A young western fly-angler, maybe in his late 20s, walked by us on the Big Thompson River yesterday. He said, “hey”, and then, recognizing the man with the white beard next to me, he casually said, “I really like your writing”.  That was my friend John Gierach.

A few minutes later we walked to the pullout the man had parked his car, next to ours. He recognized the tenkara rods and asked if John has been using it. “Yes, sometimes, for waters like this.” The man said he was familiar with the rods, and his friends have been using tenkara.

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Misako Ishimura is the co-author of the book Tenkara – Radically Simple, Ultralight Fly-fishing , and she agreed to give us an interview, sheding a bit of light on her background and connection with tenkara.

Misako, you have greatly contributed to helping introduce tenkara to the United States. I think it was some type of sign that you were working on the “Made in Japan” exhibit for the Catskills Fly Fishing Center and Museum right at the time I was working on launching Tenkara USA. Almost exactly one month after Tenkara USA launched, the highlight of your exhibit was a demonstration on tenkara by Dr. Ishigaki who came from Japan for the event. Now, 2 years after tenkara was first introduced to the US, you worked with Dr. Kevin Kelleher on a book which will open the doors to fly fishing for many people.

TUSA: Can you tell us how you first discovered tenkara and how long you have been practicing it?

Misako: I started to research Japanese fly fishing history in year of 2000 because many anglers from the other countries at FIPS Mouche World Fly Fishing Championships have been asking me about Japanese fly fishing. During my research in Japan, I discovered tenkara. It gets my interest since tenkara is the way to catch beautiful Japanese trout.  Every time I’ve been to Japan, I collected information about tenkara little by little. Finally I had a chance to learn actual tenkara fishing from Dr. Ishigaki in the mountain stream in Gifu prefecture in June, 2008. Since then, about four years, I have been practicing it.

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It’s official, the first book in English about tenkara has been published! This is the great work of tenkara enthusiasts Kevin C. Kelleher, MD, and Ms. Misako Ishimura, and marks a huge milestone for tenkara in the US. It is an indication of the growing popularity of tenkara, and demonstrates once again its appeal to people with decades of fly-fishing experience like Dr. Kelleher and Ms. Ishimura. The book illustrates tenkara’s potential to introduce newcomers to fly-fishing via its “radically simple” approach, and shows how this method of “ultralight fly-fishing” has great appeal to backpackers. The beautifully illustrated work of Dr. Kelleher and Ms. Ishimura will do much to introduce people to tenkara, though it does blend some of the western notions of fly-fishing with tenkara, and shouldn’t be considered a definitive work on “pure tenkara”. The book is now available for pre-orders (though it seems to be already shipping) via Amazon and other retailers. Please read our review below.

Tenkara, Radically Simple, Ultralight Fly Fishing, is a nicely illustrated book that will do much to help introduce people to tenkara, and thus to the simple sport of fly-fishing. It’s important to keep in mind, however, that it is a blend of information about tenkara and western fly-fishing concepts, as opposed to a guide to “pure tenkara”, i.e. tenkara as it is and has been practiced in Japan. It unfortunately leaves out information on few areas of tenkara as it is practiced in Japan, in favor of western fly-fishing notions. Thus, it should not be considered the “definitive guide to tenkara” or the “tenkara bible”, but rather as a general introduction to tenkara and fly-fishing…

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