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.…
Just off the heels of last week’s Denver Fly Fishing Show, today, I attended ISE 2015 at the Colorado Convention Center. For those of you not familiar with this show, it’s massive. To give you an idea, the floor plan puts the catacombs beneath Paris to shame: Whereas I was really please with tenkara presence at…
As of today, I will be closing my store, http://www.thetenkarashop.com/. I have several reasons, but mostly, I just hate packing things up and going to the post office. Life is already complicated enough with a full time job and toddler, so I really just want to simplify and focus more on fishing and writing this blog.…
Yesterday, I made my annual pilgrimage to the Denver Fly Fishing Show and came away with two impressions. First, it was PACKED. In all the years I’ve been going, I’ve never seen a crowd this big. You had to fight just to make it through the aisles and I had to park a mile away.…
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…
The Tenkara no Oni Type I has long been my favorite tenkara rod. It’s incredibly light in the hand and has an action that suits my casting style perfectly. I’ve been fishing the original model with the straight foam handle (not the current models) for a couple of years now, but ever since I heard…
The second volume of Tenkara Magazine has just been published, further anchoring tenkara as an established form of fly fishing in the West. In 96 pages, this latest issue explores a wide spectrum of tenkara-related topics including presentation techniques, tenkara in Japan, trout cooking techniques, tenkara with kids, interviews with Japanese tenkara anglers, and more. One…
With all the snow and cold weather, cabin fever is taking its toll–driving me slightly mad you could say. So I felt compelled to put together another set of tenkara memes. This is the fourth one. You can see past ones here, here, and here. Enjoy! …
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…
This year, Tenkara Santa wants to give you some neat stocking stuffers! He’s giving away a nice little package of tenkara gear, including the following: 1. A wooden fly box hand made by Boulder Artisan and avid tenkara angler Dave Burchett. 2. A 13′ horsehair tapered line made by me. 3. A cork line spool…
When I first started fishing tenkara, I didn’t give much thought to traditional tenkara flies. The initial allure was really the tenkara rod itself and by default, I assumed that I would just use my standard patterns like the Elk Hair Caddis, Stimulator, Bead Head Hare’s Ear Nymph, and so on. And I did. And…
I’ve tried many furled tenkara lines and most of them are pretty similar: a single-material, single-color, line that tapers from butt to tip. But the new Oudachi line from Moonlit Fly Fishing is a whole different animal. The Oudachi is billed as a “nymphing” line and I’d say that’s accurate. First, rather than a consistent…
At my neighborhood Starbucks, they used to have this fancy dispenser for those cardboard sleeves you slide over your to-go cup to prevent you from burning your hands while holding your $6 drink (probably to avoid a lawsuit). It was a clever design–a plastic box with two rows of sleeves spring-loaded like a Pez dispenser.…
I don’t know what it is about trade shows or conferences, but they always seem to turn people into zombies scouring the convention center floor for freebies like vultures circling over road kill. I’m no exception. And at this year’s Tenkara Summit, I managed to snag a few gems. The first was a Summit poster…
On his excellent blog, Tom Davis posted a picture of an X-ray of the handle of an Oni rod. The X-ray appears to show some kind of insert near the butt. This sparked much speculation that the Oni rods are only so light in the hand because there is weight added to the butt of…
I just returned from the 2014 Tenkara Summit in Boulder. This only the second Summit I’ve attended but I was amazed not only by the turnout, but by how strong our community has grown. We may have our squabbles on social media from time to time, but at the Summit, it’s pure camaraderie with people…
Imagine listening to a symphony where the conductor put their baton back on the podium in between every motion they made with it. With the music stopping each time the baton is laid down, it would be painful to sit through. There would be no flow and the piece would probably take twice as long to…
You’ve probably seen the meme “Tenkara +” going around social media. It’s the idea that tenkara compliments other outdoor hobbies such as “tenkara + hiking”, “tenkara + mushroom hunting”, “tenkara + mountain biking”, etc. While the portability of tenkara gear certainly lends itself well to being combined with other activities, it got me to thinking…
Apparently, in the Tenkaraverse, Christmas comes in September. In the last 3 days, I’ve received as many gifts from fellow tenkara anglers. The first, was a beautiful tenkara-inspired watercolor I posted about a couple of days ago from John Vetterli of Tenkara Guides. Then, today I got a couple more surprises in the mail. One was…
Today, I received a painting in the mail by Kiyoshi Ishihara. Ishihara-san is a prominent Japanese tenkara angler and a member of the storied Harima Fishing Club (of which, I’m probably the most deadbeat member in the club’s history). It was an extraordinarily generous gift from another very prominent tenkara angler back here in the…
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…
I had a philosophy professor in college that wore exactly the same thing every day: black pants, black shoes, a black t-shirt, and navy blue socks. Halfway through the semester, I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to ask, “why blue socks instead of black?” Everything else was black. He told me that his wife…
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…
A testament to tenkara’s continuing growth in the West, another new gear company has just entered the market. Online retailer Three Rivers Tenkara officially opened their e-doors on July 19th, 2014. The company was started by renowned blogger and avid tenkara angler Anthony Naples of Casting Around. Anthony was one of the earliest adopters of…
Anthony Naples of Casting Around and I recently teamed up to start a new tenkara podcast series called “The Tenkara Cast”. In this first episode, we talk about a variety of topics that were submitted by friends and followers on social media. We had a great time doing the podcast and are planning on making…
Whenever I see a new “introductory” tenkara video come out, I usually end up doing a lot of fast forwarding or make it about halfway through before calling it quits. Having fished tenkara for 5 years now, anything geared towards a beginner is usually focused on things I already know, so I get bored pretty…
I’m always interested in unique tenkara line designs and materials. Recently, a new line from Zen Fly Fishing Gear caught my attention. At first, it didn’t look like anything special. It was labelled “level line” on their site so I assumed it was just another orange fluorocarbon level line. But after Karin Miller from the…
I’ve recently been testing out a new furled tenkara line design from Moonlit Fly Fishing called the “Katana”. Normally, furled lines don’t really appear on my radar because many of them are so similar. Sure there are different tapers and materials, but for the most part, empirically, they feel the same to me. But I discovered…
This weekend, my family and I rented a condo in Estes Park that’s right on the Fall River. It was really a family trip, not a fishing trip, but I took my tenkara gear anyway. I’ve been caught off guard too many times without a rod after stumbling on to easy fishing opportunities. So now,…
A couple of days ago, bamboo tenkara rod case maker Richard Kolodny came by Tenkara Talk H.Q. to show me some of his new designs. Richard is truly an artist and his cases (inspired by samurai sword sheaths) are simply gorgeous. I asked Richard to tell us a little more about their history and what…
