of the air I was flying through. I could feel the texture of the air. I felt that when I wore a beard, I could feel the temperature change on my face much better as I entered a thermal or if I was getting close to the edge.
Of course there was no science in this, it was just me, in my head trying to figure this stuff out and describing it with words…
Paragliding, you were dangling on strings, the harness and the brake strings in your hand, a much different way to fly, reclined in a chair rather than prone superman style.
Fishing, I sometimes feel the little fluttering of the tiny feathers I’ve tied on the bait hook as I pulse the fly. Or as I work the tungsten bead on the bend, over rocks on the bottom 20’ away, six feet deep. I swear I can feel the telegraphed take of the little brown as it sucks up the fly and turns.
Feeling something so subtle takes imagination.
That’s why I do it.
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You’re a braver man than I. In the 1970s hang gliding caught my attention as perhaps something fun to try. Then I read - never fly higher than you’re willing to fall. And I wasn’t real keen on falling very far. Falling about 6 feet was my limit to voluntarily risk falling.
I can fully understand becoming hypersensitive to the slightest sensations of vibrations that might be different from normal, and being aware of all that is normal, coming from a device on which my life depended.
However, someone who was an Army medic - whose job is to run to the place where someone just got shot, where an enemy could easily place another shot, is a brave (or risk seeking) person. Of the the same sort we see locally every Oct. on Bridge Day - when BASE jumpers or bungee cord jumpers are allowed to jump off the New River Gore Bridge. A different breed of folks. A few people have died doing it over the years. People who jumped on the one legal day or people who made unauthorized jumps. 
https://officialbridgeday.com/bridge-day-info
I flew for decades.
Safely.
I was mediocre at best in contests because I refused to take risks. When you are at 17,000’ over Sedona, it doesn’t matter if you are mediocre…
I finally quit because the desire to fly was outweighed by the fear of dying.
I don’t do that anymore. I’m getting older and I want to get good at that. I don’t like the “rush” that people talk about, when you get the rush, things move too fast, what you want is to suppress that rush, hold it away somewhere, that’s where you want to be, alive and fully aware, able to understand subtle feelings.
Woke up.
So, when I fish, I’m immersed in nature, I try to forget and be. The act of fishing is going through the motions that I’ve gone through again. Same rod, same line, same hook, same same except I like to travel.
I’m using the same two rods now and I’m liking that. People shop for more, I’m satisfied with less. I think I’m learning more with fewer variables. I can concentrate on the tactile.
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