Mutant zx380 Zoom Tenkara Fly Fishing Rod

 The Ultimate 3-Length Full-Flex Action ZOOM Tenkara Rod
      380cm (12.5ft), 350cm (11.5ft), and 315cm (10.3ft)
Covering 3 of the most popular lengths in one Totally Awesome Tenkara Rod

 Planned Retail Price: $160 (save $50-$60 when you support our KickStarter Product Launch) 

Features/Performance Overview:

Zoom sections lock to give you 3 adjustable lengths in one rod (sometimes called a triple zoom rod) so you can use the same rod for all the different conditions you run into on the water. Whether you want long reach, a medium casting length, or need to shorten things up around over hanging trees this MUTANT zx380 Tenkara Rod has you covered with just the zoom of a rod section (or two) mutating into the rod length needed.

Excellently balanced tip-weight in every length, feels very light in hand when casting and fishing.

You’ll most likely love the rod action in every zoom length, not just 1 or maybe 2 like many other triple zoom rods.

Deep rod flex action allows the rod to distribute pressure evenly throughout the entire rod when fighting fish. This deep rod flex also makes for a smooth casting action with little effort to cast light level lines.

Excellent tip dampening so you have very little (IF ANY) oscillation while casting giving you very precise accurate casts with great presentation, even with very light level lines.

This rod is designed for targeting small to medium sized trout on light lines in creeks, streams, or small rivers. That does not mean you can’t use outside of those parameters if you so desire, have fun doing what you like. Although if you want to target big fish then this is probably not the tenkara rod for you. 

Review From Tom Davis (a highly trusted name in Tenkara)

We let Tom Davis (of Teton Tenkara Blog) take the prototype for a test drive, check out his review here >>

Tom’s Spec Measurements of the MUTANT Rod

Fully collapsed (with tip plug): 65 cm (25.5 inches)
Extended: 314, 351, 381 cm (10.3, 11.5, 12.5 feet)
Weight (without tip cap or plug): 81.5 g (2.87 oz)
CCS: 13 pennies (380cm), 12.5 pennies (350cm), 12 pennies (315cm)
RFI: 3.4 (380cm), 3.6 (350cm), 3.8 (315cm).
Rotational Moment: 6.1 (in the 380cm length)

Tom’s Conclusion: “I really like this rod. As I have stated above, I think Brent and DRAGONtail have advanced tenkara in America by providing some really great products. The MUTANT is just another rod that shows that they listen to the needs of their customers. The MUTANT is well made, and performs wonderfully! If you are a full flex tenkara rod person, and are in the market for a new rod, then you ought to take a look at the DRAGONtail MUTANT zx380! I think you’ll be pleased!”

NEW TO TENKARA: Why a Tenkara Fishing Rod?

Ultra Compact – Tenkara rods telescope out and in so you can have a fly fishing rod that is over 12ft long collapsed down to 2ft and all self contain within its self with very little weight and very little size. No reel is needed and very minimal gear is required: rod, flies, line, and tippet. This makes it perfect for backpackers, day hikers, back country biking, keeping in the car, or anywhere adventure takes you!

Simple To Start – Although there are many Tenkara fishing techniques that you can spend years learning and perfecting, it is easy to get started with the basics and start catching fish. The basic casting motion is simple, the gear is simple, and setup is very quick (see our setup videos). The light line and long rod make for great presentation of your fly as you can keep your line out of the currents so your fly makes a natural drift with very little effort, making your fly more desirable to fish with very little experience on your part.

It’s Fun As Hell – You would be surprise how much you will enjoy this simple form of fly fishing. We get messages all the time telling us “I have been fishing (or fly fishing) for 20-30 years and I just fell in love with fishing all over again using your Tenkara rods”. Me personally, I was addicted to Tenkara the second I got my first fish on it and the fun is still very alive today.

Our MUTANT Design Story

DRAGONtail has listened to people in the tenkara community over the years through comments, messages, conversations, and even reading though peoples rant posts. From paying attention to the tenkara community we have learned many things about what people want, like, and don’t like.

We decided to we needed a rod more focused on premium level line casting in our DRAGONtail lineup. But I didn’t just want a nice level line rod, I also wanted to do a 3-length zoom level line casting rod that covered the most popular rod lengths and that felt excellent in each zoom length. Many people don’t believe that is possible to achieve in a 3-length tenkara rod but we went for it anyway, and I feel like we have actually succeeded in that with the current prototype of the MUTANT Tenkara rod design.

We have been working on this rod design for quite some time and finally made a lot of progress getting it the to performance level we wanted it to be late last year. After finishing our co-creation project of the MIZUCHI Tenkara Rod with Tom Davis (of Teton Tenkara) for tight fishing quarters last summer we learned many design elements that helped move the MUTANT rod prototype design progress to a whole new level of performance.

(By the way, conversations with Tom Davis through out the years and reading through his blog posts has been very enlightening us and an influence in many in many things we do here at DRAGONtail. We thank him for always sharing his thoughts and experiences.)

This last rod prototype our factory completed for us is more than we could have hoped for, we are very pleased. We are so excited to finally move forward from prototyping the MUTANT rod to now setting up production of the new rod and introducing it publicly.

Our MIZUCHI Tenkara Rod has been very popular since it’s launch last September and people seem to be loving the rod for fishing tight quarters on small creeks and streams, like many of the creeks Tom Davis fishes. We are so happy to soon have the new MUTANT tenkara rod to cover the longer rod lengths for fishing more open casting areas (my kind of water) and still have a shorter length (10.3ft) to make casting in many tighter casting quarters easier. Really with the MIZUCHI rod and the new MUTANT rod together you can fish just about any water situation in a preferred length.

We appreciate your contribution in helping us launch this excellent new tenkara rod, and we hope you enjoy the big discount you get for supporting us on this Kistarter product launch.

I really think a lot of tenkara anglers that prefer light level lines are going to love how this rod casts them with ease, although the rest of you are still going to like how smooth it casts most tapered lines as well.

It blows me away how much I like the MUTANT rod in each of the 3 zoom lengths, more so than any other zoom rod I have tried; and I have tried many from USA brands to Japanese brands, we do a lot of rod research here at DRAGONtail. I think you will be very pleased with the MUTANT rod’s performance for you.

Rewards Available:

Mutant Tenkara Rod reward: You get the Mutant zx380 Tenkara Rod with hard case and rod sock.

Mutant Tenkara Rod w/Starter Kit reward: You get the Mutant zx380 Tenkara Rod with hard case, rod sock, spool of DRAGONtail Level Line (enough to make several different length lines), 2 line spools, 3 Tenkara flies, and a spool of tippet.

We guarantee the delivery of all the rewards, our reputation depends on it and we are an established company with great reputation we want to keep.

Tenkara Addict Video Review of the Mutant Prototype

How To Use a Multi-Length Zoom Tenkara Rod

PRESS RELEASE:

New 3-Length DRAGONtail Mutant zx380 Zoom Tenkara Fishing Rod

 It’s the Ultimate 3-Length Full-Flex Soft Action Tenkara Fishing Rod coming this September from DRAGONtail Tenkara, seriously this is an awesome level line focused tenkara rod. This rod has been many years in development and it’s design has been influenced greatly by the Tenkara community conversations. We are so excited to have the final prototype and move on to production and promotion of this rod.

The Mutant zx380 rod covers 3 very popular sizes in one tenkara rod: 380cm (12.5ft), 350cm (11.5ft), and 315cm (10.3ft). This gives you the option to fish the right length in the most fishing situations. We feel the casting action in all three of the rod’s zoom lengths is excellent.

The focus of the design of the Mutant zx380 rod is for premium light level line casting and you will find that it does this extremely well in every zoom length. It’s soft 6:4 Full-Flex casting action is perfect for Light Level Lines to medium weight furled or tapered lines.

This rod is designed for targeting small to medium sized trout in creeks, streams, or small rivers. That does not mean you can’t use outside of those parameters if you so desire, have fun doing what you like. Although if you want to target big fish then this is probably not the tenkara rod for you. 

You can also read the review of the Mutant zx380 rod by Tom Davis of Teton Tenkara Blog on his website at:
http://tetontenkara.blogspot.com/2020/05/dragontail-mutant-zx380-zoom-tenkara.html