bobbyg, I don't think anyone has said that, either here or on any other forum. Perhaps something has gotten left out of the discussion. They are not called "tenkara flies" to limit their use to tenkara rods. They're called tenkara flies because they were developed in Japan by fishermen who were fishing tenkara rods (which is all they had then). I suppose it's kind of like Spey flies being called Spey flies. There are a number of different styles of tenkara fly, and some of them are virtually indistinguishable from Western flies. I seems understandable that the styles that are the most different (the reverse hackle) are the ones that get the most mention.
They will work with a western fly rod, and western flies will work on with a tenkara rod. For the last two years, my two best flies, by far, were not tenkara flies (Frank Sawyer's Killer Bug and Hans Weilenmann's CDC & Elk).
Do these flies only catch trout on tenkara rods? No, obviously not. Does it matter in the least? Well, perhaps.
The reverse hackle flies probably do work better with a very long rod. As Donald Nicolson mentioned, nearly identical flies were developed in Italy for fishing high gradient mountain streams - with very long rods. The long rod allows you to keep most of the line off the water, and by raising the rod tip give action to the fly by pulsing the hackle. Obviously, you can do that with a 9' rod as well. It's just that with a longer rod, you can do it a bit farther away, so you'll spook fewer fish.
No one is saying tenkara is the be all and end all. A lot of the people who try it seem to like it, and want to share their enthusiasm.
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