Small stream fishing with the Daiwa Kiyose 30SF

by Peter
(Denver, Colorado)

I recently recently received my new Daiwa Kiyose 30 SF rod from Tenkara Bum. Thanks to Chris for the great service--the site is great, he answers e-mails quickly, and he included free extra tippet with my order.

I was hooked the minute I held the rod--untelescoped. It is like picking up a ruler it is so light. It is elegant and refined. I felt like Luke Skywalker holding a light saber. I took off the cap and what I thought was the tip section emerged--it was so small. It turned out I was looking at one of the mid rod sections--the actual tip section was even smaller.

I took the rod to a high country brook trout stream about an hour outside of Denver. The stream is about 5 feet wide and the trout are about 5 to 9 inches long.

I had an absolute blast catching about 25 fish. Gradually, I was able to be pretty accurate and put my dry fly into tiny pockets. I highly recommed Chris' multi-colored Hi-Vis hand tied lines. The colored line gives you feedback about your casting--especially how the wind is affecting things. The colored line also helps you locate your dry fly quickly. (The colored line would also help with strike detection if you were nymphing). The colored line also lets you find the line easily when you need to grab it to land the fish you have hooked.

The 30SF rod, which is about 10 feet long, actually let me be farther away from the fish when casting than when I use my 3 weight western rod. Often I had to back up away from the bank or downstream so I could cast to where I wanted and still keep the line off of the water. I was using a 12 foot line. I could easily see using a 10 or 8 foot line effectively in tight quarters.

Per Chris, the 30 SF is very sturdy and can handle larger fish (I also plan to use it to do European nymphing) so it is no surprise to say that it had no problem handling small brook trout. Fighting and landing the small trout was still great fun. Instead of stripping line and easily overpowering the trout with a three weight rod, I had to make sure the fish didn't take advantage of the 12 foot line and dash into brush piles.

In short, this is the rod I will use for my small stream fishing. Tenkara style fishing was everything I hoped it would be. I hope to get one of the 7'8" Tanago rods once Chris gets more of them in stock.

Hopefully, I'll write another report soon about how the rod does as a European nymphing tool.

“The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten” - Benjamin Franklin

"Be sure in casting, that your fly fall first into the water, for if the line fall first, it scares or frightens the fish..." -
Col. Robert Venables 1662

As age slows my pace, I will become more like the heron.