In his book Purple Cow, Seth Godin wrote the following: While driving through France a few years ago, my family and I were enchanted by the hundreds of storybook cows grazing in lovely pastures right next to the road. For dozens of kilometers, we all gazed out the window, marveling at the beauty. Then, within…
Ever since Tenkara Rod Company launched their wildly successful Kickstarter campaign, I’ve been eager to get their rods on the water. Today, I finally got the chance to field test their two initial rod offerings: the Sawtooth and the Teton. Here is my side-by-side comparison from unboxing to stream. The Sawtooth Open Length: 12ft (360 cm)…
The first thing I think of when I hear “silk fly line” is bamboo. Some say that there is no smoother combination than a bamboo rod and silk line. And since the action of tenkara rods is often compared to bamboo, it would seem like silk and tenkara would go hand in hand. After my…
In my last post, I put up some pictures of my tenkara office. Shortly after, fellow tenkara angler and Holga Master Brian Schiele suggested that it would be fun to see pictures of how other tenkara anglers store their gear or where they tie their flies. I agreed, and thought it would be even more fun…
“Man cave”, “gear room”, “fishing room”, “sanctuary”…no matter what you call it, we all have our special little corners of the world where we gather our gear, come up with new creations, or just generally meditate on our sport (even if it’s just a corner of the garage). This is mine. And I’d like to…
It happens everyday. A perfectly good fly is mercilessly mutilated by trimming down its hackle, leaving nothing but horrific, ungodly stumps of barbules. These poor victims are scarred for life and nothing can reintegrate them back into mainstream fly box culture. They become the “untouchables” of their fly box compartments. You might think hackle clipping…
I took the day off from work today to hit Clear Creek thinking the water levels might have come down a little since I was there last weekend. Nope. Still running high, but fishable. I also wanted to check out what condition the recent flooding had left the stream in. Unfortunately, two of my suspicions…
I haven’t tied a lot of tenkara flies with yarn bodies but Chris Stewart of Tenkara Bum certainly has. In fact, he’s inspired a whole subculture of yarners with his recent blue fly challenge. Chris sent me some samples of some of the yarns he sells and I can immediately see their advantages: 1.…
For my birthday my wife surprised me with new waders! But not just any waders. The new Silver Sonic Convertibles from Orvis! These new waders feature Orvis’s patented SonicSeam Technology. Most waders are sewn together with traditional stitching (i.e. a needle and thread). This creates holes in the fabric that have to be later sealed…
Probably like many of you, I don’t have nearly as much time to tie flies as I’d like. But when I can sneak in those precious few minutes to lash some feathers and fur to a hook, I like it to be organized so I can maximize my time–whether it’s preparation of materials or…
In tenkara, a fairly esoteric group of anglers subscribe to the “one fly” approach where they strictly fish only one specific pattern (or slight variations of the same pattern). A larger group adheres to the more liberal “any fly” approach, meaning that they don’t necessarily restrict themselves to one particular pattern, but feel that any…
Right out of the box, I knew the new Try 390 rod from Tenkara Times was a winner. For one thing, I’ve reviewed several of their rods already and upon initial inspection, the overall quality seemed in keeping with the attention to detail and consistency I’ve come to expect from them. But it wasn’t until…
A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about using Cortland braided nylon level line for tenkara. I liked how it cast in my backyard, but hand’t had it on the water. That is, until today. And the verdict is in… While it seemed to be a pretty a good candidate for tenkara, I had…
I just had an interesting exchange with a friend who is heading down to the San Juan River soon. He told me about how he was planning to fish a tandem rig with the river’s namesake pattern (the San Juan Worm) and a beadhead dropper. I relayed the story of how when I fished the…