I don't think the choices only come down to having all the line on the water or only having a few inches of tippet on the water. You can cast over many conflicting currents and have a foot of line on the water to anchor. On the waters I fish that makes a world of difference over having the line on the water and mending.

I was fishing with a spin fisherman yesterday. When he watched my drift a dry fly he said "If I was going to be a fly fisherman, I'd definitely use tenkara because of that drift."

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Mike Barber

I agree 100% tenkara has made me a MUCH better dry fly fishermen. I hammered em yesterday with my Iwana12. I'll be honest I don't care if it's a oxymoron or not. You can think something to death if you want to fact is it works. For me anyway.

Tom

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Wilderness Tarpon 120
and a Tenkara USA Amago
Good Combo!!!

I haven't been fly fishing for to long, but dry fly fishing is alot of fun. Seeing the fish take the fly is always cool to watch. New to me dry fly fishing, don't think it will get old.

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テンカラのイモリ
Tenkara Mushroom

I wish you had been with me yesterday they were on dry's big time. I tied on a parachute stimulator and fished that same fly all day. And they weren't hitting at it they were eating it.

Tom

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Wilderness Tarpon 120
and a Tenkara USA Amago
Good Combo!!!

I end up mostly dry fly fishing with my Tenkara rods here in Colorado in the summer unless I am fishing a tail water where I know it just not going to work. I just find the thrill of a surface take from a trout a lot more exciting than catching a trout subsurface and for me I have a hard time understanding why you wouldn't fish a dry fly during a good hatch. It always cracks me up when I am catching fish left and right on the surface in the middle of a caddis hatch while I see other fly fisherman with their traditional gear having little or no luck with their indicator (bobber) nymphing setups.

One technique I have found that is very effective with dry flies on a Tenkara rod is to use a two dry fly setup. I tie a slightly more visible or bigger lead fly such a a small hopper or larger caddis and then attach a second smaller point dry fly to the bend of the hook. The extra tippet between the two dries helps that second fly achieve a much better drift and I can still twitch the rod to manipulate the point fly as I want.

The most effective technique for me this summer so far, at least during Caddis hatches, has not been the dead drift though but instead skittering the flies across the surface. I dead drift my two fly setup past a likely holding spot and if I don't get a hit I start lifting the fly of the surface at the end of the drift as it passes the spot I want to fish. With the long length of the tenkara rod its very easy to effectively bounce the fly along the surface of the water. This has given me some very aggressive takes and seems irresistible to fish during a hatch.

The brown trout below I caught on the Roaring Fork river here in Colorado using my Amago and a two dry fly setup. Both flies were CDC & ELK Caddis imitations and this particular fish jumped completely out of the water to catch the fly in mid air while I was skittering it across the surface.

I have had a number of times this has happened to me lately and I thought that some of you here might find this bit of information interesting, in relation to the subject of Tenkara dry fly fishing.

The High Country Hopper pattern that I tie can be either fished as a wet or a dry fly, partly because the Sparkle Yarn that is used as a body material is highly H2o absorbent for hydraulic effect to be sensed by the fish's lateral line. Each of the 3 deer hair wing butt sections and the head section of the fly are over wrapped with a single strand of pale olive Sparkle Yarn to form the body of the fly. Only the wing is treated with floatant so the body will ride under the water, which is more visible to the fish and felt by them in a way that no high riding dry fly can ever be.

But after the floatant eventually wears off, a number of fish have been caught and played on the fly, many underwater dunking have occurred, the High Country Hopper pattern gets water logged and refuses to float unless it is dried and re-treated with more floatant. I have had a number of chances to observe the productivity of this particular fly pattern in both its dry fly and wet fly fishing modes lately, in which it still caught fish whether it was being fished wet or dry. But it was more than twice as effective when it had its wing above the surface of the water. And it did not matter on these occasions whether the water being fished was a still or a running water - the High Country Hopper pattern was most effective when it was being fished as a dry fly, which I believe should be food for thought among all Tenkara anglers.

The beauty of Tenkara is that it demonstrates how a short line catches fish and extremely well at that. The same with dry fly fishing, Tenkara or Traditional, use a short line, keep in contact with the fly without drag and enjoy