We just found this video on Youtube and thought it was worth sharing it, and certainly worth watching the 22 minutes of it. Yvon Chouinard of Patagonia, and Craig Mathews of Blue Ribbon Flies (one of our dealers) host the TV show American Fly Guide with Yvon fishing with tenkara on the Odell Creek in the Madison Valley, Montana. Enjoy it.

The last 2 weeks have proven to be very busy. They have provided me with tons of materials for this blog, though little time to post as things were happening. I’ll start from the end and try to work my way to the beginning of these 2 weeks of fishing.

Three hours after arriving from a 10-day fishing tour of Colorado – where my wife hooked her first football-size trout on tenkara, and we ate some wonderful tenkara pie - we went to pick up the editor of the well-known Japanese magazine Fishing Cafe, Mr. Noboru Endo, and his friend and translator for the trip, Mr. Katsumi Fujikura, at their hotel.

Mr. Fujikura (left) and Mr. Endo (right)

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“Believe it or not, what started as a novelty for me has actually increased my catch rate by three or four times.” – Yvon Chouinard, Fly Fisherman magazine (June/July 2012)

In what can be seen as a huge milestone for tenkara in the US, tenkara has finally been featured in Fly Fisherman magazine (June/July 2012), in an article written by no less than the legendary outdoorsman Yvon Chouinard, founder and owner of Patagonia. It took quite a while for the largest magazine in the sport to cover tenkara maybe they feared their advertisers weren’t going to be too happy with the idea of a reeless method of fly-fishing being featured . We couldn’t be happier to see the article written by Chouinard himself, a person with great knowledge of the method and dedicated to it.

What most people don’t know about Yvon is that he is a huge fan of tenkara, and one of the only people in the country that practiced tenkara before we came about. He has been by far our biggest ambassador; during the fishing season last year  there was probably not a week that went by when we didn’t get a call or  email from someone saying, “Yvon suggested I talk to you guys…”.  And, he even attended the 2011 Tenkara Summit, where I had the pleasure of fishing with him.

In the article, Yvon describes his favorite technique, twitching the fly. He says, “just like your house cat or any predator, [fish] want action…The best way to imitate that action and to trigger a response is by using a slow-action rod with a delicate tip and a short, line line. The best rod for that is the Tenkara.”

When I was in Oregon last week it was evident most subscribers were already receiving the magazine. When I finished my presentation several people came to ask me about his technique, which Yvon says is deadly. One of the last times I saw him he told me about the article he was writing and a new technique he had been using. He sounded excited about the success he’d been having with it, outfishing his friends 4 or 5 times he told me. It sounded very similar to one of my favorite ways of fishing, so I was looking forward to reading how he described this.  We will let you get a copy of the magazine to read more about how he does this, and the rig that he prefers to use.

Yvon makes special mention of two books as “Suggested Reading”: Tenkara: Radically Simple, Ultralight fly Fishing by Kevin C. Kelleher and Misako Ishimura, and Wet Flies by Dave Hughes.

If you’re not a subscriber to Fly Fisherman magazine, or gave up your subscription because they never talked about tenkara, definitely look for this issue. (And, no, the big striper on the cover is not a fish caught on tenkara – big fish are what sell magazines… or so they say).

I’m getting behind on all the content I’d like to write as it is difficult to keep up with all the experiences. Yesterday I had a wonderful day with staff from the Patagonia-Japan stores. I felt inspired by their energy and a couple of the pictures I took, so I submitted a trip report to Patagonia for their blog. Since that may take a while for them to see it, I thought I’d share the story here

Patagonia and Tenkara  – Crossing Paths Again

Today tenkara, Tenkara USA (or, in this case, Tenkara International) and Patagonia once again crossed paths. This time in Japan with staff from a couple of Patagonia stores in Tokyo.

At the moment, I am sitting in my tatami room in the town of Kaida Kogen, Nagano prefecture in Japan. We just finished a hot-pot dinner, which topped off a day of teaching tenkara to four Patagonia-Japan employees. Over the next couple of days more people will join the tenkara class. As I learned today, employees from different Patagonia stores in Tokyo have formed an informal “Patagonia Tenkara Club”, which currently has about a dozen members.

Dr. Ishigaki doing a tenkara demonstration for Patagonia employees of different Tokyo stores

It’s serendipitous that very soon after I started Tenkara USA, I discovered Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia, had recently become a tenkara convert. Especially given the fact that Yvon’s book, Let My People Go Surfing, was one of 2 books that inspired my business, and the one I used as a guide on developing of my own business philosophies….

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