Written by Daniel

My wife and I were reviewing pictures from a recent fishing trip we took with two friends who are new to fly-fishing. I mentioned how it was funny that I needed to remind both our friends to “show me the fish!” After struggling to hold the fish, they would proceed to hide most of  it with their hand. I personally couldn’t understand why they were doing that. And then my wife remarked that, “most people will try to grab a fish like this…” as she mimicked the motion we use to pick an apple off a table for example, “that’s how we naturally do it”.

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Yesterday I headed south to visit two craftsmen. The primary purpose of this trip was to visit the renowned tenkara net maker (tenkara tamo) Mr. Yukihiro Yoshimura, of the store “Mankyu”.

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It has been a while since I last posted something on tenkara nets. So, I thought I’d give you an update on nets that I have recently finished. Also, be on the lookout this year for more on tenkara nets. I plan on talking more about them, and the advantages they present for stream fly-fishing, particularly mountain stream fly fishing.

This first net was made with a Juniper tree branch, collected in Colorado. It is one of my favorite ones so far. As with all nets, this was a whole lot of work, but the beautiful features on the wood made it all worth it. I also incorporated a deer antler, which I thought would really complement it – and protect me in the water as Japanese superstition goes. As I didn’t want to hide the flaws on the branch, I chose to fasten the mesh to it by using eyelet pins on the bottom of the frame – TONS OF WORK, and I don’t plan to do that unless absolutely necessary as I felt it was for this one.

As with all nets I’m making, this one features my name with Japanese kanji characters on the handle. Dr. Ishigaki, my sensei, is also quite a master with words. He was able to find characters that can not only be pronounced “Da ni e ru”, as you’d pronounce my name in Japanese, but also mean “a person who developed his own casting style” or something to those lines.

The one below is made of a Ponderosa pine branch, collected in the Sierras. I made the hoop larger than most other nets so far. It is a little over 27cm (most that I make are 24cm) in diameter.

This one is a small net, made with Jeffrey Pine. The diameter of the branches making the hoop are thinner than usual, but it’s very strong nonetheless, and I’d use it with full confidence. The line used to connect the mesh to the frame was twisted polyester line made by my friend and forum user Rick.

And, below is the “kuroi tamo”, a unique black net. The branch had some parts with interesting lines and features, but was generally boring and not that pretty. Thus, I decided early on to highlight the interesting features by darkening the entire net and having a transparent, and golden tone over on black on those features. They are hard to see in the photographs, but the bottom of the handle and the rounded middle are where you can see it. Unfortunately I think the mesh bag was too small for this one. I was going for a smaller mesh to keep its look more “delicate”, and used a 24cm size. I should have used a 27cm mesh, and will probably change it down the road.