The Tenkara USA guarantee means we’ll make sure your tenkara rod bearing our name gets fixed quickly and conveniently. Do not mail anything back to us, we will send you just the part(s) you need for your tenkara rod. […]
Every event needs a good photographer. We have been very lucky to get professional photographers to attend all of our Tenkara Summits and memorialize the event in superb photos. This year we counted on the presence of Justin Ide. Justin was a participant at the event and is a professional photographer who offered to capture the moments at the 2013 Tenkara Summit. If you’re looking for a professional photographer, look no further: http://www.justinide.com/. Enjoy the slideshow below.
If you’re looking for some fun reading over the next few days, Anthony Naples created The Wintertime Blues, “a one-time only project dedicated to collecting creative writing, photos, and art related to tenkara and fly fishing and publishing a one-off collaborative, pot luck dinner, mix-tape and fanzine for tenkara and fly fishing.” TJ and Daniel have a story each in the “fanzine”. Good reading for sure, and a big thanks to Anthony for putting this together. Click below to download the pdf file.
TROutreach was started with the intent of teaching physically impaired individuals how to fly fish – INDEPENDENTLY – through the elegance of tenkara. While the program is still in its infancy, TROutreach is gaining steam every season. This is a program supported by Tenkara USA.
They teach tenkara to amputees, polytrauma Veterans, and others who find themselves in a position that makes it tough to enjoy the outdoors through fly fishing.
Maybe we should start featuring more of the images our customers share with us in their experiences with tenkara. The one that Larry Yien, the legendary archer, just shared with us on our Facebook page is probably a good one to start with.
This week Larry went fishing with tenkara for the first time. While he wasn’t going to a mountain stream, that didn’t deter him from bringing along his new toy, the 13ft Ayu Tenkara USA rod. Larry describes the experience to us: Read the rest of this entry »
On May 11 and 12 we’re holding the 3rd annual Tenkara Summit (registrations now open), this time in Harrisonburg, Virginia. This is promising to be a great event, with phenomenal fishing all around.
To celebrate it Tenkara USA is giving out a free trip to the Summit. This will include: one round-trip ticket from/to your home within the Continental USA, 2 nights in the hotel where the Summit will be held, free attendance (a $100 value) and a tenkara rod!
How to Participate?
To get a chance to win you’ll need to create a video about tenkara. The video must be new (shot, edited and uploaded after this post went up). It should be uploaded on Youtube or Vimeo, and a link to it must be entered in the comments for this post. By posting the link on the comment section you grant Tenkara USA the rights to share the video online through its blog, Facebook and Twitter pages, and other online medium.
Video must be uploaded by April 10th. Winner will be selected on April 20th.
How to Win?
We’ll select the winner by allocating 10 points based on the criteria below. The main way to win the free trip will be based on number of views of your video, which carries 6 points.
1) Number of views* (6 points, video with most views gets 6 points, others will be “graded” on a curve) 2) Over 2,000 views (1 point) 3) Featuring Tenkara USA gear (1 point) 4) Conservation message (1 point) 5) TUSA Staff Favorite (1 point)
* Video must have at least 500 views** 1 point deducted if negative comments/thumbs down equal or surpass positive comments/thumbs up*** In the event of a tie, Tenkara USA will find an unaffiliated person to serve as a tie breaker based on his/her favorite film.Terms:
1) By submitting video link to this contest, the user who submitted the link attests he has full copyright ownership of said video, and has the explicit authorization from those who appear in the video to use their image.
2) User who submitted the video grants Tenkara USA a royalty-free, irrevocable and unrestricted right to share the video through any channels Tenkara USA sees fit.
3) Winner agrees to communicate promptly with Tenkara USA to ensure any flights and hotel room are booked by no later than April 25th.
4) Contest entry dates end on April 10th at midnight PST. Winners will be chosen on April 20th.
5) Flights are for domestic, continental USA flights only. No international flights.
6) User must be 18 years old or older to enter the contest.
7) User may submit up to 5 videos.
The goal of this contest is to help bring awareness about tenkara to new people.
However, you do not need tenkara equipment to participate. So long as you talk about tenkara (perhaps what has made you interested in it), then it’s okay. Also, keep in mind if you also talk a bit about conservation (perhaps stream cleanup, http://www.tenkarausa.com/blog/?p=2560) there is an extra point in there.
What a great couple of months! The experience at all of the fly fishing shows these last couple of months left me thinking of adopting the name TJ “Kebari” Ferreira, or TJ “FLY” Ferreira.
As some of may know, Tenkara USA had a booth at almost all of the Fly Fishing Shows throughout the USA, and for the first time we also had a booth at the International Sportsman Expo held in Sacramento, CA. All in all we attended 6 of the 7 Fly Fishing Shows and 1 ISE show. What a whirlwind tour for myself, Daniel, John, and our guest helpers. We really enjoyed being able to spread the joys of tenkara to the masses.
The 3 of us at Somerset Fly Fishing Show. Daniel, John, and TJ.
If you do not like a long blogs, you can stop reading here knowing we all had a great time. But… if you would like to come on a little trip with me, hop in my 1967 VW Bus for a little ride, a little chat, and lets get this tenkara peace pipe smoking!
Adam Trahan of Tenkara-Fisher.com decided to join the brotherhood of inked tenkara anglers this week with a beautiful tenkara sakasa kebari on his forearm. I feel honored he’d join in with a similar design to what I got on my arm a couple of weeks ago, it will be fun to see the two tenkara flies on our arms meet one of these days.
The thing about a tattoo is complete commitment. You better be ready to live with your choices for the rest of your life. In having a “Tenkara Tattoo” I have made a commitment to myself, for life. Tenkara stands for many things, not only fishing but a way of looking at life. Bringing things to their most simple form and finding security in this choice. Life is complex enough, making choices as simple and as pure as possible, the tattoo stands for that too. Ultimately, I chose my tattoo design out of my love for fishing. Tenkara being the form of fishing that represents the beginning, practice of and the idea that I can do it the rest of my life. The kebari design, I chose if from Yoshikazu Fujioka who I meet online in 1997 and have enjoyed his aesthetic since then. The Takayama Sakasa Kebari is a drawing that he sent to me for my fly tying box some time ago. When I saw Daniel had the same tattoo on his forearm, I knew that this is the design that I wanted, especially since the movement of the arm makes the tattoo move like the kebari does in the water. It is also a nod of respect to Daniel for having introduced this complete type of fishing (and it’s discipline of simplicity) to myself and to the world. My tattoo is a personal choice in displaying my love for Tenkara, and a show of total and complete commitment of the idea.
- Adam Trahan
This weekend Tenkara USA is attending the Winston-Salem Fly Fishing Show in North Carolina. Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting Loften Deprez, someone who has been contributing to the forum and whose name I was slightly familiar with. What I did not know was that he is only 15 years old and a tenkara fly-tying talent to watch.
As it turned out, Loften had secured himself a spot as a fly tyer at the Fly Fishing Show and was demonstrating to folks how to tie tenkara flies. I came by to watch him and shot a short video of him tying a fly that had caught my eye. As he finished his fly someone asked him why he made the eyes of the flies like that. I watched with great pride as Loften started giving the person the long version of the answer. He described in great detail not just the question at hand, but what tenkara is. He pulled a rod and began, “well, let me tell you about tenkara…” Later that day the gentleman was seeing walking out of the show with a tenkara rod in hand. Loften did a great job at introducing a lot of people to tenkara, and for that we thank him. You may checkout Loften Deprez’s company at www.latackleflies.com
One more plate has now appeared in Virginia, courtesy of Krisztina and Peter Roder. Pretty good one, and the 3rd one to roam the streets of Virginia! It will be neat to see all those plates come together at the 2013 Tenkara Summit (more updates about the summit will be available within a week here).
For the last 14 years, just about half of my life, I have thought of getting a tattoo. I know it is a permanent thing, so I certainly never felt the need to rush it. Yet, I knew when the time was right I would get a permanent mark, and it would be something that would mean a great deal to me.
For the last 4 years I have been dedicated to introducing tenkara outside of Japan. As I turn 30 (today), I feel that I have accomplished some important milestones in my life. And, I have also reached some very significant milestones for Tenkara USA. These milestones have been made even clearer over the last few weekends attending Fly Fishing Shows, where I have been reminded that tenkara has actually meant a lot to so many people. Just watch this video, and this other to get a glimpse. So much in fact that two folks got tenkara tattoos before I did.
As I anxiously anticipated my thirtieth birthday, I decided it was time to just do it. As the year turned, I started to constantly think about the design and placement of my tattoo. I thought of getting a drawing of Boulder’s Flatirons to mark moving here and getting a new home. I thought of getting the Tenkara USA logo done. And I have thought of a bunch of other things. It should be noted here, too, that my very first design concept came when I was 16 years old and I personally drew a rainbow trout that I wanted done on my back – so even the theme didn’t deviate a whole lot.
As of yesterday evening I still didn’t have a clear idea of what it would be. I had resigned to the fact that it wouldn’t be on my birthday.
Then, this morning I woke up with a very clear idea. It would be a “sakasa kebari”, the iconic tenkara fly that is simple to tie, pulsates when you twitch it, and to me also symbolizes how tenkara went in the opposite direction of the rest of the industry. And, I knew exactly which fly to do, it would be Mr. Yoshikazu Fujioka’s illustration for the cover magazine of Fishing Cafe, a Japanese magazine in which I appeared.
As the day wore on, and I tried to meet some important deadlines, it was becoming less and less likely that it would happen on my 30th birthday. But, I figure, I’ll at least go meet the artists and see what they say. As I’m leaving home, at 5:15pm, I tell my wife, Margaret, “I’m stepping out for a bit…er..gonna get a tattoo.”
“REALLY?” – Yes, as of this afternoon she didn’t know whether I’d finally get it done or not. “Oh, I have made plans for us at 7pm. Can you be back by then?
“Oh…sure. I’m probably just going to make an appointment for tomorrow.”
I arrive at the very nice tattoo shop (Rising Tide, in Boulder, actually the classiest and coolest tattoo place I have seen), and tell them I’d love to get this done today, but understand if they can’t. And, to my surprise they had one guy available (Adrian Holcomb), who could do it and really liked the idea.
Ah, and the placement, it would be on my forearm. One reason I had been hesitating about getting a tattoo is that most hot-springs in Japan do not allow guests with a visible tattoo to enter. I absolutely love the onsen, and did not want to give up on them. A tattoo on the forearm would be pretty easy to conceal.
Plus, there was another, more important reason for this placement. I wanted my tenkara fly to pulsate, like the real thing. I had first thought of having the fly drawn right at the bend of the elbow. But, as I talked to the artist I realized that would be (a) super painful, and (b) it would not hold up well. As we played with the design and exact placement, it became clear that we could accomplish the exact same motion by placing the tattoo right below the elbow. And, it worked. So, I give you a moving tattoo:
How do I feel about it? I love it. Love that it was a small, simple yet meaningful fly. Love that it marks some important milestones achieved. And, love how there is a great, and quite long, story to tell from this one little drawing.
Everyone has his or her own story of how they got into fly-fishing, and then how they discovered tenkara. Earlier last year Karel Lansky ran a contest on his blog for people to submit their tenkara stories. Anthony Naples of Castingaround.com just shared with me his story, which I found fascinating and decided to ask for his permission to share it. What particularly got me is how he shares my sentiment towards discovering tenkara just at the right time. I have seen many people express it in similar terms:
“when tenkara came along it was like an answer to a question that I hadn’t even fully articulated to myself yet. I was yearning for tenkara and I just didn’t know it.”
Footprints on the Moon: My Journey to Tenkara
by Anthony Naples
I’m not all that old. I’ve had forty-one birthdays as of this writing. But time has left its mark on me; the thinning hair, the aches and pains…There are memories from my youth that are written on my brain, indelibly, like with some kind of mental Sharpie. Bold and permanent. As I’ve gotten older though it seems like new memories have become less so. New memories are like footprints in the rain filling with water, their contours becoming muzzy, until finally they are mostly indiscernible and filled with murky water. The memories of my youth seem, in contrast like footprints on the moon. Pristine. When I think about my journey to the foot of the mountains wherein my tenkara lies, it is hard to remember the more recent events that lead me to stand there.
On May 11 and 12 we’re holding the 
