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.

Tom Brokaw and Yvon Chouinard talk about tenkara in current issue of Men’s Journal magazine.

“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).

The current issue of Fly Tyer magazine (Winter 2011) has an article marking a milestone for tenkara in the USA. Morgan Lyle, the author, has been following the tenkara movement in the US from day one, and has seen its progression from the day Dr. Ishigaki gave a presentation and demonstration in the Catskills, to the first Tenkara Summit to be held in the US, where over 120 people attended.

In Tenkara Catches On, Lyle writes about how “American tenkara fans have embraced the method’s no-frills utility and the great presentations made possible by the 11 to 15-foot long rods and feather-light lines.” The Summit counted on the special presence of Blue Ribbon Flies’ Craig Mathews, who helped put the event together, and his friend Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia, describing how, “Chouinard turned Mathews on to tenkara fishing years ago” and how Craig has “used his tenkara rod more foten than his conventional fly rod during the summer of 2011.”

This being a fly-tying magazine he mentions how “anglers have fallen in love with what is widely thought of as the tenkara fly: a simple soft-hackle pattern tied with feather fibers leaning forward. Known as sakasa kebari, it has inspired a wave of creativity as Americans dream up their own patterns and adapt western mainstays to the sakasa style.”

The article mentions the creativity brought about by Ashley Valentine, who created the “Punk Rock Sakasa Kebari”, the Utah Killer Bug by the Tenkara Guides of Utah and based on Chris Stewart’s Killer Kebari, as well as Anthony Naples’, Chris Kullow’s and Dr. Ishigaki’s flies.

Definitely get your copy of the magazine, and if I may, you may want to subscribe to it, as I can see a lot more articles on tenkara flies appearing in its pages.

As mentioned here, the first Tenkara Summit was by most accounts and opinions a great success.  Over 100 people came, to enjoy the conversations, meet other tenkara anglers and of course fish in Montana. Following the summit our party, which consisted of Dr. Ishigaki, Masaki Nakano, Chris Stewart and filmmaker Brian Flemming, enjoyed several more days of tenkara fishing on the Madison, Firehole, Gallatin and Gibbon Rivers. Since we had Brian taking many pro-shots, I didn’t take many pictures this time. Below are some of my favorites:

One of my favorite pictures during the Summit, Ryan giving a very entertaining talk about tenkara and the backcountry:

What about that drag-free drift?

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The first Tenkara Summit in the US was a great success, over 100 people attended and enjoyed awesome presentations as well as an on-stream demonstration with Dr. Ishigaki. This will be a quick post. Even though the event is over, we’ve been sleeping little and fishing pretty hard today with the day starting at 6 and now being 12:40am.

Originally we had expected, optimistically, that about 70 people would show up. The conference room was setup to accomodate 100 people, but that was not enough. Over 100 people showed up yesterday. People came from 23 different states, and from 3 different countries specially for the Summit (well, they did come to fish in Montana…). I’d really like to thank all those who came and helped make this an extraordinary event; it was the best crowd ever. Thank you!

The Tenkara Summit had the presence of special guests Dr. Hisao Ishigaki, the leading authority on tenkara in Japan; Chris Stewart of tenkarabum.com; Craig Mathews of Blue Ribbon Flies who gave a very passionate presentation about tenkara in Montana and showed some great clips of large fishing being caught; Ryan Jordan of backpackinglight.com as well as ryanjordan.com; and Tom Sadler who spoke about the advantages of using tenkara as a guide and as a way to introduce new people to fly-fishing so they can continue conserving the environment in the future.

In the afternoon we headed to Yellowstone National Park for an on-stream demonstration with Dr. Ishigaki and myself. The fishing in the middle of the day was very difficult. I ended up catching a 5″ rainbow and that was about it as for fish. Nevertheless guests were able to see what tenkara looked like in person.

A personal highlight of the event for myself was the presence of Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard, whose business philosophies greatly inspired Tenkara USA from day one – these are mostly found in his book “Let My People Go Surfing”. I had become a great fan of Patagonia and Yvon long before the start of Tenkara USA. When creating the business plan for Tenkara USA I used his book as a roadmap for our business philosophies and his business as a benchmark for Tenkara USA. Along with Craig Mathews, who was a presenter at the Summit, they founded the 1% for the Planet initiative, which is a “set-on-stone” commitment to donate at least 1% of revenues to environmental organizations. We have been a member from day one. When I learned that Yvon, himself, had recently become a huge fan of tenkara fly-fishing my jaw just dropped. How could this happen? Really? He wrote a beautiful article about Fly Rod and Reel magazine on tenkara and simplicity, converted Craig Mathews to tenkara, and has been one of our best ambassadors introducing people to tenkara almost daily and on an almost weekly basis telling people to talk to us. Yes, I was stoked that they were there for the whole event, we spent a good amount of time talking, and are scheduled to go fishing together tomorrow… in about 6 hours. So, time to go to bed now!

Of course, Dr. Ishigaki was also very happy to meet them and they got along great despite the language barriers.