Ken Sawada DH rods

[RYB]

Is there anybody who's ever tried rods by Sawada here?

[bobmallet]

I tried the 17ft #12 SS rod, it's pretty stiff and I found it a beast to use all day on a river, my arms were hanging off.
They are very well made and nearly every Japanese fisher I have seen uses one.
I have seen the man himself fish with this rod on the Gaula and he makes it seem easy but it's more an overhead casting rod because of the tip action.

[RYB]

17-footer for overhead? I cannot imagine a rod designed in such a length with inherent overhead properties....
Rumour has it as if Sawada's sticks imply Scandi style mostly...
BTW-are they Japan made???

[kush]

Ken Sawada and his rods are definitely overhead.

[Jacob]

Ken Sawada isent a very goood scandi/speycaster, his does overhead mostly....

[fishordie]

Ken Sawada is not a really good fisherman. But he is a great salmon fly tier. That's what he's known for. I would buy a rod designed by a great caster/fisher rather than a great fly tier, though.

[Jacob]

Ken catches salmon when he goes fishing.... but hey? if you fish primetime on the best beats year after year, how hard can it be?

His flatbeam, nylon leaders & tubehooks is great products!

[MJC]

Ken Sawada is not a really good fisherman.

Fishordie, I'm curious as to your definition of a really good fisherman.

[RYB]

His flatbeam, nylon leaders & tubehooks is great products![/QUOTE]

How hard can all these products be if one "fish primetime on the best beats year after year"???

All the RODS are made by the tournament champions or there must stay something else behind the ROD, HOOK, REEL, etc?

[fishordie]

that he's not an excellent caster, like Steve Rajeff and Nobuo Nodera are, for example. He's certainly not a bad caster, though. He catches a lot of fish, too. But, he's one of those elite club flyfishers who get to fish prime waters loaded with fish with practically zero fishing pressure. How hard would it be to catch fish in that situation? Do I want to be in his position? H*ll yeah!

By the way, I guess my definition of "a really good fisher" would be "a fisher who can consistently catch significantly more fish than others in difficult situations, and can adapt to new situations readily and produces results". I cannot say that I'm one of them. I get skunked often when the fishing is tough.

[fishordie]

I did try some of Ken Sawada rods, altough single-hand ones, when I visited Japan. I liked them okay, but not enough to pay the high price for them. I don't know how his double-handers are personally, but I do not hear great things about them in Japan. The double-handers that are popular in Japan are CND rods and those made by US or European makers, like Winston, T&T, Sage, Loop, etc. Other popular Japanese rods are Tenryu, Shimano, KII, from what I hear. I tried those double-handers and particularly liked a 15' spey rod made by KII - it was awesome! If I am to recommend an all Japan-made spey rod, KII's 15' 10/11 would be the one. I also tried KII's 17' overhead rod and was amazed by its performance. I loaded it with the original GrandSpey 8/9 and easily carried the entire head in air and shoot all the line! I was astounded by it. The rod had a very nice fast progressive taper. The guy stopped making it last year, though. I guess the rod was way too strong for just about any conceivable freshwater target. It felt as if the rod could easily yank out a 15-pound steelhead from the water. This guy now makes some serious tournament rods.

By the way, Sawada makes beautiful reels that I really liked. But again, the prices were really high.

[fishordie]

I looked for the KII website and found that it is 15'3" 10/11 rod. It is now recommended officially by Nobuo Nodera (CND) and Tak Shimosawa. Here's the link to the page.

http://www12.ocn.ne.jp/~k2fly/product/spey.html

Sorry, the language is mostly Japanese. You might want to try a translation software if you want to get the details.

The page says that KII is working on a 14'3" 9/10.

[RYB]

Fishordie, thanks for good info, 'cause Japan Spey market as as well as experience is thoroughly defended by the water(island position) and language.
Do you have any idea about blanks used -by those companies mentioned in your posts including K.Sawada?

[fishordie]

I'm pretty sure that Tenryu and Shimano role their own blanks. Both of them (and Daiwa also) make a huge selection of fishing rods, of which fly rods are only a very, very small part. Tenryu makes lots of blanks for other smaller rod makers in Japan. They may have the best blank-making technology in Japan. My guess is that KII has his blanks made by Tenryu. I also have a vague memory of hearing that CND blanks were made by Tenryu in Japan, then shipped to Korea where they were painted and finished into rods. I could be wrong on this, though. As to Sawada's blanks, my best guess would be Tenryu-made also. If this matters to you a lot, I can find out for sure and post it here in the future.

Japanese rod makers have been making LONG rods (20 to 30 feet are common) for freshwater fishing and saltwater fishing for many, many years. So, only if they get serious about making Spey rods, they can probably put together excellent Spey rods. I doubt that there is enough incentives, though, since the population of flyfishers in Japan is only a tiny part of the total fishing population. Having said this, though, I have found some really nice double-handers made in Japan. I just haven't bought any, mainly because of very limited warranty on the rods (and they aren't cheap). Ah, they also tend to lack characters, to my taste. I just received my second Meiser Highlander custom - this is my kind of rod.

[smann]

I can not help thinking that Sawda ia getting harshed for doing something that we all would like to be in a position to do. His rods might not compare to others that can be purchased, but I feel his fishing abilities has nothing to do with the product that is offered.