Just a few months ago, my friend Dennis from Tenkara Path and I were sitting in a cafe in Denver looking over his latest designs for his wooden bobbin spools. At some point, he pulled out a prototype of a new line spool he was working on. If you’re familiar with Tenkara Path spools, you know…
DetailsIt’s been pointed out to me that I’m somewhat of a hermit in the fly fishing and tenkara community. There are really only two events I attend on a regular basis: The Denver Fly Fishing Show and the Tenkara Summit. It’s not on purpose. There are plenty of tenkara events around the country I’d love…
DetailsWhile it’s OK to take tenkara seriously, sometimes we just have to step back and be able to laugh at ourselves. Here’s my 6th in my series of tenkara memes. To see all of them, click here. Enjoy and if you share any of them (as with any of my content) please be cool and…
DetailsIf you told me that one day I’d be waving a tenkara rod in the heart of Manhattan with a girl from the Dominican Republic, I would have asked you for some of whatever it was you were smoking. But that’s exactly where I found myself just a few days ago on a week-long trip…
DetailsOne of the things I love about tenkara is that it lends itself to DIY gear and experimentation–especially when it comes to lines. If you think about it, people don’t really do much in the way of DIY lines in mainstream fly fishing. Most people just buy something off the shelf and while they might…
DetailsFor the month of April, I’m giving away a box of my Shetland Killers! The box is slotted foam (handmade by me) and is filled with a dozen #12 weighted Shetland Killers (tied by me) in my favorite colors! All you have to do to enter is answer the following in the comments section below: Describe…
DetailsOn a couple of recent fishing trips with my friends Daniel and Dennis, I was struck by something–actually, I was struck by the absence of something. While I was donning my beloved Yonah Tenkara Simple pack, they were carrying nothing. And I mean nothing (save their rods). No chest packs, no backpacks, no sort of…
DetailsIf I had to name one tying material that rivaled the versatility and universal fish-catching properties of the venerable peacock herl, it might be Jaimeson’s Shetland Spindrift Yarn. And lately, I’ve been tying the majority of my “working” flies with it. Why? It’s fast and easy to tie with. Just a few wraps of yarn…
DetailsBack in 2012, I wrote an article about how I came to know and develop a fondness for a version of Frank Sawyer’s Killer Bug pattern which had become a quick favorite among tenkara anglers: the Utah Killer Bug. The Utah Killer bug was developed by the Tenkara Guides as a modern answer to Frank Sawyer’s…
DetailsIt’s been a long, dismal winter fishing season for me this year. The few places with open water were crowded with desperate anglers trying to get a drift before their fly snagged a miniature iceberg or jagged ice shelf. Most of the time, I was so frustrated by the crowds, low water, and lack of…
DetailsWhen I first saw the prototypes of the new line spools from NIRVANA On The Fly circulating around Facebook, I didn’t really give them a second thought. They looked exactly like the old Raji Leica I had already been using for years. I wasn’t much interested, but when owner Brent Auger offered to send me…
DetailsMy mad-scientist friend and tenkara partner-in-crime Dennis Vander Houwen has been tucked away in his wood shop again working on some really interesting projects. A couple of them aren’t ready to be announced to the world just quite yet (soon) but today when we met up on the stream, he gave me a few samples…
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