Tenkara and Fly Fishing

Hmm, July 23, the calendar in my phone says, “Tenkara USA was sold” there are a couple of years entries for this, I wonder what year that was? 

How long ago did he sell the company?

Time is flying by…

Doesn’t matter, that’s water under the bridge, things are way different now.

It makes me think about why I stopped flying fishing to learn tenkara? Why did I? There are several reasons but the bottom line was I was at the top of my game making beautiful split cane fly rods. Writing about it, I was maintaining a couple of communities web sites on the subject, traveling and just having a ball but I stopped and even sold all my fly rods and reels.

What the f*€< was I thinking?

I could have just stored them in my closet. THAT would have been the better choice but I didn’t.

2009, fly fishing full stop. 

I completely immersed myself in tenkara and learned it from Japanese resources, working within that community to help Daniel build it. G~d I remember how difficult it was, the people new to tenkara and fishing, what they thought it was, the way they went about expressing themselves. 

They didn’t know very much about tenkara. The people in Japan best at it did fly fishing too. And they went fly fishing with their tenkara friends and it really didn’t matter. Tenkara wasn’t fly fishing, it was something different, a brother or sister, a sibling, a good friend, a close ally. I read the Japanese HP, the magazines, the genryu players there, far more hardcore than the best of the best fly fishers here, they climb waterfalls don’t they? 

…and catch trout in ultra clear skinny water. Some fly fish, some do tenkara, they don’t take sides, they exist together naturallly.

Tenkara in America today?

I don’t think so…

…and I’m going fly fishing this weekend. 

My tenkara rods left at home in the rod rack except the Nissin mini, that rod goes with me everywhere. Man what a beautifully engineered pure Japanese tenkara rod. I still crack up when I think about how certain Americans poo poo on it.

Whatever…

It is a machete AND a scalpel capable of dissecting a stream in short order, tenkara sews up a memory like a fine Italian suit. Btw,I wonder what the Italians think about fly fishing and tenkara coexisting?

Anyway, does not matter. 

The best tenkara people here also fly fish. The teachers, the authors, Dave Hughes, John Gerach, or locals like Chuck Kaminski, Chris Theobald, Andy Paschek. Even my nameless #1 tenkara fisher in the US, so proud of him. He just got back from genryu trips in Japan, I taught him tenkara now I’ll help him learn fly fishing for silvery glints off the beach in the surf. The English, Paul and John at Discover Tenkara, they fly fish and to date, their teachings are the best tenkara tuition English speaking people can get into. They do it right. Tenkara is Japanese and that’s where they base their approach carefully introducing this genre from that angle. 

But this weekend I’m going fly fishing!

I want to shoot some loops on a new 1-weight. It’s an 8’ 3 piece un-sanded blank, tip over butt ferrule and a nice flex profile.

Yeah, I’m fly fishing today with another old friend that I’ve known about 25 years. He is 70 something (I’m 63) The stream we are fishing; I’ve been fishing for 55 years. But I’m still learning, thinking about my wind game with that 1-weight, shooting loops in the nooks and crannies of that bendy stream, sending casts in big holes in the wind, it’s still a go!

Driving out of the desert into the mountains, my thoughts go from one thing to another. Connecting the dots is always on my mind but it’s a time of concentrating and at the same time letting go.

I’ve been watching some great TV in the evening, just finished Shogun, wow, so cool to understand old Japan, and I’m on the newest series of , “the Bear” a wild contemporary look at personalities in a great restaurant. Yeah, good stuff.

The Olympic games are on this month, in France! Yes, the French, Im cueing up one of my favorite rappers on my stereo, Octavian as I turn on to the freeway. The sun is rising, thoughts swirling in my head as they do on my drives to go fishing, ohh, there it is, the lyrics…

It's nice to be important

But it's important to be nice

Hell yeah!

That dude rocks, French rapper. Speaking of the French, I wonder if Chris Laurent fly fishes?

Doesn’t matter.

Driving, my Subaru is a perfect choice for me, road car, AWD for dirt roads. It just makes driving there not a big deal. I feel like I don’t deserve it. Nicest car I’ve owned. I worked hard for it and with the help of my wife, my family, I got one brand new! But I deserve it, my wife has one, why shouldn’t I? She said I should drive a new Bronco before I decide. My wife is good about those things.

Seems to me we missed the boat in America. 

Tenkara could have been piggybacked on fly fishing as a choice by showing how badass the Japanese genryu crew are, another tool in the arsenal of rods we use. Looking back, it’s easy to arm chair those things. It got big but we were looked at like beginners by the fly fishing community. 

Maybe because we were. 

A twenty something year old marketing a new way to fly fish? The marketing included, “sell your fly rod and get into it.” I told him this wasn’t the way, but it grew no less. I ended up on the payroll but you can’t tell me how to be me, that’s my job. Everything is behind me now and this is my story.

What’s yours?

We ended up at the Sowbug event in Arkansas. It’s a fly fishing community that has an annual regional fly tying get together. In Arkansas, they are serious about fly fishing, they catch big big browns in the local tailwaters, they know fly fishing. I was there with Daniel and the event coordinator must have recognized me as we shook hands, he looks at Daniel, “Oh, you brought the Sage with you…” I’m not sure who he was speaking to but I know Daniel didn’t like it. Doesn’t matter, we got tenkara rods into a lot of fly fishers hands. As much as I didn’t like the way he was doing it, he was doing it and besides, politics suck, we are still fishers and that’s the importance.

But Daniel left the building and now what do we have?

I don’t know, I really don’t care. 

He and Lefty Kreh figured it out and that’s a good thing.

I know that politics in fishing divides people. When you have people that say there is only one way to do it, already you start dividing. No, tenkara is not the only way to go fishing. You can’t learn tenkara by fly fishing or can you? In my case I stopped fly fishing and immersed myself into a world of Japanese tenkara. It’s from Japan, that’s where it came from, that’s where I had to go. All inroads lead me to the watersheds there and that’s where I went to learn it.

A Japanese fly fisher introduced me to the tenkara experts there. I would not have changed one thing about that.

Whoa whoa whoa, I’m on a road trip to go fly fishing. I don’t need to go there and do that.

It’s 2 something am. I’m in a hotel in Springerville Arizona. Tired from the day, we caught trout on the stream I’ve talked about. Nine thousand plus feet, elevation. I can feel the elevation just laying here but I’m so excited to be able to choose which rod to use. I remember distinctly breaking down little movements, kneeling, line handling, different ingrained movements. The little details, the reel taking away the anguish of bushwhacking a long level line, the rod length managing the downstream drift, so many differences. Today I like fly fishing and it feels great to be good at both. To be able to know the differences and to be able to talk about both.

Compare and contrast came into play but I pushed it out and enjoyed fly fishing for what it was.

It’s been a long time since I’ve operated a lite fly rod sending loops to capture trout in the cool mountain breeze.

Fun.

Try fly fishing.

You will get good at it fast.

I suggest a lite line fly rod.

Make friends with someone that does both.

That’s where it’s at.

Both.

If you do only one, learn the other. Don’t make a mistake and sell your gear to get into it. You’re going to want to do it latter.

Choices

Are

Best

Enjoy fishing your way.

ストーリー

—————

A Story

The forest is my friend. She listens and speaks to me. “Adam, be who you are.” And ultimately I am. I walk along a stream picking lines between trees, some of those lanes are natural while others are made by inhabitants. The smells are amazing, the sounds are relaxing, I can understand and make sense of her moods while she helps me make sense of mine.

I feel like Jonathan, a seagull that a great writer detailed in a old book about a individual in a community. Jonathan loved flying where the others simply looked at flying as something seagulls just did. He would practice flying until he knew it well, pushing the envelope of his wings until one day, his flying lead him away from the other seagulls.

The concept is not unique, it’s how the idea for a popular book that is widely read came about.

The suggestion to fish this new to me stream came from a friend. I sent him back pictures of the same jewel like fish he caught. He began texting me back, while on a flight to Japan, his family lives there. “...probably the same fish I caught.” 

Probably.

A week ago, John told me about his dry fly fishing here. Using a fine short rod (by Japanese designers) he sampled the pools in the stream collecting the jeweled fish photographs and his own moments flying free. He sent those photographs to me in a text. “We should go here.”

I was born in Arizona, I believe John was too. We are the same age and we meet nearly forty or so years ago flying free. We have common interests, friends and separate memories of the same friends yet we flew our own flights.

John reconnected with me while I was on my first tenkara trip to Japan. “We should meet”

John did not fish but I did. I had many moons of casting flys in the streams, rivers, lakes and sea. I had gathered fly fisherman from around the world together with the many web sites and forums that I created.

John could read and write in Japanese so we explored the history of tenkara through my library. I introduced him to fly tying and he showed me the differences in the language and meaning between the two countries. John lived in Japan for thirty years before returning home.

Never fishing before, he had no preconceived ideas. His learning was from the old Japanese tenkara books. I never held back when I was fishing and taught him tenkara and while he was a beginner, he taught me tenkara as well. 

John and I together meet Hisao Ishigaki for the first time. He briefly translated our introduction and put things at ease while we spoke in sensei’s native language. Later he helped translate interviews for both communities, making sense of the meaning we wished to convey.

And then one day John began to catch as many fish as I did, sometimes more and I knew he was flying free.

I began to receive pictures of monster fish caught with Japanese equipment and techniques. Fish that I could have caught but didn’t. The friend I took to our new stream agreed, we would buy him a bottle of Japanese whisky for turning us on to this stream.

I wrote this story while releasing a tiny jewel like fish.

I want to convey how simple and at the same time, how complex fishing can be.

Fishing a small stream helps me to put my ideas into a medium that I could share with John, Jim and anyone else that I resonate with.

But I feel like Jonathan Livingston Seagull. 

Free to fly (fish) the way I want and write about it the way I want.

—————

This particular stream was well suited to a 3.2m Zerosum. I really like the 7:3 flex profile. I use a 3.3m Fujino White Tenkara tapered line terminated with a tippet ring, I use Stonfo. For tippet, I use Trouthunter 5.5x.

At 3.2m I can usually see the fly. On this day I used a Parachute Adam’s size 16. I use floatant, it keeps the fly high up on the meniscus like a real fly. Most of the time the line is not on the water and I am using techniques like suttebari where I might peck the surface gently a few times before setting the fly down.

Japanese tenkara anglers use dry fly techniques for tenkara as well as sub surface wet flys.

The white line is a must in these invisible streams. It appears clear. If you can’t see the fly, you can use the line as an indicator. Or you can strike at movement.

All my fish this day were by sight using suttebari and accurate casting to 5 gallon bucket sized micro bucket pools.

Mini Nets

I always look to the Japanese for inspiration.

But I am not Japanese, I am an American.

I practice the simple method of Japanese style fly fishing, tenkara. I don't try to be Japanese, but I do enjoy and respect what they do and I enjoy their style of fishing. That being said, I am fishing tenkara, Japanese style, influenced from my own background of western fly fishing.

I see that the west also has influence on the east, many Japanese tenkara experts also practice western fly fishing. I think it is a good thing to do both. I don't do western fly fishing much, I quit to learn tenkara, I will do it again one day, today is not that day.

My non-tamo tenkara nets are Japanese influenced however they are made by a western craftsman with my direction.

My favorite tenkara net is Japanese yet I use western nets that are Japanese influenced.

Confused?

It doesn’t matter.

If you want to learn Japanese tenkara, learn from the Japanese.

There are many tenkara and fly fishing enthusiasts in Japan that size their nets to the size of fish they are catching. They also have many styles of nets. For my version of the mini net, I have taken inspiration from them and have had built, small nets which I have also modified for my own use.

I enjoy a small net because they are easy to pack and carry. They also work well to capture a fish while it is hot (not exhausted) and subdue to remove the hook and immediately release. The nets I use in this form are from Sam Lacina.

Here are a couple I use, the small one I sometimes carry in a front pocket. It is amazing, I have used it on much larger fish than it was designed for.

Honryu Tenkara

Photo by Siegfried Forster

My tenkara is based in the mountain stream environment yet I enjoy fishing the mainstream. Apparently I am in the same class as many Japanese anglers as they also take their tenkara with them to the river. They use long (4-5m class) single hand rods using tenkara techniques to catch river fish. My experience in fly fishing rivers is long and intense, my practice of mountain valley tenkara is extensive and my honryu tenkara is starting now to develop to the point where I can share it now. I will put down some of my thoughts on setting up my equipment and using it.

Photo by Siegfried Forster 

In my area, I choose a large cold water river that I use my tenkara techniques. My favorite is a tailwater or a bottom release dam on the Colorado River in Northern Arizona. There are other rivers here that contain trout but they are more like large streams in the mountains so I will focus on my practice of honryu tenkara in the Colorado River in Glen Canyon. My access to this river is difficult, there are no roads in the canyon. I travel upriver by backhauling in a larger powered boat, dropping me off to camp and to return the many miles back to the put in by a small but efficient inflatable raft. 

Photo by Siegfried Forster 

I practice minimalism, only what I need. I may use sasoi, dead drift nymphing, dry fly midges, big cicada presentations and streamer fishing in moving current as well as deep slack water.

For now, I will use this project to gather my thoughts into an organized system and work from there by returning to these thoughts and refining them. I do this with my pack lists up in this canyon by only using what is on the list and striking out items that I do not use and packing again only what is left in the list.

This keeps me focused.

I use only one rod, the Gamakatsu Suimu EX 5m, a long cork handled single hand rod that is exquisitely designed to cast a long level line, I use a #3.5 to have a little "punch" into the swirling canyon winds of the afternoon. The fish in my river are heavily pressured by spin fishers ripping spoons and streamers and also guided fly fishermen as well as adventuring anglers such as myself.

Rigging lines, I always use my little kit 

Part of developing good tenkara skills is making your own equipment. Of course you can purchase nearly all of what you need from the many vendors available however, there is not a lot available that is marketed to this genre of tenkara. So I make my own lines, clear lines which go against the marketing of "lines that you can see" in pink, orange and fluorescent green or bright and muted colors. The fish I am after are pressured and wince at a large pink moving thing above them in the ultra clear water against a sky that has no direct sunlight, the river I am making these lines for is in a thousand foot canyon. Currently, there are no lines for this application.

Seaguar INVIZ X .330mm which equates to #3.5 Valcan

I do use a Fujino Soft Tenkara 7m line but that is rare in this river. If I do not use it this next trip, I will remove it from my kit. This is how I hone what I use, attrition, if it does not get used, it is removed. I also have a light fly line that I use for specialized situations. There are dry fly midge hatches that a fluorocarbon line at length will pull down a tiny size #22 midge dry. So I use a floating line. In the summer, there is a cicada hatch that is incredible to behold and using a fly line for plopping down a large bulky fly works really well. A fly line has demanded it's way into my quiver and I have no problem using it. It even fits into the definition of tenkara in Japan.

I use card spools as they are flat and you can stack them

The bag I use is a little larger than a tenkara strap pack. I have a tenkara box and a highly specialized box of flys that I have developed for this river over decades of fishing it. The tenkara box and the fly box fit into this bag as well as the many different lines and pieces of kit that I use.

It is funny, the quote I use, "the more you know the less you need" is from Yvon Chouinard and his company, Patagonia offers this "Wader Workstation" bag and it's twice the size of my tenkara bag. What is funny, my tenkara bag is half the size of this bag, I am much more experienced at tenkara in the mountain stream environment. My honryu tenkara is in the intermediate stage and I am still in the research and development throes. I am developing my techniques so I carry more, as my skill is strengthened, I will carry less. Right now, I carry far less into the canyon than I ever have in my 30 years of fishing here. 

I put everything in this kit which I can use as a strap bag or hang on my waders

My kit list is as follows.

Gamakatsu Suimu EX 5m

Seaguar Inviz X .330 7m line (tippet ring) x 2ea
Valcan #3.5 7m
Valcan #3.5 5m with markers
Fujino Soft Tenkara Long Type 7m
Floating Fly Line 8m

Dinsmore tin shot
Nipper on a fly line
Derf Needle Driver
Micro drop floatant (Gink)
Un-stick pads

Trouthunter Flourocarbon 5x - 6x - 7x

Wheatley Medium Black ripple foam fly box and specialized flys
Orvis Waterproof Compartment fly box with specialized flys and kebari

New Zealand indicator kit
Arrow indicator

Patagonia Middle Fork Packable waders
Patagonia Wader Workstation

The primary fish of the Colorado is a couple of different types of Rainbow trout with small numbers of Brown trout and even smaller numbers of Brook trout. There are a few different types of chubs and a couple of types of carp that live in the river. Almost all of the time you will catch two types of Rainbow trout with a rare catch of a Brown.

There are three basic presentations.

Drifting the bottom.
Sasoi in the water colum
Surface type

The techniques I use in the Colorado River in Glen Canyon have been developed from a knowledge of where the trout are depending on the varying flows released from the dam and the time of year or the amount of sunlight that affects the floura and fauna of the area. I choose to break up the year in seasons to make it easy. When I write about fishing there, I tag the title with the month of the year so I can refer to the article to others to know what to expect. Starting with winter, the rainbow trout that are my primary target are in the spawn. The females have made "redds" or depressions in the rocks and gravel and stay there protecting and nurturing their eggs. As we move into spring, the insects are starting to proliferate with huge hatches of midges or tiny black and white flying bugs that are larvae in the water (nymphs) and hatch out of the water. Summer can be a time of terrestrial fishing with grasshoppers and the cicada hatches, fall is a time of the start of the spawn. Through out the year, depending on the flows, there are scuds or tiny fresh water shrimp type bugs, tiny worms and small fish or streamers.

The purpose of this article is to begin separating my writing into the different areas that I practice tenkara, one in the mountains and in the headwaters and two, in the mainstream. I also practice tenkara techniques in ponds and lakes. Although this is not typical moving water, I do use the techniques of the rods and equipment there.