Ever since I got into ultra-light backpacking and fly fishing, I have been constantly thinking about which pieces of gear I can do away with and which ones I find multi-use and indispensable. Recently, I turned my attention to my hat. Sure, on the surface, hats might not be as sexy as a new, shiny…
DetailsWhile fishing this weekend in Rocky Mountain National Park, I happened across another Tenkara fisher on the Roaring River. This is rare for me as I usually get stared at or accosted out of curiosity for not having a reel rather than out of Tenkara fellowship. To my surprise, it was none other than Karel…
DetailsIf you’ve been following this blog, you might know that I’ve been playing around with some different methods of line management for Tenkara lines. I’ve tried more traditional gadgets such as aged bamboo line holders, cheaper solutions like foam spools, and even some outside-of-the-box ideas like adapting add-ons from the spinning and bait casting realm. …
DetailsI just got back from field testing a prototype of an ultralight leader wallet I’m designing. The idea is to create a super light, super compact wallet that will store 3-6 leaders and keep them from tangling. I’ve been looking for ultralight ultra-compact leader wallets for a while and found that like ultralight fly fishing…
DetailsMeet my wife. Her name is Guadalupe. She’s from Argentina. She’s never fly fished before. In fact, she’s never even fished a day in her life. I took her out to the Roaring River below the alluvial fan in Rocky Mountain National Park, put a Tenkara USA Ayu in her hand and gave her some…
Details[/caption] As Tenkara catches on more and more in the U.S., I have yet to see one description of it lacking the following adjective: simple. Mainly by virtue of not using a reel, Tenkara is certainly simpler than what most Western fly fishers are accustomed to–and that is probably its main appeal. Ironically though, many…
Details[/caption] While Tenkara fishing is often pigeonholed as being only for small streams, I’ve recently fallen in love with Tenkara fishing in lakes. Just as the lack of a reel and the ability to shoot line force you to change your technique on rivers, so too does Tenkara force you to adapt your method…
DetailsThis was a fly fishing pack I always wanted but didn’t exist. So I designed it myself. PLEASE NOTE: The Trico is no longer available as I’ve been unable to secure a new sewer to produce it. If you’ve got a lead on someone who will and help me put it back into production, please…
DetailsWhile I appreciate (OK, drool over) innovation and technological advances, sometimes, tried-and-true traditional gear has a certain allure that I just can’t resist. I recently posted about a tenkara line management system that is very practical and functional, yet lacks the quaintness and charm of what I got in the mail today–a pair of bamboo…
DetailsThe Ebira is a rod quiver for tenkara fly rods such as Tenkara USA rods and the Backpacking Light Hane. It features a removable pocket to hold a fly box and tippet spools that can be accessed without taking the quiver off. “Ebira” means “quiver” in Japanese and while they were traditionally worn over the…
DetailsA while back, I wrote about a simple fly fishing setup for backpacking. As fly fishers, we have an intrinsic advantage when it comes fishing on overnight and multi-day backpacking trips. Unlike other styles of fishing, we aren’t condemned to carrying heavy, bulky tackle like spinning reels, weighted lures, etc. However, fly fishers also tend…
DetailsIf you’d rather fish a #14 fly during a heavy Trico hatch than a #22, check out the Traffic Jam
How to Tie the Traffic Jam Trico Cluster from Jason Klass on Vimeo.
Many of us who have fished Trico hatches probably have a love-hate relationship with them. These notoriously prolific hatches bring a lot of fish to the surface but it can be impossible to pick out your #22 imitation from the thousands of others on the surface. A fish could strike your fly and you wouldn’t even know it because there are so many rises surrounding it. Probably many of us have wished we could fish a larger, easier-to-see pattern that we could distinguish from the mayhem during these exciting hatches. This led some people to design double and triple Trico patterns that were a littler easier to see, but were unrealistic because of the way they are tied in perfect alignment (trunk-to-tail so to speak). After years of observation, I had an epiphany that led to the creation of the Traffic Jam.
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