A frying pan and a tenkara Grand Slam in Colorado… Armed with a tenkara rod (I was using the Tenkara USA Ito), tenkara line and tenkara flies I went fishing near Aspen, Colorado yesterday. Caught some pretty good fish, a couple in the 20 inch range. You’ll see a tweak I did to my tenkara fly, the Amano kebari during the video, which seemed to produce results.

Today I started fishing near Aspen, Colorado, after giving a presentation in the area yesterday. In the morning I headed out with a group and caught some beautiful rainbows, mostly in the 18-20″ range. Then, in the early afternoon I hooked into browns (still in the same river), at least one at about 20″.

On the 3.5 hour drive home I stopped in a small stream off the highway to take a break and fish. A few minutes into fishing and I hooked a couple of cutthroats (western slope cutthroats I think). As I walked upstream I came across a beaver dam, cast above it and caught a brookie. As I walked away to farther spot I thought to myself…”wait a minute, I just caught a Colorado Grand Slam! YEAH!”. A quick note, I caught them all on one fly… not just the “one fly”, but the actual same fly (a variation of the amano kebari). I’m putting a new “Tenkara Diary” video together, hopefully you’ll see it tomorrow, but here are the photos:

This is the photo of a Japanese char, the Iwana, which I took on one of my trips to Japan. Iwana translates roughly as “rock fish”. Aptly I caught this guy on the Tenkara USA Iwana rod. It is said they can “walk” on rocks to get back to the water, and legend has it that they can use that ability to cross paths and get on different waters if their stream is drying up. I can vouch that they can use their fins to stand, though I haven’t yet seen one walk from one stream to another.

John Geer and I went to Missoula, Montana to attend the Orvis Guide Rendezvous over the last couple of days. We were invited to share tenkara with the Orvis network of guides, since they will likely be getting a lot of inquiries about tenkara rods and the tenkara method of fishing now that we are being featured on a full page of the Orvis catalog. We had 2 hours yesterday to sneak out and fish the nearby rivers. You have to watch the video to see the enormous fish John is holding at the end, he says it felt like a kayaker was pulling him.

 

Tenkara rod: Tenkara USA Amago
Tenkara line: 4.5 level line
Tenkara fly: Oki Sakasa Kebari
Tenkara net: hands and teeth!

I’m glad to announce a winner for the Tenkara Summit Contest, where we’re giving a free trip to attend the 2013 Tenkara Summit in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

And, the Winner is….. drumroll…… Matthew Shipp! Congratulations Matt!

There were 3 submissions. The view count / accumulated points are in parentheses.  

Tenkara Trout Fishing in Wisconsin by Matthew Shipp (1,264 view / 9 points)

Valley Creek Tenkara by Mike Agneta (715 views / 6 points)

In Case You’re Still Searching for Tenkara by Ashton Chatelain (439 views / 4 points)

For immediate release

Tenkara Summit 2013, May 11-12

The 3rd Tenkara Summit will take place in May in Harrisonburg,Virginia

BOULDER, Colorado: For those wanting to learn more about tenkara, the Japanese method of fly-fishing, Tenkara USA, along with Mossy Creek Fly-fishing, will be holding the 3rd annual Tenkara Summit in Harrisonburg, Virginia. The two day event will be held on May 11th-12th.

Tenkara has been growing in popularity in the USA. Tenkara is a simple method of fly-fishing that uses only a rod, line and fly and was first introduced outside of Japan in 2009 by Daniel Galhardo, and his company, Tenkara USA.

This will be the first Tenkara Summit held on the East Coast. Harrisonburg, Virginia, was chosen due to its very central location on the East coast, as it is within an easy drive for most Eastern states. The area also boasts of hundreds of miles of tenkara-perfect waters all around it.

The purpose of the Tenkara Summit is to bring together tenkara anglers and to share knowledge about the Japanese method of fly-fishing known as tenkara. The event is split into two days. Day one will be held at the Holiday Inn Harrisonburg, with presentations as well as casting and fly-tying clinics ($25, including lunch and evening entertainment). Day 2 will consist of free morning demos at the Riven Rock Park, with optional guided trips in the afternoon ($75, including lunch).

For more information and to register, please visit: Tenkara Summit 2013

About Tenkara USA

Tenkara USA is a fully independent, US-based company. Founded in 2009 by Daniel W. Galhardo. Tenkara USA is the first company to introduce the traditional method of Japanese fly-fishing, tenkara, outside of Japan.

About Mossy Creek Fly-Fishing

Located in the heart of the Shenandoah Valley only minutes away from spring creek brown trout and mountain brookies. Mossy Creek Fly-Fishing is a full-featured fly shop owned by brothers Brian and Colby Trow, and one of the first Tenkara USA dealers in the country and home to the first dedicated tenkara guide in the USA, Tom Sadler.

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.

TJ, the man in charge of customer service here at Tenkara USA, is a Volkswagen Bus aficionado. He put together this neat video of him going to visit a pond in his area with his VW bus, in search of some panfish. Even with the VW bus sound it is a very peaceful video. I love how fitting tenkara seemed to the whole thing. The quick setup was fun to watch: drive, stop, setup and fish, pack and go home. Enjoy it.

Had a fun day of fishing yesterday on the Big Thompson, outside of Estes Park. One of the highlights of the day was a group of rams butting heads on the side of the road.

All we needed was a tenkara rod, tenkara line, and tenkara fly.

Headed out for a phenomenal afternoon of tenkara fishing. Carried a prototype tenkara rod I’m working on, tenkara line and two tenkara flies I tied before heading out. Shot entirely with an iPhone. There are a couple of tips in this short movie too. This video is 5 minutes long, with a song by Takenobu. Make sure to watch it in HD (click on the gear icon, and then 720 or 1080). Hope you enjoy it.

Now that I’m nearer streams, I decided to record more of the experiences I’m having out there. Some may be just a quick recap of what I experienced, others may hold insights. I figured this would be a good way to get better at editing videos, and hopefully you’ll enjoy them.

Here’s the first one. It was a super short outing, I headed out at 4:30 and was back home at 6pm. COLD! Brrrrr!