New to Tenkara

[paulh]

Hi all
New member living on the borders of Staffs and Derbyshire. Most of my fishing is on the Dove and Derwent and has been on the fly and trotting.
Went out today, on the Derwenrt, Cromford Fly Fishers water, first time with new Tenkara rod, blanked!
Trying to get more information of fly patterns, any help would be really welcomed. I tie my own flies.
Would like to hear what patterns you'd recommend for trout and grayling 
Looking forward to gaining new skills and having some fun.
cheers

[custheyder]

While you get used to the action of the rod and casting I would suggest you use the patterns that you are most confident with for your western tackle. Provided of course they are not seriously heavy tungsten beaded fella's.

Try to keep as much line off the water as possible. If you can cast to land fly first and keep the line off the water from the get go, you'll do even better.

Try to shorten up your casting stroke between 10 and 12 on the clock face, if you haven't already, and make the "stop" on the back cast as prominent as "stop on the forward tap.

Hopefully some of that will help you along the road to Tenkara.

[dbl]

TenkaraBum has a page on Tenkara flies. Not everyone will agree on his take,but he gives reasons for his choices.

Elsewhere, if you look up tying of the Ishigaki sakasa kebari (i.e. reverse hackled fly as tied by Dr Ishigaki) and the Takayama sakasa kebari, you will have the two Japanese flies most commonly used here, I believe. You will not find them difficult to tie!

The most authoritative source for information on Japanese flies for Tenkara is "My Best Streams", which is written in both Japanese and English. I have linked to the English version. Contrary to common belief tenkara anglers used dry flies in some areas and you can see some on his pages.

Discover Tenkara has two excellent DVDs about tenkara if you get bored at Christmas...

[adric]

I would agree with custheyder use the western style flies you normally use and then when you get more experienced try others. Spider style flies are really suited to the tenkara set up.

[paulh]

Big thank you for all of your kind advice, looking forward to getting onto the Dove this Saturday. Cheers