Spring Futsu Kebari
Today, I got the best piece of mail I’ve gotten in a long time. Japanese tenkara angler Hiroyuki Hasegawa (known as @kebarer on Twitter and Che Kebarer on Pinterest) sent me a great assortment of Gamakatsu and Owner hooks, plus a few surprises…
Hiroyuki and I exchange a lot of tweets about tenkara (some serious, some not so serious) and one day we got to talking about hooks. I told him I have tried some Japanese hooks but would like to try more so he promised to send me some. I never thought it would be so many, or with such detailed information.
There were 9 packages of different eyed and eyeless hooks attached to a piece of paper with hand written notes for each. It’s going to take me a while to go through all of this but you can expect some posts about new fly patterns using these hooks coming soon. Some I had actually used before but others were new and will no doubt inspire some unique fly designs.
These Gamakatsu hooks have an interesting bend and a nice black finish. I really like the sharp, squared upturn of the hook point:
The hooks were in a variety of finishes including bronze, black, gold, silver and blue!
After the initial excitement of seeing all these exotic hooks subsided, I noticed something strange–a card addressed to my 8-month old daughter:
When I opened it, a pink bear with a tenkara rod popped up. He was even fishing a pink sakasa kebari!
How cool is that? Thank you so much Hiroyuki! You’ve given me tons of new hooks to experiment with that will lead to hours of joy at the vise. Every time I fish a fly on one of these hooks, I will be reminded of your generosity and how wonderful the tenkara community is. And even though Emma isn’t old enough to tenkara fish yet, I will save this for her and give it to her when she begins her tenkara journey.
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Felicitaciones Jason..gran regalo!!!…especialmente el dirigido para Emma…lo complemento con otro mas humilde:un besito cariñoso para ella…
damn…Those are nice.
Those look awesome! It’s gotta be cool to see the hooks they use and for what. And what a nice guy tying a fly for your daughter.
That is freaking awesome!
Way cool! Love the card for your daughter.
That is AWESOME! I too enjoy kebarer’s posts. The hooks are great but that card is priceless.
That is very cool. Can’t wait to see your followup blog posts on those hooks. “Kebarer” is a fine fellow for sure.
Thanks for the comments everyone. Hiroyuki is a really great guy with a passion for tenkara and a great sense of humor. I wish he had his own blog so I could see more than just short Twitter posts !
That card is about the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. I have a 10 month old, She’s landed some nice salmon with me. She loves fishing with daddy. I can’t wait to give her a rod.
Whaaaa? A salmon?
yeah, I put her in the carrier on my chest and walk down to the stream by our apartment. it’s very urban, you’d never guess that there would be fish in it, but it flows into the Milwaukee River, which flows into lake michigan. I don’t fly fish with her, i’m not confident enough with my cast. I think i caught 5 of them with her this season. she loves the river.
Great set of hooks. I’m always on the lookout for new ways to tie. It’s interesting to see what others use. I also love the card!! My little girl would love that so I might have to steal that idea for her next birthday. Thanks Hiroyuki for the idea