As a beginning fly tier, one concept was thoroughly drilled into my brain by the cronies at the local fly shop: match the hatch. The “goal” of fly tying was to imitate specific species of insects and the more realistic the fly was, the better it was. It made perfect sense. The trout are eating…
The more I fish tenkara the more I’m starting to think about flies in terms of “paradigms” rather than “recipes”. Instead of specific patterns like an Oki Kebari or Takayama Kebari, I’m starting to think more in terms of the general characteristics a fly has such as movement, silhouette, attention point, and size. One of the…
I’ve been meaning to share this fly for some time but for whatever reason, haven’t gotten around to it until now. It’s one of my most productive flies and although tenkara flies typically don’t intentionally match the hatch, I call it the “Clear Creek Kebari” because it’s a top producer on my home river of…
One of the main reasons the sakasa kebari style fly is so effective is because the hackle moves underwater making it look alive (click here for an underwater video to see one in action). Like most flies, tiers use feathers for the hackle on their sakasa kebari. This is because the fibers are usually soft…
The Takayama sakasa kebari is a classic tenkara fly that is tied in many color variations. But basically, it’s characterized by having a thread abdomen, a peacock thorax, and forward facing hackle. My first encounter with this fly was the red version so that’s what I chose to base my interpretation on. Here’s my recipe…
Many of the streams tenkara anglers fish in Japan are fast flowing mountain streams. In those streams, fish have very little time to “inspect” food. If they hesitate, it’s gone–lost to the swift current or a competitor. A good fly for these conditions is a larger, easy-to-spot fly like the Oki Sakasa Kebari. For fast…
A while back, I posted some tenkara flies I got from Tenkara Times. I recently got another sample pack from them and thought I would share. I really like the look of the Sakakibara kebari and might start tying some up. Amano Kebari … Fuji Kebari … Olive Soft Hackle … To learn more about…
I just got a new tenkara rod today from Tenkara Times (review to follow) and it included a free sampling of some of their sakasa kebari. I didn’t think much of it at first until I opened up the packaging and saw the quality of tying. These are good tenkara flies. Here are some closeups…
No, I’m not trying to start a revolution (yet). “Viva” is a color scheme for fly patterns that is extremely popular on the UK Stillwater scene. The original Viva was a wet fly tied by Victor Furse for reservoir fishing but has since become a template color combination of black, chartreuse, and silver and is…
To western fly tiers, typical tenkara flies like sakasa kebari might seem boring. After all, many of them are nothing more than hackle and a thread body. No wings, no tails, no intricate bodies. It might seem that if one wanted to fish tenkara flies exclusively, they’d quickly tire of tying the same old thing.…