Thanks to Mike from Troutrageous, the “The Secret To Tenkara’s Fish Catching Superiority” has not been a secret for about a year. He spilled the beans on the fact that we put unicorn mane hair inside our rods, and that allows people to catch many, many fish when they go out. But, there is something else that I have noticed over the last several weeks of attending Fly Fishing Shows.
Tenkara is the unicorn of fly-fishing. Most people have heard about it by now, but only a select few have seen it in person. You may have noticed that when you tell a friend, “hey, I have this rod that is 12ft long, but it collapses down to only 20 inches and weighs only 3 oz…ah, and it uses no reel, doesn’t even have guides…” They will immediately respond with a “get out of here…I’m calling the psych ward.” They become incredulous and your reputation as a truth-telling angler goes down the drain. But you know it exists. You have seen it. You have touched it. It feels unreal, and “magical”. Every time you see it, you approach it slowly with a sense of wonderment; you touch it, then you tame it, and you use it. But, you’re one of a select group of people who can see it.
Our job is to show the unicorn to more people. That’s the reason we’ve attended 6 shows in the last month and half. Every time a new person sees the unicorn, they come away believing in magic and wonder. It’s one of the coolest things to witness, a person’s first encounter with the unicorn. It exists.