Tenkara on a Poor Man's Budget

I finally had a chance to try out my Tenkara rod. Well maybe not an actual Tenkara outfit but you can't have a champagne taste on a beer income. A Tenkara "Ito" rod with an action index of 6.4 costs around $230.00 and everything needed such as the shooting line, leader, special Japanese tied fly's and other accessories will cost you another $75.00 so now your talking at least $300.00 for the whole enchilada.
After a lot of research on this method of fly fishing I found out that most diehards found it useful for small streams where casting is difficult due to foliage and overhanging trees but were very skeptical about hooking into a large steel head with this rig. Like anything, it will serve some purpose.
I went to Walmart and bought one of those telescoping 10 foot crappy poles, attached a 12ft section of shooting line and added a 6 ft leader,Walla- a Tenkara outfit that I could afford, all for less than $12.00 so now I'm ready to fly fish Japanese style with out busting my budget.
Anxious to try this rig out I called my fishing buddy and told him I wanted to field test my faux Tenkara rod and maybe we would get lucky this time and catch something. We ended up on a nice section creek with rapids and holding pools that looked promising and would be just the place to test my rod. Well my buddy ended up catching a couple of tree trout but finished out with a nice size bluegill. I was so engrossed with my rod that I forgot that the main objective was to catch some fish. Both of us had a great time and as I said everything has a purpose.This outfit is just the thing for someone who wants to learn fly fishing.Its light weight, they don't have to worry about winding in slack line and there is less chance of them hooking themselves. The crappy telescoping rod and the Tenkara "Ito" rod have something in common, they are both made in China.