Tenkara Diaries

We have been on the road for 11 days now. Margaret and I have been enjoying our time together (we actually celebrated our 10th anniversary on the road last Sunday!). Living the “Van Life” is not glamorous, but we have seen some beautiful country, fished some gorgeous waters and enjoyed a few experiences we wouldn’t have otherwise.

Time has been short, and it is going by fast. I have been working on some videos and photography but it’s been hard to find reliable data connection or wifi along the way, so almost no time for writing and sharing things. I have been good at keeping our Instagram posts going when I find a bar or two of service on my phone.

This morning I turned the tenkaravan into a makeshift studio to record a new podcast episode about living life off the tenkaravan and about our very cool experience fishing for smallmouth bass with the fly-fishing author Dave Hughes and his wife Masako. If you’re interested, below is the episode I just posted (more information referenced in the episode please visit the podcast page.

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.

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.

Tenkara Diaries, May 30th and June 1st 2013
length: 2:57
Music by Takenobu

Tenkara was a gift from heaven, it perfectly matched the type of water I love most: mountain streams. But, there is plenty of good waters very close to home that are not mountain streams, ponds full of bass and bluegill and slow moving water full of carp. So, I decided to indulge and fish several types of water this week, all with tenkara of course!

Carp fishing with tenkara. It has been done before but I figured it was the time I went out and personally tested our rods with them. Yesterday I spotted a good number of carp right in town. I decided to take the tenkara rod with me today and test it out with those big fish. Fun, and much more manageable with tenkara than I had imagined. I used the Amago tenkara rod, about 15ft of tenkara level line and 4x tippet, plus a wooly bugger as well as a tenkara fly.

A quick, 1 minute video of today’s outing with my wife and our dog.
Watch in HD, click the gear icon and select 1080!
 

John, TJ and I went tenkara fly-fishing in the Virginia mountains yesterday. We were looking for the beautiful brook trout found in those parts and certainly found some. Pretty fish. Watch for some special tactics on catching a lot of fish.
Music by Shenandoah Alley

*Once you click play, click on the gear icon and select the 1080p for best quality!

I went fishing with Steve Schweitzer, author of Fly Fishing Guide to Rocky Mountain National Park (an excellent guide book that now includes a section on tenkara). The fishing turned out to be quite tough due to cold snowmelt. Yet, this tenkara experience was great nonetheless, and we even ran across a tenkara angler on the water.

A frying pan and a tenkara Grand Slam in Colorado… Armed with a tenkara rod (I was using the Tenkara USA Ito), tenkara line and tenkara flies I went fishing near Aspen, Colorado yesterday. Caught some pretty good fish, a couple in the 20 inch range. You’ll see a tweak I did to my tenkara fly, the Amano kebari during the video, which seemed to produce results.

John Geer and I went to Missoula, Montana to attend the Orvis Guide Rendezvous over the last couple of days. We were invited to share tenkara with the Orvis network of guides, since they will likely be getting a lot of inquiries about tenkara rods and the tenkara method of fishing now that we are being featured on a full page of the Orvis catalog. We had 2 hours yesterday to sneak out and fish the nearby rivers. You have to watch the video to see the enormous fish John is holding at the end, he says it felt like a kayaker was pulling him.

 

Tenkara rod: Tenkara USA Amago
Tenkara line: 4.5 level line
Tenkara fly: Oki Sakasa Kebari
Tenkara net: hands and teeth!

Tenkara Diaries 4 – April 14, 2013

Had a fun day of fishing yesterday on the Big Thompson, outside of Estes Park. One of the highlights of the day was a group of rams butting heads on the side of the road.

All we needed was a tenkara rod, tenkara line, and tenkara fly.

Headed out for a phenomenal afternoon of tenkara fishing. Carried a prototype tenkara rod I’m working on, tenkara line and two tenkara flies I tied before heading out. Shot entirely with an iPhone. There are a couple of tips in this short movie too. This video is 5 minutes long, with a song by Takenobu. Make sure to watch it in HD (click on the gear icon, and then 720 or 1080). Hope you enjoy it.

Now that I’m nearer streams, I decided to record more of the experiences I’m having out there. Some may be just a quick recap of what I experienced, others may hold insights. I figured this would be a good way to get better at editing videos, and hopefully you’ll enjoy them.

Here’s the first one. It was a super short outing, I headed out at 4:30 and was back home at 6pm. COLD! Brrrrr!