What makes a fly a Tenkara fly ?

[Deleted]

I've been thinking about this a fair bit since discovering Tenkara, what makes a fly a Tenkara fly ?

Most of the Tenkara flies I see online are sparse reversed hackle flies that remind me a lot of north country spiders.

Is there some way to say....this is a Tenkara fly....and this is not ?

I like to experiment with flies although most of my experiments never make it farther my own flybox, does anyone know of a good Japanese Tenkara flyshop when I could get some inspiration or just a better understanding of what a Tenkara fly acctually is ?

Most of our "western" flies are designed to imitate real insects whereas Tenkara flies (as far as I can tell) are only supposed to suggest a food item to the fish, can a fly tyer take an imitative approach to Tenkara flies ?.


Oh, maybe too many questions

[cm_stewart]

The dressings you see on line all seem to share the same Sakasa Kebari (reverse hackle fly) pattern because that is the one that catches our eye as being the most different or exotic compared to the flies we have had in our boxes. Not all tenkara flies are of that pattern.

The best on-line exposition of historical tenkara syles is a few pages on Fujioka's site: www.hi-ho.ne.jp/amago/b-streams/flytying/tenkara.html and www.hi-ho.ne.jp/amago/b-streams/flytying/Kebari_Pattern-E.pdf

A modern examination of the diversity of flies used for tenkara (I suppose that makes them tenkara flies, doesn't it?) is on Yoshida's site: yoshidakebari.jugem.jp/ You can see that he is not in any way limited by what we in the West think of as a proper "tenkara fly."

Of course you can take an imitative approach. The anglers in Japan who fish only one pattern say that by varying their presentation they can fish anywhere, anytime. That is one approach. It is not the only approach. There are no tenkara police.

[Deleted]

Thanks a lot for the links, the blog is especially interesting, looking at the flies tied by Tenkara anglers it becomes apparent that they're not all that different from our own creations. This probably makes my original question difficult to answer.

[custheyder]

Indeed it does make it difficult to answer as well as defining "Tenkara" as tightly as some would like to. Tenkara fishermen in Japan DO use dry flies and they still call it Tenkara. Thanks for the links Chris.