Tenkara Style Fishing

I would like to talk about fly-fishing, however not western fly-fishing but the Japanese style known as Tenkara.

I gave a brief description of this style in an earlier article, but now I would like to expand on the topic.

Tenkara is the modern version of the earliest known style of fly-fishing.

Although the Japanese did not invent fly-fishing, similar styles of “rod-line-fly” fishing have existed in Europe – and probably throughout much of the world for centuries.

What is different is that the Japanese did not give up on that simple fishing style after reels were invented or when they became commonplace.

In Japan the technique has been used for centuries – and still is –, especially in high mountain gradient stream fishing for small trout in tight hard to reach areas where casting a long line is not necessary or useful.

Tenkara rods are quite long – most are 10 to 14 feet, and despite their length, they are extremely light, from 2oz. up to 4oz.

The rods are telescopic and can collapse down to 15” to 24”, which make them very compact for travel, moving through brush, and hard to reach places very easily.

The Tenkara is simplicity personified.

There is a rod, line and fly and you can start to fish that quick. This style is not for large fish, although some newer models can handle up to 16” to 20” trout.

The flies used in Japan are called “Sakasa Kebari,” which is nothing more than a reverse hackle fly.

In Japan, many traditional anglers use one fly pattern up to a few in two different sizes and do very well catching fish. This does not mean that you cannot use traditional western style flies.

Again, simplicity is the hallmark of Tenkara, whereas in the western world we have hundreds of different flies and sizes. So many that it boggles the mind, especially if you are new to the sport of fly-fishing.

If you have ever wanted to try fly-fishing and are overwhelmed with the choices of rods, reels, lines and everything else – this may be the right choice for you. It sure can save a lot of time, trouble and money in trying to figure it out.

In 2012, I heard of Tenkara and was curious as to how it worked.

I started doing hours of research on the rods, lines and casting technique and thought that it seemed to simple and easy to work here in the US, but I found a small following that were getting excellent results.

After doing the research on what rod length would best suit the waters I like to fish, I decided on a Tenkara USA 12’ Iwana rod.

I asked some questions on what line would work with the type of conditions I might have to deal with and ordered the line.

All that remained was to add a tippet, the same as used in western fly-fishing. My fly selection was based on western hatches or bugs commonly found for the time of year.