I just got back from a backpacking trip to Mt. Whitney with fellow tenkara enthusiast Brian Green of Brian’s Backpacking blog. We were both as excited about the hike as we were about the prospect of fishing some of the high mountain lakes on the way down with our tenkara rods. I brought my Tenkara…
I got my Daiwa fluorocarbon Plasma Line from Japan today. While I’m completely happy with my Tenkara Bum and Tenkara USA level lines, I Just wanted to try something a little different. The diameter is 0.310 mm (0.012″) and is marked as a #3.5 line. This is a just little thinner than the…
One of the questions I get asked most often is what one needs to start tying tenkara flies. The first thing I tell people is to NOT buy a fly tying kit. Kits are a perfect waste of money with just the right combination of wrong-sized feathers, useless colors of materials, and unnecessary tools. While…
Tenkara Bum is now offering their own line spools and I got my order for 3 of them today. They’re essentially identical to the Meiho blue spools sold by Tenkara USA but are a shrunken down version. [/caption] The smaller diameter would be good for a tenkara minimalist or the backpacker who wants the convenience…
One of the nice things about tenkara wet flies is that while they’re very simple in design, they allow for a lot of experimentation in body construction. This is probably the main thing that keeps me interested in them as a fly tier. Recently, I’ve been experimenting with wire bodies and epoxy bodies. Now, I’m…
Today, I received my long awaited custom tenkara fly box made by Rick Setina. It’s even more beautiful in person than the pictures he sent me in advance lead on. The lid is Maple and has my name in Japanese (katakana alphabet) burned into the lower right corner. The bottom is Cherry which contrasts nicely…
I’ve been making a lot of my own Tenkara level lines lately and I’ve noticed small problem: they all look the same. At first, I tried putting them on Tenkara USA blue spools and marking the spool with a Sharpie marker to indicate the line’s diameter and length. Of course, I ran out of spools…
After many years of going “netless” I have recently become a strong advocate for using nets. I used to use a net when I fished for larger browns and rainbows back east. But for the small fish I was mostly catching since I moved to the Rockies, I always thought a net wasn’t really necessary…
Today, I got some fluorocarbon tenkara level line and a nice note from Chris Stewart of Tenkarabum.com. Chris is a level line guru and has tried just about every type of level line out there but also encourages experimentation. So I was delighted when he sent me a couple of “extras” to try out. The…
I headed over to my local fly shop today to pick up some hooks and there happened to be a fly fishing class going on. While I was scouring the hook wall trying to find some #16s, I was eavesdropping, listening to what the instructor was saying. And it was painful. The “class” listened in…
In my last post, I talked about some of my experiments with epoxy sakasa kebari (reverse hackle tenkara flies). I was tying some more at my desk tonight and an idea struck me… Many tenkara wet flies use a bright-colored thread between the eye of the hook and where the hackle begins. It could be…
Several years ago, I started tying epoxy midges to fish a very tough local spring creek in Western New York. The flies themselves were developed in the UK and were brilliantly simple, yet deceptively effective. Across the pond, they’re called “epoxy buzzers” and are mostly fished in larger sizes on big reservoirs. But I…
Many people talk about high visibility fluorocarbon level lines for Tenkara fly fishing and I’ve recently gotten into them. As a predominantly dry fly fisher, I really don’t “see” (get it) the need for this. And, I think in certain situations, it’s best to have a line you can cast over the fish without scaring…
At the risk of sounding overly sentimental or cheesy, I’ll confess that I like wet wading because I feel that it gives me a better connection to the river and fish. I suppose I acquired this feeling a long time ago when I was fly fishing in the surf for Striped Bass and Bluefish in…
If you’re like me, you dig level fluorocarbon lines for Tenkara fishing but miss the convenience of the girth hitch knot that the traditional furled lines offer. Luckily, there’s a simple technique you can use to get all the benefits of fishing a level line with the convenience of the braided loop connection. Here’s how……
The last three weekends, I’ve been hitting Bear creek at Lair O’ the Bear Campground. The first trip was with a group Tenkara outing organized by Karel Lansky of the Tenkara on the Fly blog. With a mix of new and experienced Tenkara anglers, this was a blast and we will be organizing more trips…
The picture above is the first Tenkara fly I ever fished and is the first fly I ever caught a fish with using a Tenkara rod. It’s retired now and a little worse for wear with a tail missing and the dubbing roughed up. But it sits on a shelf in my fly tying…
In my last post, I wrote about how to choose a tenkara fly line. Many people had questions about how to attach a level line to their Tenkara fly rods so I thought it would be helpful to post a quick video on it so here it is. I hope this helps: If you’re not…
As Tenkara continues to gain momentum is the U.S., the number of choices in gear seems to have multiplied overnight. In particular, many new line makers have appeared giving Tenkara anglers a wide range of choices in color, length, and tippet connection. A common question many people new to the sport have is which…
You know you’re a Tenkara addict when… You can name more species of trout in Japanese than you can in English You wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat after having nightmares about losing your rod’s plug You feel personally insulted when someone refers to Tenkara as “dapping”…
Thom Darrah from TrailLite Designs has hit another home run for ultralight tenkara anglers and backpacking fly fishers. You may know Thom as the inventor of the Ebira Rod Quiver. Now, Thom has set his sites on nets and has designed what might just be the lightest fly fishing net in the world. The Ti…
A friend of mine recently returned from Japan with a nice surprise for me: a Suzumi Tenkara rod! The 10.5 foot (3.2 m) rod feels incredibly light in the hand despite the slightly heavy weight of 2.7 oz. weight. I think this is because the rod is slightly stiffer than what I’m used to fishing…
FINALLY got the big shipment in I’ve been waiting for! The Tricos are officially back in stock and hopefully for good. To all of you who have been so patient in waiting for them, thanks! Also, from now on, we’re including a custom foam fly drying patch with each one. Get them here.
Tenkara USA is auctioning off the ultimate Tenkara outfit with proceeds to go directly to aid victims of the Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan. The auction was donated by Thom Darrah, inventor of the Ebira Rod Quiver and founder of TrailLite Designs and includes the following gear for a retail value of over $425: –…
Just stumbled on to a site that has flies for 50 cents each! Stream Flies has all the mainstay patterns to stock your fly arsenal without breaking the bank. But here’s the clincher: these flies are actually high quality. They’re not cheap flies tied with the incorrect colors and proportions you typically find at discount…
Today, I got something in the mail that has been in the works for months: my bamboo tenkara rod. A while back, I contacted Chuck Ledgerwood from Prize Catch Inc. and asked him if he could make me a tenkara-style rod in bamboo. He was really enthusiastic about the project right from the start and…
While I tend to prefer dry flies and don’t fish sinking flies much, I thought it would be fun to start experimenting with some reverse hackle Tenkara wet flies. When I do fish wet flies, I usually want them to sink fast. So, I’m playing around with some different ideas for Tenkara-style flies that use…
I get asked this question a lot. And like many of my answers, I’m forced to say, “it depends”. There are a variety of factors that determine how big of a selection you need to take on backcountry fly fishing trips. Here are a few considerations that might help you figure it out… How long…
I recently read Tenkara: Radically Simple, Ultralight Fly Fishing by Kevin Kelleher, MD and Misako Ishimura and just wanted to post a few of my thoughts on it. First off, this is the first book on Tenkara fly fishing written in English and represents a milestone for the Tenkara-mania that seems to be spreading across…
So I’ve been tying different variations on the Japanese hammer and thought it might be good to tie some in a tried-and-true color scheme: the Adams. [/caption] This pattern pretty much has everything I want for fishing the high mountain streams of the Rockies: it’s buggy, buoyant, hi-vis, and easy-to-tie. Tied in the colors of…
