About Tenkara USA

Tenkara is who we are.

Hello! Welcome to the second edition of a little series we’ve put together to help you get to know our wonderful crew. Tenkara USA has always been a tight-knit team of responsive anglers dedicated to sharing tenkara, and while we work with outside firms for some other aspects of our business (such as fulfillment) and count on supporters at events, the team we’re highlighting here is our close-knit in-house staff with whom you’re likely to interact when you reach out. While it’s true that our founder Daniel Galhardo has taken a step back from the helm, our main team is together and we’re happy to help you with all things tenkara.

Meet John Geer, Dealer and Customer Services
John Geer brings decades of fly-fishing with him. He works with our dealer network and Tenkara Guide Network, manages our repair department, and supports TJ in customer service.

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Tenkara is who we are.

Hello! Welcome to the second edition of a little series we’ve put together to help you get to know our wonderful crew. Tenkara USA has always been a tight-knit team of responsive anglers dedicated to sharing tenkara, and while we work with outside firms for some other aspects of our business (such as fulfillment) and count on supporters at events, the team we’re highlighting here is our close-knit in-house staff with whom you’re likely to interact when you reach out. While it’s true that our founder Daniel Galhardo has taken a step back from the helm, our main team is together and we’re happy to help you with all things tenkara.

Meet Faith Clauson, Special Projects
Faith has been an integral team member since 2013 and jumps on whatever special projects come her way. She smoothly supports our operations in a way that allows more and more people to be reached by tenkara. Faith is delightful to work with and we’re so happy she’s a part of our team!

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Tenkara is who we are.

Hello! Welcome to the first edition of a little series we’ve put together to help you get to know our wonderful crew. Tenkara USA has always been a tight-knit team of responsive anglers dedicated to sharing tenkara, and while we work with outside firms for some other aspects of our business (such as fulfillment) and count on supporters at events, the team we’re highlighting here is our close-knit in-house staff with whom you’re likely to interact when you reach out. While it’s true that our founder Daniel Galhardo has taken a step back from the helm, our main team is together and we’re happy to help you with all things tenkara. If you’ve ever called us, emailed, or even been to our booth at a fly fishing show there is a good chance you’ve talked with TJ. He’s also super creative and fun to work with, so we thought he would be the perfect person to start this off.

Meet TJ – Customer Service & Ops

TJ has been working with us since 2011 and is in charge of customer service, and works behind the scenes helping to make sure products are available for you. His jolly smile and friendly connection with customers help ensure Tenkara USA continues its reputation for terrific customer service!

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Written by Daniel Galhardo

It’s a bit of a coincidence that I was in the middle of writing a blog post with a similar theme on tenkara reflection when Mike Agneta’s opinion piece “Tenkara’s Future Outside of Japan” popped up over on Tenkara Angler this week, so I’d like to respond to that a bit here.

I think the pandemic did something to many of us, it forced us to reflect on our lives and what’s important. And as a company we’ve considered how we can best continue to serve our community during this time as well.

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Boulder in Colorado is our home, and we fish all the waters around here frequently. Thus this is a good place to start our, “Which tenkara rod to buy for my region?” series. In this case, “Which tenkara rod to buy for Colorado” focusing on the Boulder and Front Range areas.

Boulder sits right on the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. To the West we have the mountains, to the East we have plains. Going North we can reach the larger rivers of Wyoming, and going into the mountains we can choose to fish small streams or large rivers. The diversity of waters around Boulder is one of the reasons we chose to move Tenkara USA here many years ago.

The variety of waters can also mean a variety of tenkara rods can be used successfully around here. But hopefully this will help you narrow down the ideal choice of tenkara rod to use here.
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We are reviving the Tenkara Cast!
After a fairly long hiatus from recording the podcast, the recent circumstances we are all facing made me realize that our need to connect is bigger than ever. We are being asked to socially distance ourselves, but I think we should simply “Distance together” as I may have heard somewhere the other day.
Fly-fishing content will be a refuge that we can look to for to take a break from the anxiety producing news cycle of today. And, of course, there is getting outside and fishing too, although there may be some restrictions on where can, can’t, should or shouldn’t go at the moment.
There are two episodes that just came online. One a few days ago where I talk about socially distancing, and just a little bit of what kept me from recording over the last year. And, today I recorded this episode on finding and exploring new waters. You can click the images below to listen to each of the episodes right within our site, or you can use your favorite podcasting app to subscribe, just look up Tenkara Cast.
I hope you’ll enjoy these, and I’d love to hear from you about what strategies you use to find new waters and if this time of socially distancing is making you explore waters closer to home, whether you have fished a new place or for new species because of covid-19, or simply how you are using fly-fishing (indoors or outdoors) to cope.

How to Find and Explore New Fishing Waters:

Social Distancing, and the Relaunch of the Tenkara Cast:

A Message from Tenkara USA and its founder

We, at Tenkara USA, have been closely monitoring the situation created by Covid-19. Like all Americans we share the same concerns and anxieties, and our hearts go out do anyone enduring the initial impacts of this crisis. Continue reading

We don’t release new products very often, but when we do it is because we think they need to be out there. I hope you will enjoy the offerings below.

T-shirt, $24

A fish rises to a kebari, you think about that day and night.
Designed by Jeremy Shellhorn, 100% cotton, made in the USA.
Rising Fish T-Shirt.

T-shirt, $24

Celebrating 10 years since the introduction of tenkara to the US.
Designed by Jeremy Shellhorn, 100% cotton, made in the USA.
Tenkara Line Drawing T-Shirt.

The 2019 Tenkara Summit, which celebrated our 10th anniversary is now behind us. It was a blast of an event. In the coming days we will try putting out more videos of the presentations, but here is a quick compilation of the event. Thank you all who came, but also all of you who couldn’t make it but have supported us over the years and have allowed us to be here today!

Today we celebrate 10 years of building Tenkara USA and sharing tenkara outside of Japan. It is an incredible milestone, and this journey has been filled with incredible experiences, milestones we never could have predicted, and a lot of hard work to accomplish all of that. And, of course we wouldn’t be here today without your support for these many years. So, THANK YOU so very much for the continue support, for sharing tenkara, for enjoying it, and for allowing us to be here today!
Little did I know that Tenkara USA would give rise to movement so passionate and that it would bring such enriching experiences into the lives of so many people. When I launched the company, I was not, as the famous fly-fishing author John Gierach wrote in one of his books, “unaware of the difficulties of introducing something small, quiet and simple to a country that likes things big, loud and complicated.” Indeed, the introduction of tenkara outside of Japan had its challenges. Starting at business in the fly-fishing industry in the midst of a Great Recession and betting all my savings into it was quite a bit scary(this was way before the launch of funding websites like Kickstarter by the way). I was also leaving a secure and promising career to pursue something I believed strongly that people should get to know. It is amazing to look back at 10 years of existence, and see how far we have come as a company. That we have not only been able to overcome challenges but create a thriving business has been quite a validation of people’s cravings for a simpler experience in the outdoors.
So much has happened in the last 10 years that I figured the best thing to post here today would be our interactive timeline, which I try as best as I can to keep updated as milestones are reached in the business (and of course, today is the last day of our 10th anniversary sale, so check that out):

This year we are celebrating our 10th anniversary! And, we will celebrate in style at the 2019 Tenkara Summit!

The event registration is $40 and includes a catered lunch plus a bunch of great knowledge!
Date: July 27, 2019.

More details will be posted at Tenkara Summit as we near the date, but here is what we have so far:

Location: Millenium Harvest House Hotel, Boulder, Colorado. This is the location of the Tenkara Summit a few years ago in the video below. We have a nice grassy area, presentation rooms and Boulder Creek right at the hotel.

Registration fee: $40, includes a catered lunch

Accommodations: Millennium Harvest House hotel, where the event will be held has a great discounted rate of $120/night. Reservations must be made by calling their In-House Reservation Agents directly at 866-866-8086. Please reference Reservation ID#: 1904TKFISH.

There are several other accommodation options around Boulder. You should also checkout our friends at the Adventure Lodge, which is up Boulder Canyon

Schedule: A final schedule will be posted as we get closer to the date. But the event generally starts at 9am, and consists of 2-3 morning presentations, followed by about 3-4 hours of time dedicated to lunch, vendors, clinics, short-format presentations and meeting fellow tenkara anglers, with another 2 or so presentations afterward. In the evening we will be hosting a fly-tying session, which this year will count on the very special live music of Takenobu, who provides a lot of music for our videos.

IMAGE RELEASE: THE TENKARA SUMMIT WILL BE DOCUMENTED IN PHOTOGRAPHY, VIDEO AND AUDIO. BY ATTENDING THE TENKARA SUMMIT, HOSTED BY TENKARA USA, YOU CONSENT TO IMAGES OF YOU AND YOUR LIKENESS, AS WELL AS VIDEOS OF YOU AND RECORDINGS OF YOUR VOICE TO BE USED IN ANY AND ALL MEDIA BY TENKARA LLC AND TENKARA USA FOR ANY PURPOSE AND WITHOUT COMPENSATION. YOU RELEASE TENKARA LLC. AND TENKARA USA AS WELL AS ITS MEDIA PARTNERS FROM ANY LIABILITY WHATSOEVER.

We received word that the fulfillment center we have worked with in the UK for the past 10 years to fulfill orders in the European Union is closing doors and leaving the UK.
Going forward all orders going to the UK and European Union countries will be shipped from our warehouse in the US.
Unfortunately orders will potentially be subjected to customs and duties.
For the next month or so, we will keep the shipping rate at $14.50. This is much lower than the actual shipping and handling costs that we incur on shipments to Europe, but we will work with that for the time being.

Tenkara guide Allie Marriott will guide on through the process of choosing a tenkara rod. Tenkara rods on sale here.

Press Release, Boulder, CO

Fly-fishing equipment company Tenkara USA has named industry veteran Patrick Stratton CEO. He will join Daniel Galhardo on the senior management team.

Stratton has held senior management positions at The North Face, REI and Mountain Equipment Co-op, among others. His experience will help Tenkara USA build momentum and grow the brand as it works to expand sales and dealer networks to grow fly fishing’s audience.

“Patrick’s product management and entrepreneurial experience are a perfect match to help take Tenkara USA to the next level, where we can continue to provide the best product to an ever-growing audience of people who spend time outdoors and may want to add fly-fishing to their list of preferred activities,” said Galhardo, Tenkara USA’s founder and chairman.

“I’ve known Daniel for a long time, and have envied his ability to communicate the technique and simplicity of the sport,” Stratton said. “I see many opportunities for the brand and the sport, and I look forward to being able to introduce Tenkara USA to new audiences while maintaining a strong connection with our existing customers and ensuring we tackle the challenges faced by a growing brand.”

Galhardo will focus on product development and storytelling, and will work closely with Stratton and the rest of the Tenkara USA team to continue pushing forward their mission to “enable people to enjoy the benefits of tenkara by sharing the philosophies of simplicity, open-mindedness and caring for the environment while providing the best tenkara information, gear and service.”

Mountain Home, Arkansas

In March, Tenkara USA had the wonderful opportunity to attend the Sowbug Roundup “Celebration of Fly Fishing” event. Daniel, Jeremy and I were on hand to represent Tenkara USA and additionally, Daniel also gave a tenkara presentation and a couple of casting demonstrations.

Daniel’s note: a new podcast episode of the Tenkara Cast, in which the 3 of us sit down and chat about the finer points of the philosophy of simplicity, is now available via iTunes, other podcast apps, or directly at Podcast: On Simplicity.

The Sowbug Roundup is a basically a fly tying show with a selected vendor list chosen to augment the content of the event.

It was quite an honor for me to attend and I do appreciate the welcome that the community gave to us. The tenkara vendors did a great job and we made the front page of the area newspaper.

What follows is a few photographs that I took from the event.

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