Meet The Vendor: DRAGONtail Tenkara

Meet Brent Auger, the face of DRAGONtail Tenkara and NIRVANA On The Fly, and co-owner of CUB RIVER OUTFITTERS LLC, the parent company of DRAGONtail, NIRVANA On The Fly, and Moonlit.

Based out of Chubbuck, Idaho, CUB RIVER OUTFITTERS LLC offers all the necessary gear, as well as a plethora of accessories to get you fly fishing. Our focus for this post, though, is on the tenkara side of the business.

Brent got started fishing with a tenkara rod when he traded some work building a website for a furled leader made by his business partner. “I had no clue what tenkara was but I liked fishing and it sounded interesting.” says Brent. “The first trip I went on I hooked a decent fish and lost it, even though I didn't land any fish that trip I was addicted to the direct connection tenkara gives you to the fish. You feel everything when you get one on, later I learned you get a similar connection with the fly in how you can control it. I think I fished almost everyday that first year I started tenkara fishing.”

This experience clearly had an impact, because in 2013 Brent launched DRAGONtail Tenkara with the big focus being on providing products with a lot of value at a great price point.

Outside of the experience tenkara and fishing offers, we wanted to know what inspired Brent to start a business centered around the style. When we asked him, this was his reply - “At the time I started there were hardly any other companies selling tenkara rods. I was already working some web marketing for other clients and saw an opportunity that seemed exciting to me. I partnered with Brandon Moon who was already making furled leaders for tenkara and we got it going. I never dreamed it would turn into the company that we have today and with all the companies that now sell tenkara I don't think I would have made the leap into the tenkara business today but I am so glad we did back then because it has opened up a world of experiences that I have loved in meeting people and going places new to me.”

If you visit the DRAGONtail Tenkara website today, you’ll find plenty of different rod offerings for a multitude of situations. One of the things that Brent feels the company does well is never remaining stagnant in their products and goes on to say, “We are always looking to make it better or meet more needs that we see in the community. You can see this in the evolution of our rods over the years, they have come a long way in performance and material blends and I feel like we are still making improvements every year with the new rods we release.”

With new rods being added to the lineup, including the reintroduction of the NIRVANA On The Fly product line that came with the addition of the Kokoro 360, we were curious about which rods sell the most. As it turns out, the ShadowFIRE 365 is the most purchased rod. Brent says, “This is mostly due to it being such a great price for someone just looking to get into tenkara fishing that does not want to spend all the money to find out if they like it or not.” Following that, he also mentioned that the TalonMINI and Mizuchi rods are about tied for the second best selling rod that they offer, adding “Not everyone has room to cast a 12 foot rod so these rods work great for that.”

Having learned a bit about the line-up, and which rods seem to be the most popular among DRAGONtail customers, we wanted to know which rod or rods from the company were Brent’s favorite. “My go-to DRAGONtail rod is the Ragnarok 400 rod, I just love fishing 13 foot tenkara rods. If the creek is small I just use a shorter line. The creeks I fish most of the time don't have a lot of canopy so I am able to make a long rod like that work in most situations I fish. A long rod just gives me a lot more line control and fish control. If I am fishing tighter canopy I really love the Kaida rod. It casts so nice, and the smaller collapsed size is perfect for my packability needs.”

This brings us back to another thing we wanted to know about Brent, and that is what kind of waters he likes to fish. “There is not much fishing really close by but 90 minutes to 3 hours away in most directions is some excellent fishing locations, many of which I still have not explored.” he says. When he first started fishing with tenkara gear, he did a lot of pond fishing, but rarely does that nowadays. “I just love fishing currents so much more. I also don't like fishing bigger rivers with tenkara gear very much as well, if I can't wade it I can't get to where I want to be positioned to fish it the way I like too.”

Brent goes on to say, “I love to fish mountain creeks that you have to hike a mile or three to get into the good fishing. People like easy fishing so I don't see many people where I go. I also like this because the mountains seem to get more beautiful when you hike in a ways. I don't really like fishing tight canopy creeks but I am starting to do it more than I used to do. I much rather would prefer creeks with light canopy overhead.” and adds “I also love to fish small western rivers. I know it is not quite true ‘Tenkara’ but tenkara gear is so effective on small rivers like what I have here around Idaho, and once you get used to handling a larger trout on a tenkara rod I find that I can land them quite fast and effectively.”

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For anyone who has followed us for a while, you may already know that DRAGONtail makes the two rods we suggest as great “introductory” rods for those who are curious about tenkara. Our first article we posted talked about this, but something that Brent mentioned in our conversation was “Our pricing is very customer friendly and we hope to always stay that way.” and we feel that we echoed that same idea in the article. If you’re interested in reading that post, you can find a link below…

“New To Tenkara? What Rod Should You Buy?”

Even though we wrote about the company before, it was nice to talk with Brent a little more and become more acquainted with the man behind the company.