We have many customers who use our rods on these species. We recommend either the Taka Tenkara Rod or the Kyojin II Tenkara Rod. Carp are tremendous fun and we enjoy landing them on vanilla wooly buggers. Many customers in the Texas and Florida area land these species on our rods either by walk-wading or from kayaks.
Reds and Drums are heavy fish but usually aren’t huge “runners”. They mostly hunker down and tug. If you spread the load and keep steady pressure on these fish, it is amazing the power you will have from the rod and the fish you can land. They key is in even distribution of the load, along the length of the rod – the entire rod, not just the upper sections. The Taka can handle 16lb test (up to 20lb in very skilled hands) and the Kyojin, 20lb test comfortably. You might find this article interesting as it compares these two rods:
A Look at Two Big-Fish Tenkara Rods – Zen Tenkara
This article discusses Big Fish on Tenkara:
Big Fish on Tenkara: Understand Why and How it Works – Zen Tenkara