Over the weekend, I got a chance to field test a prototype line made by John Veterlli of Tenkara Guides. It’s a hybrid line based off of a formula invented by master Japanese tenkara angler Eiji Yamakawa (a.k.a. “Eddie” on the Tenkara USA Forums). While I’ve pretty much been fishing tenkara level lines exclusively over…
My daughter Emma doesn’t know it yet, but she’s the world’s youngest tenkara angler. I say this because even though she’s only four months old, she embodies the spirit of tenkara. She takes pleasure in simple things, lives completely in the moment, and basically just takes a beginner’s mind approach to every experience. My wife…
Let’s face it. Even the most expertly tied fly is not immortal. Though it might have escaped the perils of underwater snags, tree branches lurking in our backcasts, or weak knots, it will eventually succumb to the merciless jaws of countless trout ripping it to shreds. And at some point, it’s time to retire it.…
Today, I received my long awaited gyotaku print! In Japanese, “gyo” means “fish” and “taku” roughly translates to “rubbing”, so “gyotaku” could be translated as “fish rubbing”. Basically, the process involves painting a fish (literally), then laying a piece of washi paper over it, rubbing it to transfer the ink (or paint) to the paper,…
To western fly tiers, typical tenkara flies like sakasa kebari might seem boring. After all, many of them are nothing more than hackle and a thread body. No wings, no tails, no intricate bodies. It might seem that if one wanted to fish tenkara flies exclusively, they’d quickly tire of tying the same old thing.…
In tenkara, we talk a lot about level lines and tapered furled lines but there really isn’t much discussion on “weight forward” lines. Yes, I do mean “weight forward” in the western fly fishing sense. In fact, I had never even considered it until Tenkara Talk reader Tony Wee mentioned it in the comments section…
Long before I started fishing tenkara, I had given up on wearing a vest. I guess one day I finally had enough of the heavy, bulky, and hot garment holding me back like a straightjacket. I didn’t use 90% of the stuff I carried in its multitude of pockets anyway so why carry it? I…
Recently, I tried out some red Amnesia for a tenkara level line. I was impressed with its high visibility, but not so much with the way it cast. Being nylon monofilament, it isn’t as dense as the fluorocarbon level lines I’m used to fishing and didn’t turn over as well. It casts, but you have…
The “Calligraphy Brush” is basically a slightly more dressed up version of the Kamikaze Kebari with cufflinks and a collar. The ingredients are almost the same except “the brush” is tied on a slightly longer hook to accomodate an ostrich herl thorax. The ostrich thorax gives a little meatiness to the fly, absorbs water to…
Today, I got an email asking a question I get so often, that I thought it was worthy of a blog post: “I’m using sakasa kebari and having a hard time telling when a fish takes my fly. How can I tell?” The question came from an experienced western fly angler that knows how to…
Today, Karel from Tenkara on the Fly, Joe from Dragon Fly Fishing and I headed up to the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park to fish North Inlet Creek just above Grand Lake. I normally fish the east side of RMNP and haven’t been to the west side in years so today was a…
Not too long ago, I wrote a post about using Red Amnesia as a sighter for tenkara level lines. Having fished it for a while now, I can say really like it. The bright red Amensia is easy to see in all lighting conditions and makes it much easier to follow your fly and detect…
In western fly fishing, a lot of emphasis is placed not only on the fly pattern, but also on fly size. It’s considered standard practice to carry both a wide variety of patterns and a variety of sizes of each pattern. The mentality seems to be that if you don’t have a good selection, you’re…
While fishing with some of the Japanese anglers the day before the summit, I found myself admiring a strange looking contraption at the end of Masami Tanaka’s tenkara rod. It was a clear plastic sleeve with a black strap around it. Much different than the wooden rod plug most of us in the West are…