In my last post, I briefly mentioned this fly pattern which was very productive on a small lake near Mt. Whitney and I thought I’d post the recipe. It’s a simple fly to tie (as many successful patterns are) and very buggy looking because of the iridescence of the materials used. The recipe Hook:…
I just got back from a backpacking trip to Mt. Whitney with fellow tenkara enthusiast Brian Green of Brian’s Backpacking blog. We were both as excited about the hike as we were about the prospect of fishing some of the high mountain lakes on the way down with our tenkara rods. I brought my Tenkara…
I got my Daiwa fluorocarbon Plasma Line from Japan today. While I’m completely happy with my Tenkara Bum and Tenkara USA level lines, I Just wanted to try something a little different. The diameter is 0.310 mm (0.012″) and is marked as a #3.5 line. This is a just little thinner than the…
One of the questions I get asked most often is what one needs to start tying tenkara flies. The first thing I tell people is to NOT buy a fly tying kit. Kits are a perfect waste of money with just the right combination of wrong-sized feathers, useless colors of materials, and unnecessary tools. While…
Tenkara Bum is now offering their own line spools and I got my order for 3 of them today. They’re essentially identical to the Meiho blue spools sold by Tenkara USA but are a shrunken down version. [/caption] The smaller diameter would be good for a tenkara minimalist or the backpacker who wants the convenience…
One of the nice things about tenkara wet flies is that while they’re very simple in design, they allow for a lot of experimentation in body construction. This is probably the main thing that keeps me interested in them as a fly tier. Recently, I’ve been experimenting with wire bodies and epoxy bodies. Now, I’m…
Today, I received my long awaited custom tenkara fly box made by Rick Setina. It’s even more beautiful in person than the pictures he sent me in advance lead on. The lid is Maple and has my name in Japanese (katakana alphabet) burned into the lower right corner. The bottom is Cherry which contrasts nicely…
I’ve been making a lot of my own Tenkara level lines lately and I’ve noticed small problem: they all look the same. At first, I tried putting them on Tenkara USA blue spools and marking the spool with a Sharpie marker to indicate the line’s diameter and length. Of course, I ran out of spools…
After many years of going “netless” I have recently become a strong advocate for using nets. I used to use a net when I fished for larger browns and rainbows back east. But for the small fish I was mostly catching since I moved to the Rockies, I always thought a net wasn’t really necessary…
Today, I got some fluorocarbon tenkara level line and a nice note from Chris Stewart of Tenkarabum.com. Chris is a level line guru and has tried just about every type of level line out there but also encourages experimentation. So I was delighted when he sent me a couple of “extras” to try out. The…
I headed over to my local fly shop today to pick up some hooks and there happened to be a fly fishing class going on. While I was scouring the hook wall trying to find some #16s, I was eavesdropping, listening to what the instructor was saying. And it was painful. The “class” listened in…
In my last post, I talked about some of my experiments with epoxy sakasa kebari (reverse hackle tenkara flies). I was tying some more at my desk tonight and an idea struck me… Many tenkara wet flies use a bright-colored thread between the eye of the hook and where the hackle begins. It could be…
Several years ago, I started tying epoxy midges to fish a very tough local spring creek in Western New York. The flies themselves were developed in the UK and were brilliantly simple, yet deceptively effective. Across the pond, they’re called “epoxy buzzers” and are mostly fished in larger sizes on big reservoirs. But I…
Many people talk about high visibility fluorocarbon level lines for Tenkara fly fishing and I’ve recently gotten into them. As a predominantly dry fly fisher, I really don’t “see” (get it) the need for this. And, I think in certain situations, it’s best to have a line you can cast over the fish without scaring…