I had the honor of fishing the Ragnarok 400 rod today from DRAGONtail Tenkara and wanted to see how it would do on a Western North Carolina mountain stream.
I fished it for three solid hours and did all the things you do with a tenkara rod…
I got a fly stuck in a tree on a back cast and on a missed hookset, fell, fell again and thought I broke the rod, caught a fish, caught leaves, sticks, and bushes, amongst getting snagged on countless other things…and didn’t break the rod! That alone is a win for me.
I usually cast with my index finger resting on the first blank of the rod. Because of this, I enjoy the hourglass shape of the handle. I have no preference of cork or not on the handle and actually kept the plastic on the handle while I fished this first time. Even still, I felt like my tiny hand had a good grasp on the rod as I cast. I also tend to rest the rest of the rod on my forearm and it was very comfortable in this position while I fished for hours!
The accuracy on the cast is pinpoint and I was able to hit the spots I wanted to in order to present the flies “just right” on this tight water. I fished both weightless and weighted flies with the rod on a 400cm main line plus tippet and it was able to accurately cast each without hesitation. There is some “bounce” to the rod as it seems to bend almost to the hand with a wiggle test BUT the lack of tremors of the tip of the rod on the recoil after casting is nice as it has a strong hookset with little movement of the wrist.
…I will say, because of the “bounce” I saw and flex on the opening of the box, I was wondering how it would do compared to the foxfire hookset (since I am not sold on that rod) but this rod is in a class of its own for a 400cm rod in terms of weight, balance, hookset, and fish play after setting the hook.
Overall, the newest rod from Brent at Dragontail Tenkara can and will handle fish in tight situations while maintaining control of them. It is light in hand and I would say my arm fatigued more quickly than it would in an open fishing area since I had to do a lot of mending to avoid trees…I basically conduct orchestras on the mountain streams to maneuver my fly between the branches and other obstacles. Because of this, I prefer a shorter rod than 400cm on streams, but I was very happy with the performance of the rod in this instance. This truly was a great test of my own abilities to cast a longer rod in a tight stream while also maintaining the most useful aspect of this rod which, to me, is its length and overall balance, weight, and strong hookset.
I look forward to trying it again on a more open stream where I can consistently get a back cast with this rod and can see this rod being VERY useful on spring creeks that meander through fields in open areas like the ones in the driftless region of the US. Honestly, the rod felt like it could handle much more than the 6-8 inch brown trout I was catching today and could definitely handle the 12”+ trout I was catching this past summer in Wisconsin without much effort or question of the ability of the rod. I did end up fishing a lower section of the river where it is stocked and was able to put a nice bend into the rod.
Thank you, Brent!
My Tenkara Journey 