Small, meandering meadow streams certainly make idyllic backdrops but they pose several unique challenges for the angler. Typically, these streams are very shallow with slowly moving, crystal clear water meaning the fish can see you coming a mile away and will scatter at the slightest shadow, vibration, splash, or sound. It’s not hard to imagine…
After reading about Chris Stewart’s blue fly challenge and receiving some of his blue yarn by happenstance, I thought it would be fun to experiment a bit with blue. So, I came up with this pattern. I haven’t tried it yet but I’m sure it will catch fish. And even if it doesn’t, I like it…
Right out of the box, I loved my Fishpond San Juan chest pack. I’ve had it for about 2 years now and during that time, I’ve discovered a few tricks that make this great pack even better. 1. Added an External Tippet Dispenser I wanted a way to be able to pull out tippet…
It’s not that I don’t want to. Believe me, I used to work in a fly shop and understand the value of having a place to gather to talk shop, exchange info on conditions and tell some good old fashioned fish stories. And, I do want to support local businesses. But unfortunately, most of the…
This weekend, I gave a tenkara presentation to a group from the Poudre Wilderness Volunteers organization in Rocky Mountain National Park. I give a fair number of tenkara presentations but this one was particularly fun! We started out on the Fall River near the alluvial fan. I thought that would be a good place to accommodate a…
If you’ve fished tenkara for any significant amount of time, at some point, you’ve probably run into a situation where you wished you had a line that was either longer or shorter than the one you had on. But since tenkara is fixed line fishing, you can’t adjust line length as you would with a…
I got to give my Oni rod and Tenkara USA Ayu II a workout today on clear creek again. This time, with avid tenkara angler, Phil Echelman. It was a great day with lots of fish caught, and some neat streamside discoveries. I actually started fishing just above tunnel #1before I met up with Phil.…
That’s right. Titanium. As in the metal. Believe it or not, some tenkara anglers in Japan use lines made of thin titanium wire instead of fluorocarbon or nylon. This might seem strange, but titanium lines have some interesting properties that give them some distinct advantages. I recently got to try out a titanium line that…
My first post on tenkara memes didn’t quite satiate my sense of the absurd, so I decided to create a few more. Whether they make you roll your eyes or bring a smile to your face, I hope they at least bring some levity to your Monday…
A few posts ago, I wrote about my initial impressions of the Tenkara no Oni rod and this weekend, I finally got a chance to give it a workout on Clear Creek outside of Golden, CO. Not only was the fishing great, but my field test confirmed a lot of what I had expected of…
Of all the tenkara tricks I have up my sleeve, this one is my favorite and the one in which I have the most confidence. As you’ll see in the video, it’s pretty simple, but it works.
Well, now that Daniel has let the cat out of the bag that tenkara was a hoax all along, I have no choice to but to come clean and admit my role in the scandal. You see, I’ve been on the Tenkara USA payroll for years as part of a sophisticated network charged with spreading…
Math is definitely not my strong point but I did a little to try to answer some questions I’ve been getting about the Japanese line rating system for fluorocarbon level lines and what it translates to in diameter. Please note: lb. test is irrelevant. Diameter matters more for turnover than test. And, test per diameter varies from…
Some tenkara rods come with a rod tube, and some don’t. Some anglers are hardcore tubers, some throw caution to the wind, and some are in between (like me). An included rod tube is a nice touch, but whenever someone laments the fact that a particular rod model doesn’t come with a tube, my response…