TENKARA+

I have just returned home from a 30-day round-the-world journey that took me to 3 countries (Japan, Italy and the UK). It will take me a little time to digest the experiences and share more insights, tenkara how-to’s, videos and photographs with you.
But there was one photo that jumped at me the other day and I wanted to share it with you.

During this trip I tried many tenkara flies which were given to me by friends I made along the way. I used most flies given to me, even if they were not the “one fly” that I normally tie. After all they were in my box and because they were there, if the catching slowed down I had to experiment. Interestingly, not a single time did changing flies started producing more fish. I did catch fish on at least 3 other flies (one dry, a bead head nymph and a very small nymph), but switching back to my usual fly produced fish too and I can honestly say I didn’t notice any difference.
I realized a big part of my confidence and reliance on “one fly” stems from having left the others behind, and the biggest reason I like the idea of one fly is so I don’t have to think much about what I’ll be using, nor spend a lot of time working on flies or second-guessing my fly choice.
Regardless, in the last 30 days I have caught 8 different species/types of trout (Amago, Yamame, Yamato Iwana, Nikko Iwana, rainbow, leopard trout, Mediterranean brown trout, and brown trout), in addition to grayling, 2 types of minnows and a chub. I caught each one of these species on the Ishigaki Kebari. I caught these fish, with that fly, in shallow water and in deep waters. I fished with it in slow and super clear spring creeks, in steep tumbling mountain streams, in large rivers, in dark tea-colored waters, in notoriously difficult tailwaters, and in clear water for spooky fish. I also fished in hot and humid days, bright and dry days and in torrential rains.
Why did I do it? It was not a mission to catch as many fish species on “one fly”, it really was not that at all. I just did it because that’s the fly I had most of in my box and over the last few years I have gained a great degree of confidence that it works in a variety of waters and for a variety of fish. The greatest thing about it for me is freedom. This approach allowed me to travel to 3 countries with the same small fly box, without once having to go online to see what would be hatching in the waters. As I often say the one fly approach in the most difficult concept in tenkara for people to embrace, but I also find it to be the most liberating concept from this wonderful method.

I’m in Italy at the moment. I came here to teach a tenkara class and meet people that have been spreading tenkara in Italy like wildfire.
Here are a few pictures I took with my phone yesterday and today.
Edited: The group class was held in the town of Ascoli, a quaint town about 2 1/2 hours NE of Rome, in a gorgeous mountainous setting. I’m being hosted by my new good friend Vito Rubino, who is active on Facebook. The class was organized by our first dealer in Italy, Ale-Fly, which is in the town of Ascoli.

I decided to let the images speak for themselves in this video of an epic adventure this week. I think there are few places in the world that you can combine epic “shower climbing” as they call it here (or sawanobori) and fishing. Luckily Japan has an abundance of it. And, even more luckily Japan also has an abundance of onsen, or hot-springs, which can come in very handy when you’ve been swimming in 40 degree water all day.

P.S. I’m contemplating hosting a small group trip to Japan in 2014. This would be an opportunity to learn from some of my teachers as well as do a combo “shower climbing/tenkara” adventure trip. Let me know if that could be of interest. I’m still very much on the fence about doing it, as I’m used to traveling by myself, but this is something I’d love to share with those truly interested.

I’m now working on a new tenkara diaries video showing yesterday’s shower climbing and tenkara trip. It was epic, gnarly, cold, but tons of fun!!! Shower climbing and tenkara make for some real epic and memorable adventures. After talking to my friends here yesterday I’m starting to consider more seriously bringing a group to Japan next year to learn from some of my teachers and also do a shower climbing/ tenkara trip (let me know if this would be of interest to you). Here are some of the pictures.

The canyon you see cutting the mountains in the middle of the picture is what we ventured through yesterday

Jun Kumazaki, a local canyoneering guide contemplating the options for the first pool of the day. “Can’t go around it, can’t go over it, gotta go through the cold water” came to mind. Yes, the water was super cold.

First waterfalls

Admiring the waterfall ahead, more tenkara above it

Tenkara: all you need is a rod, line, flies, carabiners, belay devices, ropes, ascenders, and an adventurous spirit.

This is a quick video of my time with Mr. Yuzo Sebata, a well-known tenkara anglers in Japan. I have a lot more footage that I captured in that trip, but figured I should share a quick video with you. More to come soon.
Mr. Sebata showed how he ties tenkara flies, a bit of tenkara casting and much more. Also, happy to report he really liked the Ito rod and asked for one to possibly replace his 20-year old tenkara rod, that was quite cool too.

Amago caught on tenkara on the Shokawa river in Japan.

It should go without saying that tenkara fishing is one of my great passions in life. It is my main excuse to get out of the house and enjoy the woods, streams and lakes. But, it is not my only excuse.

A couple of weeks ago Margaret and I went mushroom hunting, a new interest for both of us. The intent was not fishing, but since we’d be near water I brought a tenkara rod and my small tenkara kit along. Just in case. After collecting many mushrooms we hiked back and I spotted a great piece of water. With tenkara it is just so easy and quick to setup that there is no reason for not stopping and fishing. In roughly 1 minute I was fishing. I caught three brookies. Mushrooms were our main reason to get out that day, tenkara fishing just happened to fit in perfectly with it. We took a 15 minute break to fish and then resumed our hike out, finding a couple more mushrooms along the way and cooking a great meal at home.

Before I discovered tenkara, I had to carefully choose my activity of choice for the weekend. It was either fishing, OR climbing, OR skiing, OR mountain biking, OR mushroom hunting. It was difficult to combine activities.

Then, last week, with my tenkara rod in hand and one eye on the stream with the other trying to spot mushrooms along the shoreline, I had this nice realization that tenkara goes so well with anything that it no longer has to be a choice between one OR the other. I was now having my cake and eating it too.

There are so many things that can go well with tenkara as I’m discovering. Every experience outside can be enhanced simply by bringing a tenkara rod along.

	For example, I recently biked to a stream nearby. The tenkara rod fit perfectly on my bike frame, I just strapped it there with two pieces of velcro. It took me an hour to get there, and I enjoyed every minute of that bike ride as much as every minute of my fishing that day. Biking and tenkara go together like beer and a campfire!
Walking your dog and going near some water? Bring a tenkara rod along. Sure, if you’re as “lucky” as I am, your dog may be a horrible fishing dog. I don’t really bring my dog along on dedicated fishing trips, but if I’m taking my dog out for some exercise and there happens to be a pond nearby, you bet I’ll bring a rod.
	For a period of time I was forced to choose between two activities I love when I went out on weekends: climbing or fishing? It was a tough choice. Climbing started getting neglected in favor of fishing, but I missed climbing. With tenkara the two activities are not mutually exclusive. Not many things are as fun as a biathlon of scaling local craigs and getting in the water to fish when it gets too hot.
	Backpacking and fly-fishing are made for each other, right? So why did I always feel I had to pass good water when backpacking with a rod and reel? Generally because it took too long to setup.Backpacking and tenkara are absolutely made for each other. Not only because the tenkara gear is minimalist and super compact, but also because it is super quick to setup. Any pool along the way can be fished by quickly setting up the tenkara rod without taking a major part of the day to do so.

Don’t get me wrong, I still head out with the sole intention of fishing an entire day. One of my favorite things in the world is to find a tumbling stream, start casting into its waters and move from one pocket to another after every few casts, covering a mile of its waters in a day. But when you realize that any activity – whether it be walking your dog, foraging, climbing, biking… – does not have to exclude fishing, and that indeed, fishing can be a great complement to most other activities, you’ll feel less pressure to choose between hobbies because choosing between hobbies is like choosing which kid is your favorite.

It should go without saying that tenkara fishing is one of my great passions in life. It is my main excuse to get out of the house and enjoy the woods, streams and lakes. But, it is not my only excuse.

A couple of weeks ago Margaret and I went mushroom hunting, a new interest for both of us. The intent was not fishing, but since we’d be near water I brought a tenkara rod and my small tenkara kit along. Just in case. After collecting many mushrooms we hiked back and I spotted a great piece of water. With tenkara it is just so easy and quick to setup that there is no reason for not stopping and fishing. In roughly 1 minute I was fishing. I caught three brookies. Mushrooms were our main reason to get out that day, tenkara fishing just happened to fit in perfectly with it. We took a 15 minute break to fish and then resumed our hike out, finding a couple more mushrooms along the way and cooking a great meal at home.

Before I discovered tenkara, I had to carefully choose my activity of choice for the weekend. It was either fishing, OR climbing, OR skiing, OR mountain biking, OR mushroom hunting. It was difficult to combine activities.

Then, last week, with my tenkara rod in hand and one eye on the stream with the other trying to spot mushrooms along the shoreline, I had this nice realization that tenkara goes so well with anything that it no longer has to be a choice between one OR the other. I was now having my cake and eating it too.

There are so many things that can go well with tenkara as I’m discovering. Every experience outside can be enhanced simply by bringing a tenkara rod along.

	For example, I recently biked to a stream nearby. The tenkara rod fit perfectly on my bike frame, I just strapped it there with two pieces of velcro. It took me an hour to get there, and I enjoyed every minute of that bike ride as much as every minute of my fishing that day. Biking and tenkara go together like beer and a campfire!
Walking your dog and going near some water? Bring a tenkara rod along. Sure, if you’re as “lucky” as I am, your dog may be a horrible fishing dog. I don’t really bring my dog along on dedicated fishing trips, but if I’m taking my dog out for some exercise and there happens to be a pond nearby, you bet I’ll bring a rod.
	For a period of time I was forced to choose between two activities I love when I went out on weekends: climbing or fishing? It was a tough choice. Climbing started getting neglected in favor of fishing, but I missed climbing. With tenkara the two activities are not mutually exclusive. Not many things are as fun as a biathlon of scaling local craigs and getting in the water to fish when it gets too hot.
	Backpacking and fly-fishing are made for each other, right? So why did I always feel I had to pass good water when backpacking with a rod and reel? Generally because it took too long to setup.Backpacking and tenkara are absolutely made for each other. Not only because the tenkara gear is minimalist and super compact, but also because it is super quick to setup. Any pool along the way can be fished by quickly setting up the tenkara rod without taking a major part of the day to do so.

Don’t get me wrong, I still head out with the sole intention of fishing an entire day. One of my favorite things in the world is to find a tumbling stream, start casting into its waters and move from one pocket to another after every few casts, covering a mile of its waters in a day. But when you realize that any activity – whether it be walking your dog, foraging, climbing, biking… – does not have to exclude fishing, and that indeed, fishing can be a great complement to most other activities, you’ll feel less pressure to choose between hobbies because choosing between hobbies is like choosing which kid is your favorite.

by TJ Ferreira

I had one of those magical fishing events last weekend, at least for me that is.  I have been dreaming of fishing what I consider a mountain meadow stream or creek.  I have seen all these pictures of fly fisher-folk kneeling down about 10 feet away from a small wiggly strip of water in a big mountain meadow, and I wanted a piece of that action.

My dream came true this last weekend in the mountains of California.  I googled and read of waters to fish in the Northern California mountains and found some info about a small 10-campsite campground, one with few amenities but with fishing nearby.  The campsite was free, 1st come 1st served. It had no running water but at least it had a bathroom; as my wife was coming along having that was important <grin>.

We left around 10:30AM, drove up to the mountains to a place I had never been before.  I had read some notes on the websites I visited that the roads were not car-friendly, so I drove my trusty 2007 Toyota FJ.  This ended up being a good idea because the roads were very rugged logging roads, off the beaten path, with fairly large rocks and such that a low-rider car would not have faired well or at all.  The FJ cruised over them like butter though.

We got a little lost along the way as the websites were vague on how to get to this campground but in the end, about 5 to 10 miles off-track and figuring I better back-track, I found the site.  We arrive around 1PM, snagged a campsite to park in for the day (only 4 or 5 were taken), and set up shop.

Shop meant my wife had a cooler full of soda, a bag full of goodies, and a good book to read.  Shop for me meant a mountain meadow, tenkara gear, and plenty of brook trout.  At first I was not sure what this creek looked like or where it was exactly, but I followed my senses into a field where I saw some trees, and I figured H2O was present.  Wife and I walked out into the meadow and I said, “hold on, listen…. I hear water dribbling”.  Another 30 feet and I found my sliver of water in the middle of this mountain meadow.

I arrived first and quickly saw out the corner of my eye a few shadows of small trout swimming quickly to get away.  My wife snuck up behind me and I told her to watch the water, and soon enough more trout swam by.

Quickly I felt giggly and told my wife, I am gonna fish!  I practically hopped like a bunny and  went back to the campsite, she setup her shop, I setup mine, and for the next 1.5 hours, I fished like a fool.

Salt & Pepper Sakasa Kebari. Was like feeding candy to a little kid!

I decided to use the Iwana 11’ rod with a line just a little longer than the rod.  About 8.5’ of 3.5# Pink Hi Vis with 3’ of 4X Tippet with a size 14 Salt & Pepper Sakasa Kebari I tied earlier this year.  On my way to the creek I snuck like a thief in the night back to the creek and made my 1st casts.  This creek was super small.  We are talking about 2 feet wide in spots, and on bends little pools maybe 3 to 4 feet wide swelled up.  At times the creek was about 1’ wide with tall grasses poking up through the water to then form a creek again with just water and no grasses blocking my kebari.

Here is a quick video showing the small meadow creek I fished.

Within 2 to 3 casts I caught my 1st brook trout of the day. In fact, this was my first brook trout in California.  To date it has been mostly rainbow trout and a couple browns, but the higher mountain brookies I had not met yet.  Well this last weekend I met about a bakers dozen in 1.5 hours of the mountains finest small brookie family.

This Brookie put up a nice fight!

At one point I was casting into a small pool that had a large spider web spanning its opening where if I wanted to get into the pool, I had to cast the line across the spider web.  My thought was that once the level line or tippet hit the spider web, the web would break.  Amazingly, my tippet dropped right on top of the web and just rested there with the kebari dangling, confused, just inches from the water.  I moved my arm forward and the tenkara fly dropped into the creek.  I dangled it there for a spell to see if any brookies were home.  No brookies were home in that spot but I was able to pull the cast back and left the spider web intact.  How amazingly softly a tenkara rod can present a fly!  This was just so cool.

As I progressed down the creek, it widened a tad in spots and here is another short video of the mountain creek I fished.

It was so much fun casting into a sliver of a creek, catching brookie after brookie, ranging in size from 4” up to about 8”.  My shorts were covered by the end of the day with smudges of mud and my face was rosie pink with a smile from ear to ear.

A little pip squeak went for an Iwana 11′ ride.

Video link of a trout being released back into the mountain meadow creek.

My 1st Magical Mountain Meadow Tenkara Adventure was a treat for sure.  Amazed these little blue slivers of water are homes to schools of brookies and just makes me love California that much more.  The Sierra Mountains are like the Colorado Rockies, just Tenkara Perfect!

Just one last cast honey, really it is! Glad I did as this trout landed in my net.

To top off the day, the skies drew dark and we started to hear some good thunder claps.  We decided to get all wrapped up and head home.  On our way out of the campground the rain started coming down and then it started to hail.  Took a quick video of the hail storm as we departed.  The weather quickly went from upper 80s to mid 60s within seconds.  So cool!

Heading home my wife and I were in need of some nourishment so we stopped for a great New York Steak at the Willo, a popular bar and restaurant on historic highway 49 near Nevada City, CA.  The Willo Bear greeted us to a job well done catching so many mountain trout.

Enjoying a New York Steak at the Willo Bar & Restaurant near Nevada City on Gold Rush Highway 49.

Before the end of the season I will make it back to see my mountain meadow brook trout friends, they can bet on that.  My Salt & Pepper Sakasa Kebari seemed to hit the right spot for their appetities and the Iwana 11’ rod was like a fast Porsche to these little brookies.  They requested I come back soon so they can test drive tenkara one more time.  I will be happy to oblige.

Yesterday afternoon I left the house to run some errands. As I stopped at a traffic light on the way home, the woman on the car next to me started waving. I assumed she needed directions. I turned off the music and rolled the window down.

“Are you the tenkara guy?”, she asked, excitedly.

“YES!”

“My daughter took a class with you recently and has been talking about tenkara all the time.”

Unfortunately the lights turned green and we had to drive off. But I was thrilled that she recognized me or the car and took the time to say hi. I thanked her for doing that. And, yes, I felt kind of famous.

——–

Ten days ago I went for a hike with my wife and our dog. It was our first time on this trail, behind the NCAR building here in town. As it was on a weekend the trail was relatively busy. A hiker was coming down as we climbed up. He smiled, as all other hikers did, passed us, then stopped and turned around.

“Are you Daniel? The tenkara guy?” (I am assuming he asked me if I was the tenkara guy…but I don’t usually carry a recorder)

“YES! You fish with tenkara?”

“YES!”

We chatted for a bit, and then went on our way, hoping to cross paths on a stream sometime.

——–

A little over a month ago I headed to a coffee shop in town, Boxcar coffee roasters. I had heard great things about the place, so I went to check it out. I had to do some writing and needed good coffee to do that. A little past 20 minutes into my writing session a man, about my age, approached me.

“Hey, sorry to interrupt you, but… are you the tenkara guy?”

“YES!”

“I saw the sticker on your laptop, and you looked familiar. I watched a lot of your videos on Youtube…”

We chatted for a few minutes, when our conversation got the attention of the couple that was sitting on the next table. They turned around and asked if we were talking about tenkara, and inevitably, “are you the tenkara guy?”

“YES!”

We talked at length about tenkara, I invited them to an outing I was holding a few days later.

——–

I was completely dazed from some anesthetics after visiting my dentist a couple of months ago. My wife was driving us back home and stopped to get food on the way. I stayed in the car but opened the doors to have fresh air. Then a man came by, startling me a bit.

“Hi, I saw your tenkara license plate…are you the tenkara guy?”

“…ohhh…aaahhm….yeess!”

He probably thought I was high on drugs, but I was able to tell him I was just coming back from a procedure and was a bit dazed. I thanked him very much for saying hi and apologized for my state.

Luckily we met again a couple of weeks later at a talk I was giving. I was in much better shape then.

——–

When visiting a local sporting goods store, the clerk saw my tenkara t-shirt and said, “tenkara? Do you work for them?”. “Uhhh….I guess so”, I replied.

——–

Over the last several months, since moving to Colorado, I’ve had about a dozen such interactions. I confess, I absolutely love it. I has made me feel very welcomed to our new home. But, the coolest thing is to see in person through such interactions how much tenkara has grown since I brought it over to the US. These are just the casual interactions that I’ve had the fortune to have, where people took the time to stop and say hi. I am always very grateful when that happens.

Besides my own interactions I know there are dozens if not hundreds of interactions like that happening everyday! My doctor said someone was telling him about tenkara a few days ago; a few weeks ago a good friend of mine said he was grabbing lunch when he overheard three people very excitedly talking about tenkara; my banker said his colleague came to talk to him about going fishing and asked him if he’d heard of tenkara before….

Have you had unexpected tenkara interactions? I love how that networking is happening and would love to know if you have a story like that to share.

What? Daniel was seen using a non-tenkara fly today? A parachute adams?

Yes, I was seen using a parachute adams fly on my tenkara rod today…actually, I believe nobody actually saw me using it. Here’s what happened.
I went fishing with my friends Dan and Graham today. We heard there were possibly some grayling in the area and decided to find them. Upon arrival at our destination I setup my tenkara rod with a long tenkara line, and kept the tenkara fly from the last trip tied on. Almost immediately I had a beautiful brook trout on. Within an hour I had probably caught 20 brook trout on that one fly, until I lost the fly to a tree.

Reduce: Over the last three years I have greatly reduced the number of fly patterns I feel I need. In fact, it’s now essentially one pattern with 4 variations (the four tenkara flies that we offer on our site, well, one is out of stock). And, since tenkara has helped me stay away from trees more often than I used to, I feel that I have also reduced the number of flies I lose while fishing. And, of course, I reduced the amount of time changing flies, the amount of tippet bits I lose when changing them, and my consumption of materials used in tying flies.

But of course, I still lose the occasional fly. Today’s stream was relatively tight with lots of trees behind me and the inevitable happened when I got caught on a branch and the fly wouldn’t come free. I collapsed the rod, plugged it with my thumb and pulled the line to break the fly off. Then, off the corner of my eye I spotted a section of tippet material on a branch. (As I always do to prevent animals from getting caught) I decided to retrieve the tippet. And, then I noticed there there was a fly at the end of it. Often the flies I find hanging on trees are badly rusted, but this one wasn’t too bad. And, there were 3ft of slightly faded tippet along with it. Maybe all the flies hanging from the trees could allow me to reduce how many flies I take with me even more.
Reuse: Instinctively I went to put the tippet and fly on my pocket, but then I had this thought. Why not just use it? I mean, I just lost my fly and would have to replace it anyway. I’m not a “tenkara-fly-purist” (as some may think) – my philosophy is simply that the fly doesn’t really matter that much and just about any fly will work. While I typically I opt for the simple tenkara flies, which I find to be more versatile and quickest to tie, the time-proven parachute adams was certainly not below me. The tippet wasn’t too bad, a bit thinner than I like, and a bit faded, but there were no knots on it and it would save me from getting more tippet out.

I tied my “one knot” on the tippet and connected it to my tenkara level line. That’s when the title of this post came to mind: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.

This was the first time in 3 years that I used a parachute adams. The fly was so easy to spot, with the bright white post, I almost felt that I was cheating a bit. But, it is not about rules, it’s about enjoying the fishing, learning and when possible conserving. On my second cast I connected with a rainbow trout, only rainbow of the day. And, then a brook trout and another one, and another one, and then a take that was stronger and perhaps faster than any I had experienced until then.
I had all but forgotten about the grayling by then. I watched the parachute adams drifting downstream into the calm pocket below me. The natural drift of the fly filled me with anticipation. This pocket of water was slightly calmer and bigger than most I had fished today; it had to hold a good fish.
The take, as I mentioned, was fast and strong, and the strong fight greatly reminded me of the grayling I caught in Alaska a few weeks ago. As I got the fish closer to the surface, it shone brighter than any of the brookies I had caught, and it was more slender than the rainbow. This had to be a grayling.

After the fight I was thrilled to hold another grayling in my hand and snap a quick photo of it to share with you. This marked a sort of Grand-slam today, which was pretty cool especially since it was a grand-slam on a fly and tippet that I found hanging from a tree. In total I caught 8 fish on that fly and section of tippet. The grayling was released to continue its life-cycle.

Recycle: I could have stopped at reuse but it wouldn’t sound as catchy, would it? So I’ll just point out that flies don’t have to be the disposable items we often think of. You can read this post on “Recycling fly tying hooks” to see what I’m talking about.

Have you found ways to reduce your fly load? Ever reused a fly found on the trees? Or, spent a bit of time recycling fly tying hooks?

I was inspired by the story written by Sebata-san, Go Deeper Upstream with Skill. I enjoyed learning his story, where Sebata-san describes how he learned tenkara, and also the “secret” of tenkara: ” “Ah ha, I need to slow down by one breath. This is the secret of tenkara fishing”, he says. But, what really inspired me was how we went deeper, and took the time to describes what makes the tenkara experience whole, for him at least.

Since I was a little kid I have been a bit of a forager. My parents instilled the interest in “free foods” found in nature by stopping on the side of the road to take fruit they spotted while driving. Guavas were my favorite. But my parents were not much of the wild foraging type though, it was more of a drive-through foraging experience with them. My grandfather, on the other hand, would take me on walks in the woods and show me the use for every plant we came across. Unfortunately the knowledge did not stick; luckily, curiosity did.

Mushrooms were the one thing neither my parents nor my grandfather ever touched. Like most people in Brazil, where I grew up, and here in the USA, my family was afraid of mushrooms and figured it would be best to not touch them.

Sometimes I like to go deeper upstream too. When I found tenkara, I thought it would be a perfect complement to my backpacking trips, and that’s a big part of the reason I fell in love with it. As I strived to remain ultra-light, I figured the 7 oz kit of a tenkara rod, line and some flies could even replace the need to bring much food with me; I would supplement my diet with freshly caught trout. I tried learning about edible plants while living in California, and occasionally would come across something I could use, but on the drier Sierra Nevada we didn’t get nearly as much wild mountain vegetables as Mr. Sebata can find in Japan.

This year I decided to really delve in the world of mushrooms and edible plants. I have been studying every mushroom I find, and joining a local group of some mushroom forays. I have also been trying to learn at least one new plant every time I go for a hike, which is pretty much every morning with my dog. I spend a lot of time outside, so I figured I should learn more about what I can eat should I come across it or should I ever need it.
Today, Margaret and I decided to go deeper into the mountains…to acquire more skill in finding and identifying mushrooms, more specifically with an interest in finding the prized boletes that are coming up now and can be a great addition to meals in future trips.

Mushroom hunting was the primary objective of today’s trip. So, when I came across a stream, I initially didn’t think of fishing at all, we had the dog along (not the best fishing dog in the world) and I was focused on the task at hand. But, then I remembered the stream that I was staring at was a brook trout stream. You see, brook trout are an invasive species to these areas, and even though I am a mostly catch-and-release angler, it’s really not a bad thing to take some brook trout home. There is even a blog called “Eat More Brook Trout”. Plus, if we found some mushrooms most certainly we would go home and cook them, but mushrooms alone don’t make a complete meal. So I armed the tenkara rod and proceeded to catch as many trout as we needed for a complete foraged meal of mushrooms and trout.

Talking of a meal, it’s time for me to shut the computer down and cook today’s bounty. Luckily Sebata-san already wrote the conclusion I’m trying to make with this story:

“Tenkara fishing is very simple, which makes me feel I am a part of the mountains. If you want to submerge yourself deep in nature, it is the best fishing style. But just through the act of fishing, we won’t be able to enjoy real thrill and joy of tenkara fishing. Fishing becomes much more fun by experiencing the joy of being able to be a part of nature and learning something new in nature.”

This weekend I hiked up to the high country, exploring the headwaters of one of my favorite local streams. The characteristic of the water changed dramatically, becoming steep, tumbling and with lots of cover.

Being at high altitude and in lush forest provided respite from the heat wave and a chance to tune out from daily life. This was intended more as a hiking trip with my wife and our dog than a fishing trip, but how could I not take a tenkara rod along?
And, of course, when I saw the water and found a good-looking pocket, I was glad the compact rod had come along. I absolutely needed to see what fish I would find here. Would it be the browns commonly found near home? The rainbows more easily found halfway between home and the headwaters? I had no idea. I had not done any research about the headwaters. And I’m glad I didn’t research it.

As a “professional” fisherman who may fish several times a week, anticipation and curiosity are a couple of the things that prompt me to drive and cast the fly yet again. I probably would have cast the Amano tenkara fly to that pool regardless of what I knew about those waters. That’s how it always is. The desire to know what lurks below the foamy pool inspires each of us to pull the tenkara rod out of the pack, or from behind the car seats, tie the line to the lillian and cast.
The little jewel that found itself connected to my line was exactly the reason I love exploring new waters. Neither rainbow, nor brown, not even a cutthroat…a healthy, shiny cuttbow – a hybrid between a rainbow and a cutthroat – or, as Margaret suggested, why not call it a rainthroat? Despite the lush forest and small size if the stream I used the Ito at 13ft with a short 10ft line and 4ft of tippet.

Just got on the road for the 6-hour drive back to Anchorage, Alaska, from 3-days of fishing with veterans of Project Healing Waters. I’ll be writing a full trip report shortly and put a video together, but in the meantime wanted to share a photo of one of the many grayling caught in this trip with our tenkara rods, lines and flies. Phenomenal.