While fishing this weekend in Rocky Mountain National Park, I happened across another Tenkara fisher on the Roaring River. This is rare for me as I usually get stared at or accosted out of curiosity for not having a reel rather than out of Tenkara fellowship. To my surprise, it was none other than Karel Lansky of the Tenkara on the Fly blog.
Coincidentally, we were both fishing Iwana rods (though he brought the 12′ version while I was packing the lighter 11′ model). It was great to chat streamside with a fellow Tenkara angler in Colorado and while we didn’t fish together, I’m pretty sure we both had great outings given his post. I guess you never know who you’re going to meet out there and I’m glad Karel caught his first Cutthroats on this trip. What’s your experience? Have you met any Tenkara fishers on the stream or trail?
Jason – it was great running into you in RMNP. Looking forward to an outing together. Tight Lines, -K
Me too Karel!
I have had dozens of Tenkara outings this year and have never seen another Tenkara practicioneer, other than a few individuals I brought with me to school in the technique. That should net seem unusual though because I usually seek solitude when fishing alone.
I haven’t yet come upon another angler fishing with tenkara, but a lot of people sure do seem curious about what I’m up too when I fish in more crowded locales!
I never met anybody fishing tenkara either, but most of the people I meet seems to know about it. This spring, I fished my Daiwa Kiyose 43MF on the Blue River below the dam when the water was up at 1000 cfs. There was one spot where there was a shelf that dropped off into a deeper section where the rainbows were staging. Once in awhile, you can see a huge shadow moving on to the shelf. The shelf was 30 feet from shore, separated by very fast water. The shadows didn’t stay very long on the shelf at one spot, since they were moving to the next staging spot. You had to cast to them shortly after you spot them, and present the perfect drift. It was tenkara heaven!