What is Tenkara?

[Simon]

Tenkara has been in the UK now for nearly 3 years! From a very slow start things are going from strength to strength. But what is Tenkara, and what do we mean when we say we fish Tenkara style?
As you watch others using different styles of fly fishing, Czech nymphing, leader to hand, upstream dry fly, upstream nymphs, most are fishing the same way we are with but with weston rods, the reel is no longer used to fight fish but, as a line holder? How many times have you been down to the backing?
So my question is, should Tenkara be recognised as a technique in its own right, I believe that it should be. The rods are known as Tenkara rods, designed for the fishing "method", should the above methods be also under the same title as I can see little difference.
Over to you, what do you think?

Simon.

[custheyder]

I would agree with you that it should be a method in it's own right. After all it's not just about the tackle made specifically for the job it's also about the casting and line handling. When will you see a western style fisher hand lining a long leader? Very very rarely.

Having watched all the Tenkara clips I can find, particularly the Japanese ones there are casting and line handling techniques that I have not seen used very often on western rivers, if at all! With such light leaders I think the techniques will filter back from Tenkara to the other western methods in time. Therefore I feel it should be a recognised method in it's own right.

Cust.

[Deleted]

If im fishing with a Tenkara rod then its Tenkara fishing to me regardless of fly choice or method. Some of the more purist form of Tenkara fisher persons would argue the case for traditional japanese methods & flies only approach to be truly Tenkara fishing.

[karel]

well, to me there is "tenkara fishing" and there is "fishing tenkara". The fist is the traditional Japanese style of fishing and technique(s), the other is using tenkara as tool or technique adapting to our "local" types of fishing, i.e. fishing with a dry fly, dry & dropper, nymphing etc.

I try to do more tenkara fishing to honor its roots but often I keep going back using it as a tool knowing how to catch more fish with my other techniques. I do like to catch fish and not just wave a stick and look cool.

[Deleted]

I'm broadly in agreement with Karel. Tenkara fishing is the traditional Japanese method with a single unweighted wet fly. The majority of what we do is flyfishing with a Tenkara rod. Or possibly just fly fishing.

The earlier forms in the UK involed casting with a long rod and a fixed line so perhaps we are all Walton/Cotton reenactors.

I think it is always worth remembering that Tenkara is a specific method but there is no pointgetting het up over whether you are Tenkara fishing or fishing with a tenkara rod. After all whatever form of flyfishing I persue I won't catch any fish so why worry?

[myotis]

Can I re-open this thread, as it adresses a point I made in another post.

As far as I can make out traditional tenkara is using a subsurface fly, that is given short pulls to give it life as it comes towards the surface, it also seems from the Japanese videos, that there are other aspects that might be regarded as Tenkara, such as three casts and moving onto the next spot, hitting the water hard with the fly, to attract the fishes attention.

Although, this may well have evolved into other things, this seems to be the essence of Tenkara fishing, not defined by the rod, and absence of reel, but defined by the fishing style. And, as such sits alongside, upstream nymphing, upstream wet fly etc.

Just as rods of different charactistics have evolved to suit different fishing styles, tenkara rods have evolved to suit the tenkara style of fishing. But I don't think the rod should be the definer of the fishing style.

My first dry fly fishing was done with a 6ft Abu spinning rod with the reel attached with simple ring that allowed a secondhand fly reel to be placed where you expect a fly reel to be placed. I used backing soaked in floating, a level leader with no tippet and a blue dun or black spider dry fly. I still think I was fly fishing, even though I was using a spinning rod.

Iif you allow the rod to define the style, it makes it easier for rivers to ban Tenkara if we say, "I fish Tenkara" than saying "I fish dry fly with a Tenkara 5:5 rod (a 21st century version of the traditional loop rod). At least I think it does.

Is it important, unfortunately, I fear it might be. All too often you see decisions made that ignore the facts and rely entirely on perception.

Graham

[custheyder]

Always good to re-open a thread.

There are examples of traditional Tenkara flies that are designed to be fished dry with stiff hackles.

Just a random thought.... is Tenkara defined in Japan by the type of water that is being fished? ... I say this because the manufacturers frequently put the Tenkara rods, lines, hooks etc. in a section called "Mountain Streams."

With a slight adjustment I'm sure I could make one of these stick to a Tenkara rod with a couple of o-rings.



Then I am fish with a rod and reel... let them say otherwise.

[myotis]

Custheyder,

I did know there were Tenkara dry flies, but I thought these were a more recent addition, as Tenkara became more fashionable as a way of sport fishing, rather than the subsistence tenkara of mountain village people.

But I don't know :-(

Graham

[custheyder]

Who does have the answers? I certainly don't have them. I would love to travel to Japan to talk with the old boys in the mountains that remember their fathers teaching them. As in Western fly fishing I am not sure that there isn't an element of elitism amongst the modern Tenkara masters. However, I do not know them personally and it remains pure speculation. If I do meet them one day and find they are genuine down to earth characters then I'll recant the statement with great joy.

[myotis]

Re-reading the intro to Tenkara in Kelleher and Ishimura, it's rather confusing with a suggestion that in the 19th century, it was a stiff rod, a float and artificial fly, with the rod style (albeit bamboo) that we know today not coming around until the 1920's.

Maybe we need to wait for JP to come out with his research.

Graham