Tenkara Flies on Wednesdays is back? On a Tuesday??? I’ll be less US-centric time-wise for this post. By the time the post is up on our site, it will be Wednesday here in Japan, so I’ll run with it.

One of the things I had promised you to do on this trip was to cover some fly-tying with our friends in Japan. Yesterday was our last day in the Maze area, and while there wasn’t as much time as I had hoped to cover tenkara fly-tying, I made a point to ask my friend Shintaro Kumazaki to demonstrate his go-to tenkara fly. Shintaro grew up fishing. His father did tenkara before him, and his parents have owned the tackle shop in town for the last 12 years. Also, he’s practically next-door neighbor with the famed Katsutoshi Amano (by the way, this post and video of Mr. Amano are a must-see if you are interested in tenkara and tenkara flies). Shintaro has taken a much stronger interest in tenkara when I was visiting last year. He certainly caught the tenkara bug when we embarked on an epic trip fishing and canyoneering in search of wild iwana.

On another note, Shintaro and I had a very enjoyable afternoon session of tenkara fly-tying last year when i was visiting. The small picture to the right, which says “SHARE”, is of Shintaro tying a tenkara fly for me last year >;>;>;>;>;>;>;>;>;>;>;>;

After we were done with sawanobori (shower-climbing) and fishing yesterday, we headed over to his parent’s tackle shop (/pottery store) in Hagiwara, where he had his fly-tying station ready to go. I hope the film I shot (hand-held, and edited in my last 3-hour train ride) will please you.

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Yesterday we shared with you the news of a new release in the world of tenkara, “Tying Tenkara Flies” a DVD produced by LearnTenkara.com (available for sale at learntenkara.com and soon here at Tenkara USA). This is by far the best fly-tying DVD ever produced, and we’re lucky it is about tenkara flies. Brian Flemming, the producer and cinematographer, shared one of the entire videos with us for today’s Tenkara Flies on Wednesdays.

In today’s video I share a basic tenkara fly pattern, my variation of Mr. Amano’s tenkara fly. I use peacock herl as the collar and whatever feather and line they had on hand when I tied the video – I believe it was partridge for the feather and silk line. Coincidentally, as we’re just about to board a plane for the second Tenkara Summit, this video was shot on my last day in Montana after last year’s Tenkara Summit. I came over to Brian’s house to make this video just hours before departing Montana. It was probably midnight when we started shooting and even with the shot of whiskey and being super tired, I am glad to see my speech wasn’t too slurred.

Enjoy it.

written by Jason

This is one of my go-to patterns and lots of people have asked for a video on how to tie.  It’s a simple pattern, but the two contrasting strands of horse hair used for the body create nice segmentation while the variegation of the grizzly hackle gives a complex, “buggy” impression.
 

Recepie

 
Hook: TMC 2499SPBL #12
Thread: Camel, 8/0
Hackle: Grizzly
Body: 2 strands of horse tail – 1 light, 1 dark

Written by Daniel

 
Back in 2010 I wrote about the Mamushi-kebari, or “the snake-skin tenkara fly”. Mr. Hirata is the person who either invented it or at least became known in tenkara circles for that unique fly, which he ties using the skin of one of Japan’s most venomous snakes, the mamushi.
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