If I had to name one tying material that rivaled the versatility and universal fish-catching properties of the venerable peacock herl, it might be Jaimeson’s Shetland Spindrift Yarn. And lately, I’ve been tying the majority of my “working” flies with it. Why? It’s fast and easy to tie with. Just a few wraps of yarn…
Back in 2012, I wrote an article about how I came to know and develop a fondness for a version of Frank Sawyer’s Killer Bug pattern which had become a quick favorite among tenkara anglers: the Utah Killer Bug. The Utah Killer bug was developed by the Tenkara Guides as a modern answer to Frank Sawyer’s…
My mad-scientist friend and tenkara partner-in-crime Dennis Vander Houwen has been tucked away in his wood shop again working on some really interesting projects. A couple of them aren’t ready to be announced to the world just quite yet (soon) but today when we met up on the stream, he gave me a few samples…
Unlike the soft hackle of their more famous cousins, the sakasa kebari, tenkara stiff hackle flies use dry fly hackle to create resistance in the water rather than absorb water and undulate fluidly. The fibers still do move somewhat, but their main purpose is to anchor the fly in the water for certain sasoi presentations…
The Takayama Sakasa Kebari is one of the most iconic patterns in tenkara and has always been a good producer for me. My version incorporates two glass beads at the head which add sparkle and just enough weight to get it down when needed without getting snagged on the bottom the way brass or tungsten…
If you’ve done any research at all into Japanese tenkara patterns, you’ve undoubtedly come across Yoshikazu Fujioka’s excellent site My Best Streams. It’s probably the most comprehensive catalog in English of kebari by region in Japan and as its curator, Fujioka, is a well-known expert on traditional patterns. Back in 2003, I interviewed him about…
This is one of those “I already know someone’s thought of it (before I even say it)” ideas, but I had the thought last night to tie some simple stiff-hackle tenkara flies with Kevlar thread. I don’t normally use Kevlar, but I had some left over from my days tying bass and saltwater flies and…
Yesterday, I posted some pictures of my recent acquisition of some kebari from Yuzo Sebata for my tenkara fly collection, and today, I wanted to share some flies I got from Hisanobu Hirata. Hirata-san might not be a household name to many western tenkara anglers the way Dr. Ishigaki or Tenkara no Oni are, but…
I’ve always felt that flies were the “currency” of our sport. We trade them, gift them, hide them, steal them, covet them. Indeed, they possess something of intrinsic value. They embody part of the very soul of the tyer. And to me, they’re far more valuable than money. I’ve been lucky enough to amass a…
Ever since my passion for tenkara was kindled, I had the idea to somehow document the path of its “new” history as it would inevitably develop in the West. Early on, I started collecting what I saw as soon-to-be artifacts that would one day serve as markers of modern tenkara’s coming of age outside of…
If you follow my fly tying at all, you probably know I’m a big fan of Firehole Sticks hooks from Firehole Outdoors. I wrote a post not too long ago about their #315 and #633 competition hooks and have been using them avidly ever since. As I mentioned, they’re high quality all around: strong, sharp,…
Midge and blue-winged olive hatches often coincide and two fish in adjacent feeding lanes could be keyed in on one or the other. So why not fish a fly that covers both? The Molive (“midge” + “olive”) is a crossover pattern that can be fished during such hatches and can be mistaken for an olive…
Probably the thing I love most about fly tying is that there are limitless possibilities for experimentation and how each experiment builds on the lessons of previous ones. You take a certain technique or style you’ve tried in the past and blend it with another (previously disparate one) to create an entirely new avatar. You…
It’s September and for me, that means one thing: IT’S HOPPER TIME! While most people here in Denver will be spending their Sundays watching the Broncos game, you’ll find me pounding the banks of my favorite hopper stream: The Big Thompson meadow stretch in Rocky Mountain National Park. With its lazily meandering currents, deep pools,…