Here is a slideshow of the majority of my collection of tenkara flies. Most of these flies were gifts from tenkara anglers in Japan, and a large part of this collection was tied by Mr. Yoshikazu Fujioka who recreated historical tenkara flies he learned about in books and through hearsay.

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.

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.

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!

A writeup about In Search of Tenkara Part 3 is below. In case you missed parts 1 and 2:
In Search of Tenkara, Part 2:

In Search of Tenkara, Part 1:

About “In Search of Tenkara, Part 3″:
Let me get this out of the way first: I used non-tenkara flies, split shot and even a bobber! Let me explain (and I cover this in the video too).
Over the last couple of days my “one fly” (technique over gear) approach was really challenged. For over 2.5 years I have chosen to stick with one fly pattern and focus on refining techniques, as my teachers in Japan have taught me, to see how far I could go with using one fly pattern.
I once said to a class that “the one fly approach works…until it doesn’t”. In streams, spring creeks and rivers thorough the US, in different seasons, the approach has so far always worked. However, I have been waiting for a moment to be shown that it does not; and when the moment came I would not be above changing flies. I thought this finally would be the time where “one fly” would be proven to not work everywhere.
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Yesterday I took 10-year old Sofi tenkara fishing for her first time. She emailed me last week to ask if I could teach her tenkara for her “Dream Homework” assignment. On Monday she attended a presentation I gave at the Boulder REI. It was real cool to see how interested and engaged she was.

While fishing, what impressed me the most was how intuitive she was. I gave her a rod and just told her to get her tenkara fly “out there”, pointing to the calm water near some currents. She did in less than a minute with no instruction. A few minutes later, she spontaneously started manipulating the fly – and she did it perfectly too. It was quite astounding. The fishing was pretty slow, I believe because of pressure changes, but she did manage to land a nice brown within 15 minutes of us picking up the rod for the first time.

Had a terrific evening of tying tenkara flies and talking about them with Gordon Wickstrom at the Tenkara USA headquarters. This is the beginning of working on Volume 2 of the Tying Tenkara Flies DVD, the conversation was fantastic. Gordon has decades of tying knowledge and has been interested in tenkara for sometime, the back and forth was certainly one of my favorite conversations this year.

If you’re like most fly anglers, you like flies. Small and large, dull and shiny, reversed or “normal”. As we have introduced tenkara outside of Japan, we have focused on telling the story of tenkara, on sharing the fascinating layers of a method that has been practiced in Japan for centuries. I have gone to Japan numerous times and have spent a lot of time with multiple tenkara masters to learn the method as a whole. I did that to learn things that I couldn’t have learned otherwise, and to share the story with anyone who is interested.

Through tenkara, we have learned that we can make nets out of one branch of a tree. We have learned about flies made from snake skin, and flies made with dubbing from a plant. And, we have learned that most Japanese tenkara anglers of nowadays, perhaps largely influenced by their commercial angler predecessors, use only one fly pattern and focus on learning and refining technique rather than second-guessing fly choice. We also learned that a tenkara rod is just a tool, and in the end ANY fly will work. These are things I have shared on this blog for no purpose other than tell the true story of a method of fishing that I find fascinating, and perhaps to inspire folks to realize how simple fly-fishing can be. It’s never to tell people to simplify their fishing, simply to say it is possible to simplify it.

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This weekend Tenkara USA is attending the Winston-Salem Fly Fishing Show in North Carolina. Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting Loften Deprez, someone who has been contributing to the forum and whose name I was slightly familiar with. What I did not know was that he is only 15 years old and a tenkara fly-tying talent to watch.

As it turned out, Loften had secured himself a spot as a fly tyer at the Fly Fishing Show and was demonstrating to folks how to tie tenkara flies. I came by to watch him and shot a short video of him tying a fly that had caught my eye. As he finished his fly someone asked him why he made the eyes of the flies like that. I watched with great pride as Loften started giving the person the long version of the answer. He described in great detail not just the question at hand, but what tenkara is. He pulled a rod and began, “well, let me tell you about tenkara…” Later that day the gentleman was seeing walking out of the show with a tenkara rod in hand. Loften did a great job at introducing a lot of people to tenkara, and for that we thank him. You may checkout Loften Deprez’s company at www.latackleflies.com

Written by Daniel

No, this blog is not about to become political.

After going through the highly turbulent political times of the election campaigns – phew, so glad that is over – and after months of being bombarded by highly divisive politics, the image above came to me today (and, yes, I recognize it would have been more timely a few days ago!).

For years I have noticed some themes when it comes to tenkara flies: there are three types of perceptions about tenkara flies, and there are three types of personalities when it comes to choosing the flies. These could be described as: conservative, moderate, and liberal.

A very common question we receive is: “do all tenkara flies have the hackle facing forward?” The answer is no. Some tenkara flies’ hackle is brushed back against the body of the fly as a soft-hackle wet fly. Some will have a hackle that sticks out. And, some will have a very pronounced forward hackle. Most people coming from a western fly-fishing background to tenkara will perceive the reverse hackle as a bit weird. The conservative option will have the hackle in a more standard posture. With a little explanation the hackle facing forward a bit can be understood as the “moderate” option. But, don’t make it too big with the hackle drastically forward-facing!

Most folks versed in western fly-fishing tradition will think of small flies are an important part of their arsenal. If the fish are rejecting a fly, switch to a smaller size. If the fish are not biting, try something smaller.  Thus, from a western angler’s perspective the more “conservative” option will be the smallest fly with hackle that is not as pronouncedly reversed.  A size 12 fly for trout is an acceptable, “moderate” size. A size 8, with reverse hackle? You have to be brave, progressive, “liberal” to try that!

The fly box of an angler may well demonstrate which camp he will fall into: there are those who dip their toes in tenkara in a more conservative fashion – using only western flies and changing flies regularly. There will be some people who embrace many of the concepts in a moderate way, keeping their western flies and floatant, “just in case”. And others who are very liberal when it comes to adopting tenkara into their lives and go all the way.

All I may suggest here is, don’t be afraid of changing your stance a bit. Get outside your comfort zone sometimes. If you think all the fish are interested in are tiny flies, consider that I have been fishing size 12 or 8 flies almost exclusively for the last 2 years throughout the country, and whether the state was red or blue, the flies worked. In my opinion, if the fish are coming to check out my fly and refusing it at the last second, the fly is working fine, my presentation not so much – I don’t go for a smaller size fly in these cases. I am pretty liberal when it comes to flies, and really enjoy starting my day with a large fly to see what is working. If the fish start coming to that right away I’m golden for the rest of the day. I also enjoy using the flies with a hackle that drastically faces forward as I can give them lots of action. But, if the fish are trying to take my fly and not getting hooked, maybe there is something else at play then, and I may go a bit conservative with a small fly.

Of course, these are all just broad generalizations. Anyone willing to give tenkara a try has already demonstrated a very open-mind and the willingness to try something new. And, unlike in politics, here we can all be friends and get along and share insights and experiences and learn from each other. There is absolutely no right or wrong – just perspectives and interests.

What has been your perspective?

Although this post was inspired by the political discussions of previous weeks, it is important to note that the terms “conservative” and “liberal” here have nothing to do with “social”, nor “fiscal” conservatism, and they have no other political connotations. At its root, the term “conservative” denotes someone who desires to keep things the way they are/were. These are dictionary definitions – not wikipedia definitions. Further, they are applied here from a western perspective – using the larger size flies with reverse hackle will be the most common and thus more “conservative” approach by tenkara anglers in Japan.

Written by Daniel

Forum user Acheateaux had a brilliant idea: the Vagabox. The Vagabox is a traveling fly box that will be “bringing surprise, intrigue and fishing stoke with it wherever it goes. You fish with the box, enjoy it’s humble offerings and post up some stoke here.” Since our post on the Vagabox back in July, the box has enjoyed a journey to a few new spots. Here’s the updated map, you can click on the faces to see what the Vagabox experienced in each of the places it has visited.

View The Tale of the Vagabox in a larger map
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