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Category Archives: Flies & Fly Tying

fly tying desk

A Tour of my New Fly Tying Desk

When I first started tying flies, I didn’t have a dedicated space to do it; let alone tools or materials. I literally took snelled hooks, smashed down the baitholder barbs on the shanks with needle-nose pliers, and secured them in the corner of my dad’s tool vise on his workbench in the basement. For materials, I…

May 10, 201620 CommentsFlies & Fly Tying, Fly TyingBy Jason Klass

Fulling Mill Hooks

I have to confess, I’d never heard of Fulling Mill hooks until I saw them on Anthony Naples’ site, Three Rivers Tenkara. There are a million hooks out there today and I’ve tried a lot of them–not just for tenkara, but for many other applications as well. I usually don’t get too excited about hooks…

May 10, 20151 CommentFlies & Fly Tying, Fly TyingBy Jason Klass

Teeny Nymph

Rediscovering the Teeny Nymph

It’s funny how easy it is to forget good fly patterns. I was recently reminded about a good pattern that I had fished years ago with a rod and reel but had forgotten about since starting tenkara fishing–the Teeny Nymph. This pattern was invented by venerable angler Jim Teeny in 1962 originally for for trout. But…

April 11, 20154 CommentsFlies & Fly Tying, Fly TyingBy Jason Klass

Sakasa Kebari on an Umpqua competition hook

360° Sakasa Kebari

If you’ve been into fly fishing for any length of time, you might have heard of a pattern called the “Brook’s Stone“. It was invented by Major Charlie Brooks to imitate the big stoneflies on the Yellowstone River. It’s a simple pattern. Unlike most stonefly patterns, it doesn’t even have a wing case. It’s basically…

February 13, 20153 CommentsFlies & Fly TyingBy Jason Klass

Tying tenkara flies with zenmai

Tying with Zenmai

I first heard about zenmai a few years ago in a blog post from Tenkara USA. What is zenmai? It’s a fuzzy fiber that grows on sprouting fern plants in the spring and Japanese anglers use it as dubbing material. It might seem strange to use vegetation as a tying material, but it actually makes quite…

February 2, 201510 CommentsFlies & Fly Tying, Fly TyingBy Jason Klass

Orange parrot hackle sakasa kebari

Parrot Hackle Flies

To me, tenkara anglers are an intrinsically “outside the box” breed. We don’t fish with reels, we reject the prevailing notion that more gear catches more fish, and lets’s face it, our flies look…well…strange. Even stranger are the materials we experiment with. I’ve seen tenkara flies tied with everything from snakeskin to fuzz from a…

January 30, 20156 CommentsFlies & Fly Tying, Fly TyingBy Jason Klass

OttLite Task Lamp

OttLite for Fly Tying

A harsh truth all of us who tie flies have to inevitably face is that our eyes aren’t getting any younger. I remember as a teenager tying size 28 midges in my parents’ basement simply by the ambient overhanging fluorescent lighting without any problem. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve found myself needing supplemental lighting.…

January 21, 20157 CommentsFlies & Fly Tying, Fly TyingBy Jason Klass

Caribou Captain Dry Fly

The Caribou Captain

The other day, I found myself thinking about a forgotten fly introduced to me by its creator, Gordon Wickstrom. I can’t remember how we first met, but I do remember our meandering chats in Boulder coffee shops talking fly fishing history, fly design, language, and how Garrison Keillor is a great storyteller but should never, ever, be…

January 9, 20159 CommentsFlies & Fly Tying, Fly TyingBy Jason Klass

Tenkara Sakasa kebari

Sparse Vs. Heavily-dressed Flies

I got an email today from a reader who had the following comment: “While crawling around the web researching the subject, I ran across some Japanese websites, and noticed the flies they have seem to be more sparsely tied than the American versions. Is there anything to this?” It was an interesting observation–though (I think) not…

December 14, 20149 CommentsFlies & Fly Tying, Fly TyingBy Jason Klass

Tenkara Sakasa kebari

4 Reasons to Fatten up your Flies

When I first started tying soft hackle flies, the conventional wisdom was that you should make the body as slender as possible. I practiced a lot to achieve perfectly smooth, anorexic bodies that were literally no more than a few silk strands thicker in diameter than the hook shank. They definitely worked great and were…

August 22, 201422 CommentsFlies & Fly Tying, Fly TyingBy Jason Klass

Silk cord for eyeless tenkara hooks

Persimmon Silk Cord from Tenkara Bum

When I first started tying tenkara flies on eyeless hooks, I thought I had found a goldmine once I discovered that silk bead cord was readily available on eBay in a myriad of colors. It took a little trial & error but I finally found what I considered to be the right diameter (#2) and…

August 5, 20146 CommentsFlies & Fly Tying, Fly TyingBy Jason Klass

Picket Pin

The Picket Pin: A Good Fly For Tenkara

Over the centuries, countless fly patterns have been lost to history. Some have made brief resurgences in popular fly fishing culture, only to disappear and hibernate again, waiting for their next 10 seconds of fame. Still, it’s fair to say that there are probably dozens (if not hundreds) of once-popular patterns that modern fly anglers…

June 11, 201413 CommentsFlies & Fly Tying, Fly TyingBy Jason Klass
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About Me

Jason Klass is a former fly fishing guide & casting instructor based in Colorado. He was an early adopter of tenkara in the West and has been fishing the method for a variety of species since 2009. Read more >>

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