Tenkara–the Book
This new tenkara fly tying DVD series was just announced today but I happened to receive one in the mail prior to launch (Thanks Brian!). This DVD isn’t good. It’s GREAT! The clarity and quality is amazing and the running commentary by tenkara experts is surprisingly informative. When I first opened the package, I was kind of dismissive. I thought that I’d pretty much heard everything there was to be said about simple tenkara flies by now. But I was pleasantly surprised to see a lot of tips, info, and ideas for presentation that I hadn’t thought of, heard of, or done myself. This is a must-have DVD for anyone into tenkara.
I really like how they go from vise to stream too, showing you not only how to tie the flies, but showing that they actually catch fish. Most tying videos are little more than boring “talking hands” videos (like mine). This one is not. They use a good mix of closeups, pull aways, underwater shots, and on-stream footage to keep it visually engaging.
My only critique (and I’ll admit that it’s a small nitpick) is that the camera angle is from the perspective of someone watching from across the tying table. As someone who has tied countless flies, I can inverse my mental picture, but for beginners, it might be clearer and more intuitive if they shot the video from the perspective of the tier. Since this is the first in a volume, maybe they’ll take that feedback into consideration moving forward. After all, this is volume 1. And that leaves plenty to go.
This DVD is impressive and bumps the info available to Western tenkara anglers up a few notches. And at only $25 for 2.5 hours of video and a small booklet including all the recipes, it’s also a good value. Get one here. You won’t be disappointed.
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I was just watching YouTube clips on Tenkara style fly tying with my son right before seeing your post so the timing was perfect this is going in the collection thanks for the heads up Jason. Oh and the arachnostyle drop at the beginning was a little creepy 🙂 no wonder these flies grab the fishes attention.
An interesting post Jason, as someone who has been tying for many years I’d be surprised if I gleaned any new tying skills from this type of DVD but for the beginner it could be good. Like most of the Tenkara fly tying I’ve seen online it seems to be dominated by the Sakasa kebari style of fly, chuck in a couple of English and American flies and you basically have it, apart from the quality and the on river action is there much benefit to this DVD ?.
As an experienced tier, the benefit of this DVD is not tying techniques I think. Rather, tying philosophy. Anyone who has been tying as long as we have can look at a sakasa kebari and reverse engineer how to tie it in two seconds. But while the people in the video are tying, they give running dialog about tying philosophy and other tidbits of information that are thought provoking and interesting. For an advanced tier, the tying will be a backdrop for this information. But the beginner will definitely benefit from the tying itself. That’s my take.
Too bad Brian did not subtitle in the gooodoooo gooodoooo goooodooo that Dr. Ishigaki did. I always love when he does that. 😎
tj
Does anyone know if this is still available? Looks like the site is down or offline. I’d love to get my hands on this one.
Hey Tyler,
I’m not sure what happened, but Learn Tenkara went AWOL a couple of years ago. I’ve tried contacting them and have never gotten a response. I hope they’re OK but I doubt we’ll see them back online again. You might be able to pick up a used copy somewhere. I loaned my copy out to someone who had the same question, otherwise I’d offer you mine.