Tenkara Experiences

My neighbor and tenkara guide Allen Seagraves just came over to show me a fish he had just caught out of Boulder Creek. I figure this should definitely get you pumped for the Tenkara Summit happening this weekend. Allen is one of the tenkara guides in the Tenkara Guide Network, and if you’re wondering, he’s still available on Friday. He was using the Sato, which has been sold out for over a month but is coming back into our stock this week, as well as a tenkara fly.

While on Saturday the event mostly consists of presentations and demos, Sunday is a free and not organized fishing day. We will be encouraging everyone present to fish up and down Boulder Canyon, and throughout the day a group of experienced tenkara anglers will join you in different parts of the creek to help with any questions you may have. This will be a great weekend.

I have never considered fishing to be a sport, at least not the way the word is used by most people. Perhaps the best way to put it, in my opinion, is how I once heard a comedian say it, “fishing is the only sport where the opponent doesn’t know he’s playing” (I believe this was said by Brian Regan, but can’t find the joke right now). But, at the same time I’m not sure there is another word that really encompasses what fishing is. It’s a leisure activity, it’s a hobby, it’s a way to experience and commune with nature, and yes, it can certainly feel like an outright sport sometimes. Even if the way I fish often involves climbing gnarly boulders or hiking for hours, I continue to hesitate on using the word “sport” to describe fishing. However, today I realized that an angler and an athlete have a lot more in common than I had thought. More specifically, I realized how the three pillars of an athlete’s life: sleep, diet and training, also affect an angler’s performance. Continue reading

I love how the Japanese have terms like “shower climbing” and “forest bathing”. The second, forest bathing, or shinrin yoku, is a new one to me, but it has been one of my favorite activities for as long as I remember. As Doug Schnitzpahn of Elevation Outdoors describes it, “In Japan the term shinrin-yoku refers to the act of getting out and simply walking in the woods and breathing in—both metaphorically and actually—the healing aromas of the trees. The term roughly translates as “forest bathing,” or, more romantically, as taking in the essence of the forest, walking quietly, aware.”

Yesterday, late in the afternoon, I went forest bathing. Continue reading

We often underestimate kids and what they can do on their own. At least I think I do, and sometimes I forget what I was doing as a kid too.
My wife and I are currently hosting a family from Japan for a month. We don’t have kids ourselves, but now we have a full house with a 1 year-old,  a 9 year-old and their mother. I met the 9-year old Kyosuke a couple of years ago when I was spending a couple of months in the small mountain village of Maze, a town of 1,400 people. Kyosuke is a river boy, he likes to spend all his time in the water, and he loves fishing. When I first met him I taught him about tenkara, and also how to tie tenkara flies. But, in the small mountain town of 1,400 he doesn’t get a lot of exposure to the outside world. So, his mom decided to show him there are different cultures to learn from. But, as always, it goes both ways and we’re learning a lot by having them here. Continue reading

This is a guest post kindly provided by a tenkara enthusiast about tenkara and his time with his family. Enjoy it! I sure did.

By Adam Dailey-McIlrath

I love living in Hawaii. We are surrounded by water, and therefore surrounded by fish. Within fifteen minutes I can be hunting for bonefish on the flats, whipping into the waves for trevally or casting my tenkara rod into tide pools for brilliantly colored reef fish. But about once a year I start to dream of the water of my youth, of cold, clear, mountain streams sliding and splashing their way down canyons, pooling and rolling through valleys. It is water that stirs the passion of every fisherman who has held a fly rod. And so I am very fortunate that my family still lives in central Oregon, near the confluence of the McKenzie and Willamette rivers and the countless miles of trout water that flow into them.

However, fishing while visiting family can be a challenge. Like so many of us, I can fill a water bottle, grab a couple of snacks and disappear upriver for six or eight hours at a time. Time just slides by. Plans and schedules are swept up and float away on the current. This is difficult for non-fishers to understand, and can be frustrating for them. So instead of just disappearing to fish alone I have always tried hard on these visits to combine family with fishing – but this presents it’s own set of challenges.
Continue reading

One of the best things about keeping fly-fishing simple and that it allows us to combine fishing with a lot of different activities. That’s the idea behind TENKARA+.
Here’s a very nice article written by Allison Pluda for our Tenkara Magazine. It  illustrates perfectly that there is indeed no need to choose between fishing and other activities you love. Read on! PDF available here.

NO NEED TO CHOOSE

by Allison Pluda

For me, tenkara is more than just a fishing technique I’m trying for a while. Tenkara is a tool that helps me to become more in tune with all of the goals in my life. It’s part of a lifestyle choice— to strive toward making everything in life as simple as possible, to eliminate unnecessary details internally and externally and to rely more on my senses and technique rather than gear. There is a beauty to tenkara that fits into the flow of the river and is compatible with a slower pace and a simpler style of life.
As a photographer, I tend to have details to fuss over and a heavy backpack full of gear and lenses to pack (why do lens caps always want to lose themselves?) before I even head out into the wilds. I used to feel that I had to choose: fish well, photograph well, or be bogged down trying to do both. When I got my first tenkara rod, I found that finally I didn’t have to choose between photography or fishing; I could do both. A small bag of fishing supplies, a box of flies, and a tenkara rod could all fit into my photo bag without weighing me down with gear to the point where I’m moving slower than my old-timer dog.

I take my modest tenkara set-up with me on backpacking trips and on long hikes to shoot the sunrise or sunset, just in case one of those high alpine lakes I stumble across, deep in the Snowy Range Mountains in Wyoming, is holding some little hungry trout I did not expect. When bushwhacking around branches and brush, between trees and over rocky uneven ground, I can easily collapse the tenkara rod, stow it in the side of my backpack and navigate any tricky terrain without missing a beat and with as much grace as possible while lugging a heavy camera bag. When I find my way back out of the brush (after of course snagging a few branches on my myself) I can be fishing that perfect-looking fishing hole within a minute, and with my camera still hanging around my neck.

To me, that simplicity is priceless and allows me to maintain the ease of mind I am striving for in the woods. Of course it’s still a challenge to maintain peace and grace when a fish I really had my eye on swims away into the deep just as I finally get my line untangled after what seems like an eternity. But that is just one of the many mental challenges that fishing teaches you to overcome.

Tenkara teaches me more than just a different style of fishing. It teaches me to be fluid, to adapt, to really feel the flow of the water, to worry less about the gear and more about my own connection with the river. It teaches me that the more in tune with my surroundings I am, the more I can concentrate and clear my mind of cluttered thoughts, and thus the more fluid my casts will become and the more energy efficient and graceful my fishing will become. Ideally, all of this results in me catching more fish as well as gaining a sense of active meditation guided by the river itself. But even if the end result is just a few nibbles, working on improving my tenkara technique always gives me some type of lesson to take home. These lessons that are the reason tenkara has become more than just fishing for me. It is a lifestyle and a philosophy of mind. Lao Tzu once said, “I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest

Tenkara+ is the idea that tenkara goes well with anything you already enjoy doing outside. You should not have to choose between activities. I wrote about this a while ago here. Read on to see how to win a Tenkara USA Apparel.

That’s the beauty of this simple fly-fishing method. Because it doesn’t take a lot of equipment nor a lot of room, and it is super quick to setup, you can always bring tenkara along. Sure, sometimes (very often actually) we head out with the sole purpose of fishing. Tenkara can be its own excuse for us to head out, but what if you are planning to do other things? Do you need to choose one OR the other? We don’t think so. And, what if you’re going on a hike and happen to find a nice looking stream, will you wish you could cast your fly into its waters? Tenkara can make your next hike more interesting; it can ensure you’ll not go bored at rest days during your next climbing trip; and it will surely complement your backpacking trip very nicely.

So, we’re starting this “TENKARA+” campaign to illustrate there is no need to choose.
Share a picture or story of something you have done along with tenkara with. You may share that here on our blog or on our Facebook page or Twitter. At the end of the week we’ll be giving out a Tenkara USA shirt and a hat to one winner from Facebook, one from Twitter and one who posted on our blog. Please include the hashtage #tenkara+ at the beginning of your comment, or on your Twitter or Facebook post. You’re welcome to post in all three but if we select your photo or story we’ll only give you one prize.
Whether climbing, backpacking, foraging or hiking, make sure to bring a Tenkara USA rod along in your next adventure.

Forgiving Boulder Creek is a story written by Sasha Barajas about her discovery of tenkara and renewed connection with Boulder Creek, which was subject to alarming floods last year. It is a feature story in the first Tenkara Magazine. The story has been receiving great feedback and we thought you’d enjoy reading it. Photographs by Kate Mason
Forgiving Boulder Creek

About a quarter-mile from the hustle and bustle of downtown Boulder, Colorado runs a small creek. In the heat of the summer giggles are frequently heard as children wade in the water and college students aboard black tire tubes float by. This autumn, with several days of heavy rain, the creek grew to monstrous proportions, enveloping the landscape and ravaging our mountain town.

Just one month later the creek runs swiftly within its previously defined banks. Although we have resumed biking, running, and skateboarding along the winding Boulder Creek Path, for many of us our relationship with the creek is still on the bedrocks. Continue reading

I may say this every year when December 30th comes, but I’ll say it again, “I just can’t believe the year has already come to an end!” So much has happened through one more year of introducing tenkara to the US that a big chunk of it just blurs together. It is a strange feeling. But, luckily we can look back at all our 2013 blog posts and relive the year. Here are the posts that saw the most view and/or most comments this year:

1) The More You Know the Less You Need: Some specific examples of things which tenkara show you you do not need.
2) Tenkara Podcast: If you’re looking for something to listen to while you drive or work, checkout the first Tenkara USA podcast which we recorded with Jason Klass from Tenkara Talk.
3)Tenkara Testimonials: With the Fly Fishing Show season just about to start again, checkout this video we made the last year’s Fly Fishing Show where we asked people what they thought about tenkara.

4) In Search of Tenkara [VIDEOS]: In 2013 I made a series of 3 videos titled “In Search of Tenkara” where I tried understanding more of what made tenkara, tenkara.

5) The Last Commercial Tenkara Angler, Bunpei Sonehara: one of our most popular posts this year was the story written by Bunpei Sonehara, largely considered to be the last commercial tenkara anglers in Japan. We translated the story to give folks a glimpse of what tenkara was like back in the day.

6) The 30-second tenkara pronunciation guide [VIDEO]: This was a fun video where we asked several tenkara anglers in Japan to show us how to say certain words, including “Ten-car-ah!”

7) 2013 Japan Trip, 1st photographs: Every year I go back to Japan to learn more about tenkara and share its story here. This is my first post of this year’s trip. I love the photographs and memories of that trip, which I took with Mr. Yuzo Sebata.

8) Tenkara Flies Map: A map with the placement of some of the most recognizable tenkara flies of Japanese tenkara anglers.

9) Shower Climbing (Canyoneering) and Tenkara: This is probably just my personal favorite as it combined two of my great passions, climbing adventure and tenkara.

10) Tenkara Techniques and How to Cast with Tenkara videos:  two of our most recent videos highlighting how to cast with tenkara and 6 main techniques used with tenkara

11) Release of two new rods, the Sato and Rhodo triple-zoom rods: After 2 years of working on 2 rod models, we were finally able to release them. Very proud of their successful launch.

12) Tenkara Magazine: another successful item, we finally created the first magazine in the world dedicated exclusively to tenkara. Very proud of that 2013 accomplishment.

Nearly 30 years ago my parents started teaching my how to fish. At first it was just a plastic toy rod, probably when I was 1 year old and played make-believe fishing next to them. Then they taught me some knots, how to put bait on my hook, how to throw the bait out, how to use a spinning reel. And, then, I caught the fishing bug.

Perhaps they thought it was a little strange a teenager was more interested in fishing than hanging out with friends at the mall, but they supported me in my obsession for fishing. I started teaching myself how to use different types of reels, how to cast lures, and then how to fly-fish. They probably thought I was making fishing more complicated than it needed to be, on our weekend outings I’d carry multiple rods, a tackle box full of shiny objects, then multiple flies I made myself and a myriad of leader formulas. They didn’t question why I was making fishing complicated, but supported my hobby probably thinking those shiny lures were better than drugs.

As most of you know, I’m originally from Brazil. I came to the States when I was 17 years old as an exchange student. I decided to stay here for college, then I met my now wife, Margaret, and made the US my permanent home. I see my parents every couple of years when I go back to Brazil. They had not had a chance to come visit before, having a thousand excuses in the last 13 years I have lived here not to come. Mostly I think they were just terrified of traveling abroad. This year I just told them I got them both tickets and they’d have to visit.

One of the main reasons I wanted them to visit so badly is that, despite all the fishing we’ve done together over the years they have never had a chance to fish my favorite type of waters, cold mountain streams. And, they have never caught my favorite fish, trout. Further, over the last 4 years I have taught thousands of people how to fish with tenkara in these types of waters, but not the people who first taught me how to fish.

Today I was absolutely thrilled to take my parents fishing in my new home-waters of Colorado. And, I put them both onto their first trout ever. It felt so gratifying to take them both fishing, teach them tenkara in my new home and put them in touch with the fish I have been telling them about for so many years. I’m very grateful for everything they have taught me, and for their support as I pursued my passion for fishing. Because of them I have been able to discover tenkara and create Tenkara USA.

p.s. if you have communicated with me in recent days and haven’t heard back from me, it’s mostly because they are visiting. I’ll be trying to catch up with emails….thanks for your patience.

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 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.