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3. Tenkara

I have been hearing a lot about Tenkara fly fishing lately so i read some articles and watched a few videos.I must admit that i am intrigued by the idea of fishing with less emphasis on equipment.I love the sport but sometimes feel like i get to caught up with the toy aspect of it,and that i have gotten away from the simple pleasure of fishing that i enjoyed as a boy.Besides,when my wife asks why i need twelve fly rods i am hard pressed to come up with a good answer.I would be interested to hear if any of you gentlemen have tried Tenkara,or what your thoughts are on the subject.

Hi Dave
You must be a mind reader. I was thinking about making the same post. To answer your post yes, I to have been intrigued about the style of fly fishing. I am getting very interested, I probably will by a Ayu 13 ft 5.5 . Here is a very good link--http://www.tenkarabum.com/.
Mr Stewart is very knowledgeable about Tenkara ,Chris also posts on Marks forum-http://www.flymphforum.com/phpBB3/index.php.
I think this would be a fine way to fish a Stewart Spider,or any Soft Hackle in the traditional way.

Best

JAD

fellas...
you talk about the "toy" aspect of flyfishing then immediatly are considering running out and buying a 13 foot rod with no reel. good luck on your local streams. good luck with that 20 incher. as far as fishing wet flies "traditionally" - sell a few of the dozen fly rods in your arsenal and buy up a cane rod and proceed to rollcasting the wets and softhackles - traditionally.
here's an idea - get a came pole and attach a string to it as i did as a child. try it on your local stream and see how you like it before you invest the $$ in something you may never use.
or use that 10 1/2 foot steelhead rod and tie an old fly line to the end of the tip guide - cast or dapp it in your yard or a stream and see what the practical use is on your local waters.
you will probably be surprised either for it or against it.
my opinion
gut

Thank You Gentlemen for your input regarding Tenkara fly fishing.My intention was only to get some feedback from someone who has some experience or intrest in this subject.It would be very premature to say that i am going to run right out and buy a Tenkara rod.However your Cane pole and dappling coments indicate that you guys are commenting about something that you have dismissed as a fad without learning anything about.

dave
pardon the impression of dismissal.
a "fad" is bellbottoms or electric cars.
tenkara has been around for centuries. for the types of fishing that it was designed for and utilized in, it is very effective. as i understand it, it has been used primarily for small fish in slower water. the videos on the tenkara usa website show a large fish of what? 9 ". i am sure that given modern materials and adoptive techniques it can be effective, here, as well in a variety of situations. this is shown well in the videos on the larger and faster water in the website.
but is it flyfishing? dapping or tenkara drifting a wolly worm from a long rod isn't flyfishing - even if the action or flex of the rod can "cast" the fly.
the weight of the line must cast the fly.
try and roll-cast or doublehaul monofilament with a standard fly rod and no weight on the leader or fly sometime. you can't do it. tenkara has just lengthened the lever arm allowing a perception of flycasting.
once again - my opinion. and i have read about tenkara and found it interesting but not for me.
gut

Ok...My tongue was in my cheek a bit...Sorry!  To each their own... I'm really an opened minded fellow who can't pass up being the class clown.Spence

spence -
sometimes i can't help but being a pot stirrer
tony

Mr. Cutter wrote:

"here's an idea - get a came pole and attach a string to it as i did as a child. try it on your local stream and see how you like it before you invest the $$ in something you may never use."

Gander Mountain sells some neat telescoping crappie poles in the 13' - 18' range. No reel seat just a little cleat like gizmo near the handle where you can store some excess line. They have a eye at the very top to tie your line to - then just swing it out into the current and Tenkara yourselves all you want. Those crappie poles are surprizingly light and cost less than $30.00.

I think I'm gonna give 'dis Tenkara stuff a try wid my 13' pinning pole. I'll leave the reel in the car and jus tie some string to the top eye and put a bobber on the line with a nice #16 bait hook and a wax worm and just swing them browns right outta the creek and onto the bank.

I guess you guys are correct.The only proper way to fly fish is the traditional White Anglo Saxon method.You guys are truly a credit to the sport.I think i will go down to the fly shop and buy another three hundred dollar Hardy reel to listen to.

Ah Dave the more they post the more they show me-- They know what they post about.

That's all I have to say about THAT,

JAD

I suspect it is true that you cannot roll-cast or doublehaul mono with a standard fly rod and no weight on the leader or fly. However, you should understand that a tenkara rod is not a standard fly rod. It was specifically designed to cast fluorocarbon or tapered mono, with no weight on the leader or fly. I can assure you that you can cast it very well. The videos clearly show casting, not dapping. Granted, the casting doesn't involve double hauls and you don't cast 60 feet, but for small stream fishing you don't need to.

I have never tried a steelhead rod or centerpin rod, but I have tried a cane pole and several of the cheap telescopic crappie poles like Gander Mountain sells. They are no closer to a tenkara rod than they are to your Sage or Orvis fly rods. Would you seriously suggest to someone interested in fly fishing that he tape guides and a reel to a cane pole or crappie rod? Why invest $$ (or should I say $$$$$$$$$$$) in something he may never use? It is exactly the same argument.

Dave1352 and JAD, there will always be naysayers, and people who try to steer you away from anything you haven't tried - (and neither have they). Just imagine what they said to the first few guys who wanted to put a reel on a fly rod. Probably sounded a lot like "It's not fly fishing." And if tenkara isn't fly fishing, then fly fishing doesn't extend back to Aelian or Dame Juliana or even Izaak Walton, and has a fairly short history indeed.

If you try tenkara, I think you will like it. If you don't you can send back the rod and get a refund. However, if you try to do it with a cane pole or a crappie pole, and don't like it, you'll never know if it was the method or the totally inappropriate equipment that you didn't like. Tenkara is one more case where you really do need the right tool for the job.

And if you really do want to get back to the simple pleasure of fishing, I urge you to try tenkara. It will take you there.

Chris Stewart
Tenkara Bum

PS: I bet your wife has more than 12 pairs of shoes.

CS

Dear Mr. Stewart,

You wrote;

"Gander Mountain sells some neat telescoping crappie poles in the 13' - 18' range. No reel seat just a little cleat like gizmo near the handle where you can store some excess line. They have a eye at the very top to tie your line to - then just swing it out into the current and Tenkara yourselves all you want. Those crappie poles are surprizingly light and cost less than $30.00."

Firstly I think you are mistaking our good natured needling as a serious attempt to sabotage Tenkara. That is not my intention.

So don't be thinking I'm posting disparaging remarks about Tenkara. I didn't suggest the Gander Mountain crappie poles to be sarcastic, or to impune the sport of Tenkara, but to offer some potenial devotees the chance to try the long rod/no reel concept of FF without buying a real Tenkara rod. Besides if they didn't enjoy it they could return the pole to GM.

I'd bet a telescoping crappie pole would still be a lot closer to the principle of Tenkara than tying a piece on mono to the tip top of a 9' fly rod.

BTW why are you bringing our wives into this discussion? You don't see us trying to draw some Tenkara analogy about your wife do you?

Guy's...I sent the following to Dave to appologise a bit for sending his question off in to the ditch. I also deleted my post to his original question. I guess there are two things for sure in this world, 1) Us old-school types hate change 2) Change is a constant and our sport has been anything but static. Thomas Jefferson said something about the future belonging to the next generation and I'll add not neccesarily to a 56 year old who is never truely happy unless he's knee deep in a trout stream somewhere in the middle of the woods and there is no one else within miles...

Didn't really mean for this to take an ugly turn!

Spence



"Dave,

I don't know where this thread is going or how it got off course, but I deleted my response to it. I think that I was just trying a bit too hard to be a smart ass and your inquiry was legit and came from your curiosity for this aspect of the sport. I will copy and paste this note to you and add it as a reply in the thread.

I suppose my response was a knee-jerk (emphasis on jerk) tradionalist response and as long as you are not throwing bait or hardware on my flies-only stretch I guess I'm cool with it.

Sorry for my part in steering this in the direction it's gone!

Spence"

mr stewart et al.
lighten up
the reels placed on fly rods weren't about sport
they were about meat
and if tenkara were flyfishing it would be called flyfishing not tenkara. read the regs before you take your long pole on a f.f.o. stream in pennsylvania. you may wind up having all of your gear confiscated and paying a fine.
my point has been and remains that if you want to tenkara then tenkara. i have no problem with that at all.
just don't call it flyfishing just because you are using a fly.
gut

Quote-my point has been and remains that if you want to tenkara then tenkara. i have no problem with that at all.
just don't call it flyfishing just because you are using a fly.
gut

I see, For the first few hundred years, when our ancestors fished with horse hair lines and raw gut with a hook with yarn on it, according to you they weren't fly fishing.


Rivers and the inhabitants of the watery elements are made for wise men to contemplate and for fools to pass by without consideration." - Izaac Walton

JAD

The following is a paragraph is drawn from page 10, bottom left hand corner, of the 2010 PA Fishing Summary of Regulations and Laws;

CATCH AND RELEASE FLY-FISHING ONLY

"Fishing must be done with tackle limited to fly rods, fly reel, and fly line with a maximum of 18 feet in leader material or monofilament line attached. Spinning, spincast, and casting rods and reels are prohibited."

Take notice of the requirement for a "fly reel, and fly line" with a maximum of 18 feet in leader. Sounds pretty clear that Tenkara would be illegal tackle on any Commonwealth waters that are maintained as C&R Fly-Fishing Only.

Wbranch,

The original post said "Besides,when my wife asks why i need twelve fly rods i am hard pressed to come up with a good answer." I gave him a good answer. I did not bring any one else's wife into the discussion.

The PA commission, in response to a direct question, has ruled that tenkara is legal for "fly fishing only waters" in PA. By the way, the CT regs read almost exactly the same as the PA regs, and CT has also ruled that tenkara is legal. In both cases, they indicated that the regs were writen that way to prevent people from using spinning reels, not to require that you must have a reel.

I apologize if my comments in any way contributed to a nasty turn, but I do get a bit upset when someone asking for information receives responses that would be misleading if he did not realize they weren't serious. And if the responses weren't challenged, how would he know?

"The PA commission, in response to a direct question, has ruled that tenkara is legal for "fly fishing only waters" in PA."

Then the statement in the PA compendium is ambigous and hopefully when you, or some other Tenkara devotee, is challenged on a PA fly only water the CO will be fully aware of the Commissions philosophy about Tenkara and the allowed deviation from what is written in the summary.