Tenkara Flies

[DShock]

This is what I found at the Tenkara site: http://www.tenkarausa.com/shopping_cart.php
I clicked on every link I could, to find out if $7.50 was for maybe a half dozen flies, but it seems that each fly retails for $7.50.
I probably made a mistake navigating the site, so I would be happy to hear what your thoughts are!
Thanks,
Doug

[gzacckey]

It's for 3 flies. I believe it is on their site somewhere. That's still expensive for flies but the materials are also expensive.

Do you have a Tenkara rod? I was thinking of playing around with one on the small streams around me.

[CM_Stewart]

Doug,

The price is for three flies.

From the home page, click on the flies picture. At the top of the page is some text talking about tenkara flies, and at the bottom of the text it says "Price is for three flies."

I have to say I was a bit skeptical about the blue and yellow hackle, and the caddis/mayfly variant, but I caught fish on them. I haven't fished them enough to know if they're better than my tried and true favorites, but I did catch fish.

I read a post on another forum by a guy who bought a tenkara rod in Japan. The shop owner, who apparently is an expert tenkara fisherman, kind of scoffed at the whole idea of matching the hatch. I think tenkara fishing in Japan is primarily on high gradient mountain streams that are probably closest to our brookie streams. Brookies do not require you to match the hatch. The fish I caught on the tenkara flies were browns, ranging from 8 to 13 inches.

You can certainly use your own flies, but I can guarantee you that the fish that have seen hundreds if not thousands of parachute Adams have never seen these flies before!

[DShock]

It's for 3 flies. I believe it is on their site somewhere. That's still expensive for flies but the materials are also expensive.

Do you have a Tenkara rod? I was thinking of playing around with one on the small streams around me.

No I do not have a Tenkara rod. I am glad for Jimmy's post, because I had never seen them before.
Doug

[DShock]

CM Stewart,
Thanks for the logical explanation. The various Reverse Hackle patterns are interesting! I think the hackle looks a little short and maybe stiff? Maybe they are supposed to be Emergers?
Doug

[JeffHamm]

Hi,

I came across a Tenkara site a few years ago. It showed some of the flies and I thought they were interesting. I tied up something out the materials I had. They were the bead head type, and the pattern I came up with was:

Hook: size 14-12 scud
Bead: copper (larger than usual)
Tail : tuft red yarn
Body: peacock herl
Rib : red floss
Hackle: oversized brown hen

The body looks like that for Hardy's favorite, the tail is like a red tag, and the bead and hackle were sized larger than usual.

Anyway, I also did one with a yellow rib and tail with an olive hackle. I just call them 'Japanese Red Fly' and 'Japanese Yellow Fly' because I could never remember Tenkara. I don't nymph often, so I had these in my fly box for quite a while before remembering to try them! I was fishing the Waihou, and some of the pools are very deep and fast. I decided to try the red one, and tossed it up above the pool while I had to stand on the bank, and the fly would drift down through the pool. After a drift or two, I thought I saw movement and a flash, so I lifted the rod, and had a fish on. Not a big one (not many large fish in this stream), but I was very pleased with the result since I do so poorly with nymphs (not enough practice, and without practice, not a lot of improvement!). On another trip, the yellow one did the trick while fishing a fast, but shallow, stretch.

[Greg H]

Aside from the fact that rod collapses and is made of graphite, I think Isaac Walton would be very comfortable with this style of fishing. Long rod, line of equal length, no reel. Turn back the clock for this one.

"That's still expensive for flies but the materials are also expensive." I don't think the reverse hackle wet flies contain expensive materials. Nor does the beadhead nymph look expensive.

I think Tenkara is how you spell Japanese Polish Nymphing - count me among the skeptics regarding its popularity in North America.

[DShock]

http://www.alles.or.jp/~berserkr/E/tenkara.html
Doug

[CM_Stewart]

Greg,

If you want to fish a nymph Polish style, a tenkara rod is a very reasonable choice, although they are too light to fish the heaviest Polish nymphs. But that is really not what a tenkara rod is designed for. The long rod and light line allow you to keep nearly all your line off the water, so when fishing dries or upstream wets drag is minimized. You can fish an eddy across a current seam, and keep the fly in the eddy. When there are multiple, tricky currents, you can fish with the fly and only a few inches of tippet in just the current seam you want, so the others don't wreck your presentation.

Many of the tenkara flies have reverse hackles. With the fly just under the surface and only the fly and tippet in the water, you can make the hackle pulse with very subtle pulls on the rod, giving the impression of life. You just can't do that with a short rod and heavy line.

I still have a lot to learn, but I am pretty sure that the reason tenkara fishing is so effective has a lot more to do with presentation than fly selection, and it allows a delicate presentation that cannot be accomplished any other way.

Edited 11/15/10 to say that I have since decided that a tenkara rod really isn't a great choice for polish nymphing because the tip sections, being designed for casting a very light line and unweighted fly, are really too soft to get good hooksets while Polish nymphing. If you did want to use a tenkara rod for Czech or Polish nymphing, though, I would suggest the Backpacking Light "Hane" which is by far the stiffest tenkara rod available - stiff enough that it would not be my first choice for tenkara fishing where a very light line and delicate presentation was called for.

[Ken Y]

Some of the flies should be really expensive because of the material, and process in making them. The feathers used to be made of the native birds. Nowadays, the materials are subs., but they are still very expensive. The materials need to have the right tranlucency in the water to be in their full potential. Some of the best flies are made traditionaly.