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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Since the introduction of tenkara outside of Japan, to many people the method has seemed to acquire the meaning of “short-line fly-fishing.” Yet, just like tenkara is not dapping, and is not restricted to small streams, it needs not be restricted – and I believe it really shouldn’t be restricted – to the use of a short line. In fact, my favorite rig for tenkara consists of a level line about 1 ½ times the length of my rod (often 20 ft of line) plus 4 ft of tippet. Using a long line, where the stream allows it, or perhaps calls for it, will open an entire new tenkara world for you.

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Many times inspiration for our blog posts comes straight from the great community of tenkara anglers hosted in our forum. In recent days two threads were posted in our forum related to the idea of fishing upstream or downstream: “How do you prefer to fish with tenkara- upstream or downstream?” The forum threads are great because they present questions many of us ponder, but perhaps don’t bother thinking much about. They usually force me to think of “why”, sometimes providing some new insights. This post is basically my answer to how I tenkara fish, and why I fish upstream. Answering it made me realize that, even though there is a long-accepted theory that fish can see better if you approach them from upstream (that is, fishing heading downstream), I really don’t buy into it, but rather, fish upstream because of a couple of more practical reasons.

I think there may not be a wrong direction to fish as long as the approach is well planned, but as I will write below, I think fishing upstream has at least three advantages: (1) a good chance of not being seen by fish if you’re in a steeper tumbling stream, (2) greater ease at spotting stream features, and (3) a larger number of presentation possibilities.

A couple of weeks ago I went fishing with Ralph and Lisa Cutter, very well known and respected anglers. They own the California School of Fly Fishing. Ralph is most well known for his underwater studies of fish and bugs – he dives a lot and, with his years of research and experiments, knows what fish can or can not see. He said he always prefers to fish downstream. I brought up the idea, which I don’t personally buy too much, that fish would be able to see you more easily this way; he said that’s nonsense, fish have an almost 360′ field of view, with a very small blind spot directly behind them, but as they are constantly moving, swinging with the current, their actual field of view is 360′. The reason he likes to fish downstream is a practical one: he says he is a very visual angler, and can see the white in a fish mouth more easily that way and thus strike the hook when that happens.

Fishing downstream, features are harder to spot

I may understand the field-of-view reasoning for slower moving streams and flatter streams. However, when fishing in a steeper stream, even if fish may have a 360′ fov, one advantage of fishing upstream is using the geography of the stream to help hide you. In a steeper stream, it can be common to find large rocks upstream, and the natural “falls” and turbulence of the water can do their part on this too. On the same token, I think it is much easier to see features in the water when you’re moving upstream. if moving downstream all can blend in a bit more easily, features become “flatter” as the boulder breaking water above a spot will now hide it, you can’t see the whirlpool forming so well because the water dropping into it may be hiding it. I haven’t taken pictures with this in mind, but above this paragraph is a picture of a stream looking downstream on it. To me it looks relatively flat, and though I can’t see places where fish may be hiding, I can’t see them all that well. The picture below shows the contrasting image, the same stream but looking upstream, you can see a lot of features that may be holding fish. Not to mention that if you’re wading downstream, you could potentially step into a deeper pool without noticing it, but that is more easily avoided if moving upstream.

Fishing upstream reveals the stream features more clearly

My tenkara sensei, Dr. Ishigaki prefers to head upstream. I haven’t asked him exactly the reasons why he does so but will in my next email. He never fishes moving downstream. BUT, he frequently does fish straight across, and occasionally a little downstream too if he finds the need to, as he moves upstream. Because he prefers fishing upstream, his first casts will almost always be upstream. As he moves up he will often hit the same spot from two, sometimes three different directions if he believes there are fish there: so, upstream, 1/4, straight across. You can see a summary and illustrations of the main tenkara techniques in our past blog posts.

His general approach, and mine is: keep moving upstream, because we’re moving up our first casts will almost always be about directly upstream, with a drag-free drift of the fly. If there are features (small whirlpools/currents/etc) 1/4 upstream, then cast to those too. Try 3-4 casts in each of these directions. Now, you move up and the pool that used to be upstream or 1/4 upstream from you is straight across and you can try fishing that spot for a totally new angle and with new technique. By casting straight across you can manipulate the fly in different ways (stop the fly, let it drift, stop, let it drift; or stop, pick up, stop, pick up; or casting slightly downstream and move the fly upstream about 1ft at a time by pulling it. If you effectively covered the water on your way up, there shouldn’t really much of a need to fish downstream as the water has been covered.

Now that I write this I realize another reason to fish upstream may be that, with all things being equal – e.g. fish can see you well no matter which directions – by moving upstream you can hit the same spot with more fly manipulations/techniques.

If you move down stream, you can hit the pool downstream with essentially one presentation: stop, let it drift or any variation with drag, it’s difficult to achieve a drag free presentation this way without creating slack in your line; then as you move to the side of the spot, you can get a drag free drift but maybe not a great one; at this point it is no longer very effective to go downstream from the spot and try another presentation if the fish hasn’t striked, and you missed a chance to get a good drag-free drift over that spot. But, by moving upstream, I think you can get the drag-free drift first, and apply all other techniques effectively from the side of the spot, and perhaps a little upstream from it. So, you have now applied one extra, perhaps the most effective, technique.

Think about the origins of tenkara and western fly-fishing. Tenkara was originated by commercial fishermen, whose livelihoods depended on very efficiently and cheaply catching fish. Instead of spending time tying different flies on to the end of their line, or time and money making different patterns or making sinking devices, they relied on technique, learning how to present and manipulate their one fly. Most tenkara anglers will stick with one pattern only, and make it work with whatever situation they are presented with, even if it means they need to sink a fly without split shot or heavily weighted flies.

Many people believe they need to use a nymph, a heavy hook, or – UGH! – split shot to sink a fly. Casting a line with split shot is one of my worst nightmares, I have done it a few times and hated it. With some technique you can get your fly to sink between 3 and 6 ft, sometimes even more depending on the conditions you’re presented. While split-shot, or a heavy Czech nymph will get your fly to sink deeper and faster, I find them awful to cast and one more piece of junk to get lost in the stream or for you to carry, plus, moving one pool upstream will probably produce better results if no fish are taking. One question I get time and time again is how do you sink your fly with no weight?

The first thing you can try doing is casting a bit farther upstream, this will give the fly a chance to soak up more water and sink a bit. Now, here’s the cool technique for sinking your fly deeper in a mountain stream. It’s really a deadly technique, particularly useful when you find some white water, and you have tried a few techniques but no fish rose.  Simply cast the fly upstream from the incoming white water (it doesn’t have to be a waterfall looking pool, simply a point with more turbulence).  Let the fly drift into the white water, and then lower the rod tip almost all the way down to the water. The intent here is to get as much of your line in the turbulent white water, and get it to be sucked under. As the line gets dragged under your fly goes down with it. After a few seconds you’ll feel the line starting to move downstream, as it does you follow it with your rod, slowly and gradually raising the rod tip as the line goes downstream.

TIPS:

- Always strive to keep your line tight. This will allow you to feel anything taking the fly, or for you to see the line stopping/moving in an unusual way, which may mean a fish has taken the fly.

- Variation: As your line starts going downstream, and you start raising the rod tip, try raising the rod tip then dropping it about 10 inches up and down at a time. Every time you lower it you’ll need to wait a second for the fly to sink again. This is a great way to entice trout  to take, and every small pull up may allow you to hook a fish if one is has your fly and you haven’t noticed it.

- Move your rod downstream and slightly forward with it to keep it from swinging.

- The technique works a bit better with level lines, which are denser than the traditional lines.

Two of the main goals to fly-fishing technique are attracting a fish, and getting the fish to actually take the fly. Dr. Ishigaki and other anglers in Japan have done many studies on these two aspects of fly-fishing, and have come to conclusions about the best ways to not only attract, but actually hook trout.

Western fly-anglers associate soft-hackle flies with a swinging motion, and thus many people new to tenkara have so far thought of it as a great method for swinging tenkara flies. However, there is a major flaw with swinging a fly: swinging moves the fly away from the where the fish expected it to be. Today’s technique is intended on fixing that. I learned this technique when I was fishing with Dr. Ishigaki in Japan and I complained that I was getting many fish to rise, apparently right on my fly but they weren’t “taking” it. He explained they seemed to be rising right on my fly but he could see they were just missing it and explained why.

When a trout is lying in its resting place, it’s keeping an eye on the food being brought by the current. In normal conditions, free-flowing insects (i.e. not attached to a line) will flow straight downstream. Except for very abnormal currents, they will flow in a straight line. When a trout spots food coming towards it, it moves in a straight line to intercept the food, in its strike zone. However, if the bug (your fly or a live bug) moves towards the shore, it also moves away from the fish’s strike zone. Sometimes the fish may be able to catch it, of course, but more often than not, a fish coming in a straight line upstream to intercept a fly will it if it has moved away from the strike zone. Have you ever felt like trout were rising right by your fly, almost right at it, but weren’t taking it? Many times it’s because they rose where the fly was supposed to be, but you pulled it away.

Next time, don’t swing your fly, try this instead: Cast just slightly upstream, or straight across. Stop your rod  and let the fly flow downstream into its first natural position. Pause the fly in place for 1-2 seconds (depending on speed of current, among other things). Then, and this is where the change comes in, instead of keeping the rod tip in place, or swinging the rod tip toward the shore, actively move your entire arm downstream while pushing it slightly forward. Let the fly move about 1ft or a bit more, and stop the fly in place again for one or two seconds. And repeat, actively moving your entire arm downstream and forward. Stopping it in place is not absolutely necessary but will give fish a better chance to see it.

TIPS:

- Stopping the fly in place will give fish a chance to see your fly and hopefully strike it.

- Repeat this 1 or 2 more times casting and stopping the fly exactly in the same spots. If no fish rises do it in a slightly different place 1 or 2 more times. If no fish, MOVE upstream.

- Start with your arm close to your body so you have room to move it forward (starting with the arm fully stretched will make this difficult)

- One important variation is keeping the main line in the water so the fly will stay right under the surface. To do this, picture the angler above holding the rod with his right hand. He’s holding the handle high above his head with his right elbow fully bent, and the rod tip almost touching the water on his left (so it’s pointing down). Similarly to this technique he’s also going to be moving his arm downstream and slightly forward.

A post on tenkara fishing techniques has been long overdue. I have written many times about how relying on technique instead of fly patterns and additional gear is a good way to fish and actually learn how to fish. See “Confidence and Doubt”. It’s simpler this way, I like it. Relying on technique gives you the freedom to roam without consulting fly guides or concerning yourself with what may be hatching, or with what you should bring on your next outing to that far away place. You can fish with one fly all over the world, in any mountain stream you choose. While I hope to share these techniques in video in the future, I thought you may benefit with illustrations of the most common tenkara techniques in the meantime.

The first illustration is one that will be most familiar to you. It’s how most people fly fish already and is effective with tenkara too. One simply identifies where fish may be holding (think about places near enough a current that food is being brought to them, but where the water allows them to stay put without spending a lot of energy: behind and in front of rocks – even if these rocks are hidden under the surface – and on the seams of currents. With this technique one casts upstream from the spot, and lets the fly drift down as he lifts the rod in order to keep the line tight. As with most tenkara techniques you should strive to keep the main line off the water.  Tip: when drifting the fly downstream one should not normally pull it, you must give the fish a chance to see your fly and grab it.

In the upcoming days we’ll be sharing the main methods of manipulating a fly with tenkara. While there are several different ways, and variations of the methods we’ll cover, the main techniques include :
1) Downstream, drag-free drift (today).
2) Cast, stop the fly, drift it downstream/stop/drift/stop
3) Cast downstream/pull fly/stop/pull/stop
4) Sinking the fly with no weight
5) Retrieving the fly, pulling it back across the stream.
6) Repeatedly casting fly in one place

I just landed back in San Francisco a few hours ago. I find myself a bit dizzy from all the travelling and the jet-lag. And, to be honest, my entire experience in these last 2 weeks has just been so beyond my expectations that it is a bit overwhelming trying to digest it all. But, I figure I have to start somewhere. I plan to slowly publish my experiences, techniques I learned, new insights, interviews, videos, and anything I can share with you.

Daniel with an Amago

Maybe it was growing up watching Karate Kid and other martial arts movies where the pupil goes off to live in a remote mountain village in Asia to train with a well-known master, but for many days I felt like I was living a dream that had been engrained in my mind from my early years, the stuff of a movie. Now that I think of it, it is natural it would be fishing, not martial arts, that I’d be pursuing knowledge of. A couple of days ago my mind brought back the memory of fishing with my dad, watching someone catching a lot of fish, and my dad telling me that if I wanted to learn how to fish I should ask a Japanese person how he does it – the region I grew up in has a very large Japanese immigrant population, and there has always been a stereotype held by my dad, possibly a fact, that the Japanese were incredible anglers. Many years later I am blessed to have the opportunity to go to Japan specifically to learn tenkara directly from the master, Ishigaki-sensei, as well as many other very gifted anglers such as Yoshikazu Fujioka and Sakakibara Masami (aka Tenkarano-oni). I may be the first westerner to have ever received such in-depth focused training in the art and techniques of tenkara. For most of the last 2 weeks I was taken under the wings of the most renowned authority on tenkara in Japan, Dr. Hisao Ishigaki (hereby referred to as Ishigaki-sensei, as he has become my de facto teacher). I learned more about pure tenkara than I could ever have imagined I would.

Ishigaki sensei focusing on the water

Iwana

Daniel, Ishigaki-sensei, Fujioka-sensei, Chikara

Sakakibara Masami (aka Tenkara no Oni)

I spent many days fishing with Ishigaki-sensei: observing, learning, being observed and unequivocally taught. I also met some of the most well-known people in the world of tenkara at in Japan and was extremelly welcomed by the anglers and communites of the Itoshiro and Mase (Masegawa) rivers: being interviewed a couple of times and appearing at a local newspaper. I was also received as a guest of honor at the “Itoshiro Fisher’s Holiday”, an annual gathering cellebrating the beautiful Itoshiro river, one of the first “Catch-and-Release” rivers in Japan, and even gave a brief speech at one of the biggest tenkara events in the country.

Saitou Shouichi, one of the event's founders and organizer

Angler's barbecue - very well organized

During the event I sought feedback from many people present, and Tenkara USA’s rods, lines and flies were carefully reviewed by some of the most demanding tenkara anglers in the world, dully critiqued (which will only make our rods even better in the future), but an attestment to our products, they received a big nod of approval by people who take tenkara very seriously! Receiving this type of feedback is extremelly valuable, and I’m grateful to have made those connections.
A few of the things I plan to write about in coming days are:

- Interview with Ishigaki-sensei: We spent many hours driving around and having very in-depth conversations about tenkara in the car. These conversations allowed me to ask some questions that bring out a lot of insight and philosophy from the master, as well as the modern history of tenkara in Japan and other things. He also discusses his scientific experiments on fish and anglers.

- Tenkara nets: Japanese design has yet to disappoint me, specially when it comes to its “practical simple elegance”. I have not been so enamoured with something since my “discovery” of tenkara rods. Being in the center of tenkara in Japan, I was able to learn quite a bit about tenkara nets, and their extremelly simple nature, and very organic design has left me in awe, which I hope to share with you.

- Tenkara flies: The simplicity of tenkara is summed by the fact that all you need is a rod, line and A fly. More commonly than I had thought almost all tenkara anglers use one pattern only (whatever their chosen one is). It is very common practice among all tenkara anglers to rely purely on their techniques to find and entice fish, not on changing flies. At this point I have become a firm believe in this approach on faster flowing streams. While anglers will debate which fly works best – some may prefer a fly tied using the skin of a poisonous snake (more on this later), others may use the natural dubbing from the flowering fern (zenmai), and others may just use cheap thread and a simple hackle – it’s widely accepted that one fly is all you need.

- Fishing techniques: The techniques used in tenkara are generally simple, but they are the main pillar of tenkara fly-fishing. Technique, not gear, should be the focus of any activity, although modern society has tended to put a premium on the latter. Relying on gear, even on changing fly patterns, not only detracts from the experience, but also from one’s growth as an angler. I plan to share the techniques I learned in Japan, they work on any faster flowing stream. And, anyone can do well with them and one fly.

- Tenkara bamboo rods: You used to think split-cane rods are nice, well, I’ll tell you, tenkara bamboo rods crafted by a good craftsmen, are just masterpieces. I have next to me what are probably 2 of less than a handful of tenkara rods outside of Japan, and they are just sweet, simple crafts. Made by Dr. Ichi Hashi, a Pediatrician in nearby Gujo, they are wonderful works. Why split something that works so well as given by nature?

- Landing fish technique: While very intuitive, the big lessons here were slow it down! Bring the fish to a shallower part of the water. Let it calm down by holding the line (trust the tippet) and net it. No more lost fish at the last second.

Iwana

- Travelling and fishing in Japan: Japan is likely the best country in the world for small stream fishing. Many people I talk to say their first love is small stream fishing, but if they ever travel is to pursue big fish in tropical countries. Japan is a wonderful country to experience, and the small stream fishing there is top-notch. I’ll try sharing some advice.