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For the last several years the sport of fly-fishing has been threatened by decline, primarily attributed to young kids not taking up their parent’s and grandparent’s most soothing activity. As more experienced anglers, we try to engage young kids in the sport in the best way we can; last year Cameron Mortenson (from the Fiberglass Manifesto) and Kevin Powell started the website FishyKid.org, which has attracted many kids (and probably parents too) and is successfully keeping kids interested in the sport. Tenkara USA also sees itself as a great conduit to get kids involved in the sport, with “cool” telescopic rods, that are longer than their parents yet very lightweight, very sensitive and, importantly, easy to use. Our rods are being very widely adopted by parents wanting to teach their kids how to fly-fish, and from several reports, it is working well. To a certain degree tenkara changes the game by making it easier, and most importantly, less frustrating for kids to take up the activity. Give a kid a tenkara rod, and he will quickly figure out how to cast it, and most often quickly catch a fish too, thus “hooking” him for life. Of course, there is always the “Tsuri kiji Sanpei” comics to get their interest too.
It was with great relief that, while visiting Japan, we’d find a living proof that the young are still taking up the sport, at least via tenkara. During the tenkara event we got to meet young Taiga Watanabe, who was just about to turn 13. Taiga goes by the nickname “Tenkara Ouji”, translated as “tenkara prince”, and is well known for hanging out with the older “Tenkara Oyaji”, secretly picking up the masters’ tricks.
Tenkara Ouji showed us a tray filled with multiple tenkara patterns he tied himself, and which he sold like candy to anglers in the event. In an effort to foster his keen interest in tenkara, or perhaps to feed his insatiable appetite for cool tenkara gear, I put in an order for a few dozen tenkara flies. I knew anglers here would love to have them. His dad assured me Taiga would be tying flies through the summer anyways, so he may as well sell them to me so he could sustain his tenkara addiction. We shook hands and a few weeks later we received these beautiful flies. I kept a few for myself, and have caught plenty of fish on them. The rest are now available for purchase as sets, which include one of each of the flies pictured below. These flies wont’ last long, only a small number of sets is available. He’s currently tying new patterns for us, which should be available in a couple of weeks.
Tenkara Ouji's flies
This month Tenkara USA is being featured in the Japanese fly-fishing magazine, Fly Rodders.
Fly Rodders is one of the leading magazines on fly-fishing in Japan. The mention is very positive, mostly focusing on the fact that we’re now introducing the Japanese method of fly-fishing outside of Japan.
I have often wondered, and talked to a couple of people in Japan, about whether tenkara becoming popular in the US could lead to its further popularization in Japan. Often times people in Japan have looked at the US for trends, and someone told me Japan is about 2 to 3 years behind the US in fly-fishing terms…well, I say the US was at least about 200 years behind Japan on this one! So, I could be inclined to think even such a mention could be the beginning of more tenkara adopters in its home country too. Maybe that’s presumptuous, but I’ll just continue thinking it.
How can I possibly start writing about a fishing trip with two of the finest anglers in the US, if not by repeating an older post that I must have been living a dream? And that, if not overwhelmed, I am still trying to believe that I actually went tenkara fly-fishing in the company of such well known anglers as John Gierach and Ed Engle! These are two of the guys who most shaped recent western small-stream fly-fishing. Yes, tenkara fly-fishing with John Gierach and Ed Engle!
Ishigaki sensei and Chikara helping with translation
After knowing Ishigaki sensei for about a year and having had many communications with him via email, and after spending several days talking and fishing with him while visiting Japan, I thought there were some questions I should ask him “for the record”. An interview was in order. On the 3-hour drive back from the Itoshiro to Nagoya, I turned on the recorder and had a nice conversation with Ishigaki sensei. We had so many other lengthy conversations in my time there, and we covered many specific aspects of tenkara, this time I had some slightly broader questions to ask him.
NOTE: Ishigaki sensei gifted us with a few tenkara flies he tied himself, which are now available here for the benefit to an environmental non-profit.
CONVERSATION:
Daniel: Dr. Ishigaki, could you describe your path to tenkara? What led you to pursue this simpler way of fishing? What is your story with tenkara?’
Ishigaki sensei: I first learned about tenkara through a book, “Keiryu no tsuri” (stream fishing). The book was published about 40 years ago by the company “Tsuribitosha”. This book covered 3 types of fishing: lure fishing, live bait fishing and tenkara. Read the rest of this entry »
Today I completed my first own tenkara net. It’s made of one manzanita branch, found after much looking and worked on for over a month. The end of the handle features a deer antler tip, which in Japanese superstition is believed to protect anglers in the water.
Raw branch:
MORE PICTURES Read the rest of this entry »
I have been having tons of fun searching for the appropriate branches and then embarking on the adventure of making my own tenkara tamo (tenkara nets). As stated, I have fallen in love with tenkara nets!
After spending a few weeks looking for the ideal branches, I was able to find a couple of branches, one from a manzanita bush, the other from the Jeffrey pine. After near a month in the making, I’m getting close to finishing them. The entire process was documented on the forum. Here are the semi-final results.
I loved working on something so simple and aesthetically pleasing. It’s not easy, but doable, and beautiful. The details were difficult, especially joining the two arms of the frame.
Though all nets are unique and one-of-a-kind, the manzanita will be more so because the manzanita does not have the symmetrical branches with the right diameters and angles for a net. The Jeffrey pine, on the other hand, has the ideal shapes and the wood is easier to work with.
I’ll venture to say this is the first manzanita net frame in the world built in this manner, and after studying the manzanita I think it may continue with that title since it was almost impossible to find the right branch for it. It’s my most rewarding project, the wood is absolutely gorgeous, and the outer layer of the stripped bark is red, giving it a beautiful natural color and providing for very interesting patterns on the places I needed to strip and sand. I needed to cut the end of the handle as it was curved in the wrong direction, and I figured I could follow the tenkara tradition of using deer antlers for protecting who uses it in the water. A tenkara enthusiast, who also gave me some great advice, offered to send me some deer antler, and one of them was a great match, having almost the same colors as the wood itself.
Stay tuned for the final pictures in a couple of weeks.
At the invitation of Tenkara USA and The Golden Gate Angling and Casting Club (GGACC), GGACC is proud to host renowned tenkara fly-fishing master, Dr. Hisao Ishigaki, for a unique cross-cultural fly-fishing event.
WHEN: Saturday, September 11, 2010
1:00 PM – 4:00 PM
WHERE: Golden Gate Angling and Casting Club, San Francisco, CA
Dr. Ishigaki is known and deeply respected throughout Japan as the leading authority on tenkara fly-fishing. A professor in the field of vision studies at the Aichi Institute of Technology, in Japan, Dr. Ishigaki became first known among tenkara anglers for his research on the vision of fish and of anglers. He has dedicated a big part of his life to introducing this simpler method of fly-fishing to people throughout Japan via many books, articles and DVDs on tenkara. After his first presentation in the Catskills, NY, Dr. Ishigaki is now coming on his second visit to the US to speak about tenkara.
A very friendly and warm angler and engaging lecturer, Dr. Ishigaki says he’s looking forward to making many new friends in the US, and is looking forward to his visit.
During the event Dr. Ishigaki will do a tenkara fly-tying demonstration, a presentation about tenkara, and a demonstration on tenkara casting.
Space is very limited.
Those interested should RSVP at the GGACC website: http://ggacc.org/p/ViewEvent.aspx?eid=322
Fly-fishing is one of the most therapeutic activities around, and tenkara’s simplicity perhaps even more so. Since the inception of Tenkara USA, we have been approached and supported numerous organizations that work with war veterans and people with limited arm mobility. Tenkara, with no reel, no unnecessary amount of line to strip, no bells-and-whistles, has proved to be a very effective tool in helping people that would otherwise have difficulties, give fly-fishing a real try. It’s not the only tool around for adaptive angling, but definitely a fun tool that also provides some additional independence to those who want to fish with a fly. A fishing method made for fishing with one hand.
Tenkara removes the complexities that were added to fly-fishing over the years and makes it a fun, and above all, simple and intuitive method of angling with a fly. Not having to pass line through the rod guides, strip line to cast, and going through a complicated series of knots, mean that tenkara allows for greater independence in his fishing. Imagine you only have one able arm and want to setup your rod and fish, yourself, for a bit. A rod with a reel by default ask for two hands, frustrating, I’d imagine. As I witnessed, a telescopic tenkara rod is a rod, made for one-handed fishing. It can be held under one’s arm as the plug is removed and the tip is exposed with the able hand; the hand, which in turn quickly makes a girth hitch on hisline and tightens it against the rod tip. And, finally telescopes each segment of the rod out and proceeds to cast, an intuitive cast with no 2-handed stripping needed. These are the few steps needed to setup and fish with a tenkara rod when the fly is already tied on. I was extremely proud to see a tenkara rod, one which I adopted from a foreign country and introduced to the US, serve as much more than a simple fishing tool.
Walking around the banks of this lake, with his western fly-rod already rigged but mostly inside the reel, the war veteran – not only a war veteran but a western fly-fishing “veteran” of 3+ years, who, through a special reel, a special stripping device and some ingenuity – spotted a very good fish. With no time to spare and go through the process of getting his line out of the reel to cast, I gave him my tenkara rod, which I kept rigged for the occasional cast. Not yet fully used to casting with a tenkara rod, his first cast piles up a bit, but it’s no problem, the line is so light the fish was not disturbed. On the second cast the fly didn’t turnover completely, but went far enough, maybe 15ft out, to attract the attention of the feeding fish. In a few seconds it was fish on. A healthy and very feisty 14″ rainbow. Not his biggest, nor his first, but his first on a tenkara rod, maybe the first that provided such a fight he thought he may not actually land it, the first that perhaps felt like an equal adversary. But, also the first fish he had full control over, who didn’t take line, because he couldn’t, and after a very strong fight just surrendered because he realized he couldn’t really run anywhere. He was hooked. The simplicity of it, the fact that he could simply cast when he wanted to, and the won battle – All worth it.
A HUGE THANK YOU TO ALL VETERANS AND THOSE WHO SACRIFICE SO MUCH FOR THEIR COUNTRY!
I told you, I have fallen in love with the simple, organic elegance of tenkara nets. Though I have very little experience with wood work, I have decided to embark on the journey of making one. I have spent weeks looking up at trees trying to find the perfect branches to make a net myself. The branches needed to have just the right angles, the right diameters, be on the right (i.e. healthy) tree, in the right (i.e. legal) location, and be the right wood for this, that I just thought it was going to be impossible to ever make one myself.
Tenkara net, with a manzanita branch
I finally found a couple of branches that just may work, and if nothing else are good places to start the learning process. Through several resources accumulated and the suggestions of people with experience in wood work, I think I may just get to make my own net. I am documenting the experience on our forum, under the newly created category of “tenkara nets”. I was able to find 2 branches of a Jeffrey Pine (this yielded 4 possible nets) and one branch of a manzanita (above). So far I started drying the nets while forming them into shape with strings, removed the bark and did some initial carving on the knots and ends. Now I must let them dry for a while before resuming the work.
The raw net frame assembly.
This is going to be a real fun project.
While we subscribe to the theory that fishing is extremely simple, and that a person can successfully fish with one fly pattern, whatever pattern they choose, we also really like tenkara flies. They come in different shapes, colors, sizes and with unique details about each of them. Due to the research and interest of Mr. Yoshikazu Fujioka, from the website “My Best Mountain Streams”, we have been able to learn a lot about tenkara flies, their geographic origins and some of their history.
Mr. Fujioka is our tenkara fly teacher, our tenkara kebari sensei, and also helped us put together our current selection of flies. Over the years he has researched and collected traditional tenkara flies from different regions of Japan. Now, Fujioka sensei gives us a very nice, yet, tenkara-like simple, analysis of tenkara flies. Like classifying western flies into “dry”, “wet”, “nymphs”, etc, his analysis focuses specifically on tenkara flies and what pattern styles are commonly found in the hands of tenkara anglers. These should serve as a good foundation to better understanding tenkara flies (if one chooses to, understanding this is not really necessary to be a successful angler).
While the most characteristic tenkara flies are the so-called “sakasa kebari”, or reverse hackle flies, these are not the only type of fly used in tenkara, and as shown in his graphic chart, even the sakasa kebari come in different forms and with different characteristics (soft hackle/stiff hackle, thick body/thin body and short/long hackle).
Typically, an experienced tenkara angler will use one pattern only. Over time, an angler will acquire preferences for a specific fly type, and will have his “go-to” fly. Not all tenkara anglers use the same fly as each other, but each one tends to stick with only one style. Some may believe a fly with soft hackle will be more “fluid”, softer and thus may be more attractive; other people may believe a stiffer hackle facing forward is better at attracting fish. Yet, others will tie any fly they find to be the simplest and quickest to tie. This is what Fujioka sensei shows in his analysis of tenkara flies.
The complete analysis of tenkara fly by Fujioka sensei can be found on the pdf document. It’s very informative and thorough, yet simple as it should be.
