Today we had the first “Tenkara Takeover” event in the country. The idea was to get as many tenkara anglers in one popular stream as possible, and take it over with tenkara. It was a terrific event. The community of tenkara anglers, and several people interested in tenkara, showed up en masse today at Boulder Creek, near the town of Boulder, Colorado.
Over 50 people showed up. Roughly half were very new or completely new to tenkara. We had instructions for a bit over an hour, with me showing how to rig a tenkara rod, then how to cast with tenkara, and some tenkara techniques in the water. Then we all rigged up and fished up and down Boulder creek.
Immediately I started seeing people catching the creeks’ rainbow and brown trout. But the coolest thing to witness was the super warm camaraderie among the tenkara community. Every so often I would see one attendant helping another with rigging their tenkara rods or with casting.
We also achieved the objective of turning the heads of a great number of passers-by who were intrigued by the long telescopic. At least two people were completely turned on to tenkara today simply by watching us. One man tried a fly casting class about 8 years ago but thought it was all too confusing; he saw me showing one of the attendants how to fish, missing a couple of fish but having a ball. I taught him how to cast in less than two minutes (and his casting form was flawless). As he left he had a huge grin which clearly said “Cool, I’ll get to fly fish!” Another woman said she had seen anglers there before, but that this looked so simple and fun that she just had to look at giving this a try now .
It was terrific to see in person how many people tenkara have been touched by tenkara. Today was the physical manifestation of the tenkara lifestyle I talked about a couple of days ago.
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7 Responses to The Tenkara Community is awesome
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Daniel
Happy you had a good turn out,its nice to see Tenkara generating such interest and to see the interest spreading.
WOW, that is amazing! When 50 people show up to such a niche event like this, you know it’s no longer a niche. Nice job Daniel! I hope I can go to the next one. There were so many people there I wanted to meet!
It was awesome. Great fun and great people. Daniel is an excellent host and all around great guy. Ty, from McGuckin Hardware, was also a big help. So many other great people to learn from!
Jason, sorry you missed it. I was hoping to meet you as I had tied several Tenkara flies from videos you had posted. Maybe next time.
What a bunch of bullshit!
Same mob mentality I run into with mass mountain bikers while hiking.
I also can’t imagine how many fish were needlessly trashed during this little stunt.
Shame on you Daniel!
Rosie, the group spent a bit over an hour in a 100yd section before dispersing and for the most part becoming just a regular part of Boulder Creek. Several new people have now become stream stewards. I shared good catch and release practices which some people wouldn’t have learned, and we took out several pounds of trash from the area. Don’t think your comment is deserved.
Daniel, Judy and I are sorry that we could not attend. We would have liked to participate and lend a hand. We were in Leadville staffing a booth for the Friends of the Leadville National Fish Hatchery and participating with the Friends float in the annual Boom Days parade. The float won second place. This is a big 3 day event for the local community. Perhaps next year you could have an entry in the parade – The Precision Tenkara Drill Team? After the parade we could do a Tenkara Takeover at Hayden Flats?
Mark, no worries. Next time for sure. And, save your calendar for September 27-28 of 2014 for the next Summit here in Boulder!
Also, funny, I attended the Colorado Cane Conclave in Lyons, brought my couple of bamboo rods along to show. When I went through the list of attendants I thought I saw your name there, so I thought I’d be seeing you yesterday. Turned out it was a “Mike” Cole….Good event. Tenkara was well received there.