There’s “fishing blind” (casting when you can’t see the fish), and then there’s “fishing blindfolded”, which is how many people might describe midge fishing. Sub-#20 flies can be invisible on the water and seemingly impossible to detect a strike with them. But I’ve been using this simple method for many years, and it’s become my…
You happen upon an idyllic, long stretch of water, and every inch of it looks like it would hold fish. It’s right out of a magazine–perfect trout water. But now what? Where should you cast first? What kind of presentation should you try? Upstream? Downstream? Which fly should you start with? When you’re blind fishing,…
Many fly anglers spend more time with their fly in the air than in the water. Tenkara forgoes all the false casting, shooting line, and line management usually required when fishing with a rod and reel, and keeps your fly in the water more–where the fish are!
A common concern in tenkara (and a valid one) is casting in the wind. Of course, there are ways to mitigate this and there’s been much discussion on the topic: adjust your casting stroke, use a heavier line, use the blow line technique, use a titanium tenkara line, etc. But to me, a much bigger…
Whether out of habit carried over from a fly fishing background, or from some ill-gotten advice, I tend to see a lot more false casting being used by tenkara anglers than I would expect. False casting is necessary in conventional fly fishing because you need to shoot line. So, you use false casts to build…
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…
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…
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…
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.
In my recent post about a new tenkara nymph line, someone asked if I used weight to get my flies to sink. I replied that I do use copper wire in some of my flies which helps them sink a little better but first and foremost, it’s ribbing to created a segmented look. I’d hardly call…
Remember my post about tenkara’s diversity in simplicity? This video is a perfect example of that. In it, you will see a range of different tenkara casting techniques including the standard 10 o’clock / 12 o’clock overhand cast, the backhand (cross-chest) cast, sidearm cast, and the bow-and-arrow cast–but not just any bow-and-arrow cast.
For those of you who own the Tenkara USA Ito (or any tenkara zoom rod for that matter) here’s an interesting trick that can come in handy if you’re fishing longer lines. Many of you probably read Daniel Galhardo’s recent article on fishing long lines for tenkara. One thing you have to keep in mind…
Chris Stewart of Tenkara Bum recently asked me to write an article about tenkara fishing in alpine lakes for his site. It’s not a comprehensive guide but hopefully, it will get some people thinking about trying tenkara beyond small streams. Click here to read Tenkara Fishing in Alpine Lakes. Some of you might know…
Traditional tenkara flies don’t have weight like our western flies that use lead wire, copper wire, or bead heads to help them sink. Instead, tenkara anglers make use of the hydrodynamics of the stream to help sink their flies. Here is a quick video of Daniel Galhardo from TenkaraUSA demonstrating how you can use the…