The Stream Climbers

by Les Albjerg
(Caldwell, Idaho)

My Suntech Genryu Sawanobori 45 arrived yesterday. So what is with this funny name "Sawanobori"?

I looked it up and according to Wikipedia it means, "Sawanobori (沢登り), or Stream Climbing (sawa=stream; nobori=climb), is a type of mountaineering popular in Japan that involves going up mountain streams to their source."

At least now I know how to pronounce it. My definition of Sawanobori is "SMOOTH." I bought the Genryu rod for the wind, and after 4 days of wind, I woke up this morning to a calm day! That didn't stop me from going outside and trying the rod. It is amazingly smooth just like my Keiryu Sawanobori. So here again is another rod that has an amazing progression from butt to the tip. I did some lawn casting this morning with both of the rods. The Genryu is a much beefer rod than the Keiryu. I don't like the word stiffer. This rod is not a stick! It has a nice progression as you cast. It is also intuitive as you can feel it loading on the back cast, before laying out an accurate and smooth forward cast to the target. The beef in the tip is just what I wanted for fishing in the wind. It has the same non-skid finish at the top of the last section as the Keiryu. It casts well one handed and like a feather two handed. The Genryu has the same intuitive feel as the Keiryu. The only real analogy that I can come up with is I have the same rod in two different calibers. It is like having a Remington model 700 in 25/06 and 30/06.

I now own 3 Suntech rods and 3 from other manufactures. They are all excellent! None of my other rods have the smoothness of the Sawanobori rods. I only wish they came in shorter lengths. My questions to Chris is what is the equivalent in smoothness to these rods in a shorter length? Do the Sawanobori rods come in shorter lengths? If you are considering a longer rod, these are worth every penny you spend.

“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.