Reddit reviews Wetfly Tenkara Line Clips, Black, Universal

If your main requirement is lightweight, Tenkara is indeed your best option. However, it may not be the best option for the water and fish you might encounter. For instance if you think you'll be hitting lakes and ponds for bass, a collapsible/telescoping spinning rod and reel might be the better choice. Though if you expect to be fishing rivers and streams for smaller species in close quarters, well you've come to the right place.

Rod length is also a choice based on the type of water you'll be fishing. If you've got wide open spaces or expect to be some distance away from a fish holding feature (maybe you intend to fish from shore), then longer is generally better and 12 foot might be your minimum. And if you intend to be in a tight stream with a lot of overhanging branches, you should be looking at shorter options. 2 additional things to consider - a long rod can be difficult to handle for a shorter person, and for backpacking the collapsed length of your setup is an important consideration.

The shortest tenkara rod I have (and maybe the shortest available, not sure) is an 8' Wetfly Kodomo Creek (excellent deal right now @ $70 with a hard case, line, tippet and flies). This is probably the rod I use most because the river I'm on is essentially a tunnel of branches. There are also "zoom" Tenkara rods which typically have 2 usable lengths for different fishing situations. I have a Badger Bad Axe which might be right up your alley - it fishes at 9'10" or 11'6" and is my choice on new water.

Goture isn't the worst you could do, but personally I would consider it to be at the bottom end of an entry level rod. It'll be heavier and less sensitive then most other options. Still, for a new fisherman who might be worried about damaging an expensive set-up on a hiking trip it's not a bad choice.

You're pretty close on what a full setup consists of. The line is usually 2 lines - a "leader" which is a heavier section attached directly to the rod/lillian roughly the length of the rod or slightly longer, and a shorter section (2' is probably average) of lighter weight material called "tippet" that is attached to the leader and then your fly. People generally use fluorocarbon for tippet because it's nearly invisible underwater and it sinks. There are many different options for leader material, but to keep things as simple as possible I would be looking at a level line leader which is usually a colored piece of fluorocarbon making it easy to see your fly drift. Both the leader and tippet have unique sizing designations that I won't get into right now, but if you make a rod choice I'd be happy to help.

2 other things you will probably want is a spool or 2 of some sort to store your leader/tippet set-up(s), and a protective tube for your rod while backpacking. The spools can be very simple and are designed with a hole in the middle to fit over the collapsed rod. This one is a bit more expensive but is a really nice bit of kit to easily keep lines from unraveling and storing a small amount of flies. Trouble with a spool and backpacking is that you will probably want a protective tube for your rod and the spool won't fit in the tube. If that's the case, you might want to look at a line keeper like this or this. The second option is better for smaller rods because you can use different sized o-rings to keep it snug.

So that was a lot more words then I was expecting to type out, especially since Tenkara is all about simplicity, but I hope it helps. Really jealous of a month long backpacking/fishing trip. Enjoy!