Just Me & My Tenkara Gear

[flyguy66]

Well, it looks like I'll be cut down to nothing but Tenkara fishing for quite some time beginning very soon. I've got 3 tears in my left rotator cuff and shoulder muscles and a blown out left knee. The shoulder is bad. I'm going to be looking at serious surgery and long rehab. That means one-handed fly tying and fishing for many months. It's a good thing I'm the guru of adaptive fly fishing and fly tying, huh? LOL

Inside every dark cloud is a silver lining. I've never felt good enough about my one-handed fly tying skills, and it will be fun to spend more time Tenkara fishing. I may even have to figure out how to catch some small saltwater fish Tenkara-style - like Pin Fish and Mangrove Snapper. That would be a hoot! In the meantime, I'll have to settle for bream and bass, and the occasional trout when I can get to the mountains.

[narcodog]

Well,Well,Well what do we have here???

[flyguy66]

You might want to look back in the archives if you really have a question. I've been hanging around FAOL since about 1999 and became a columnist in something like 2002. Wrote for Deanna for a few years before my time was too consumed by my volunteer work with FFF and Project Healing Waters. The fly fishing community is a fairly small world that's been made considerably smaller by the Internet.

[narcodog]

Who cares you hypocrite.

[flyguy66]

Now that's rich! ROTFLMAO

Peace, love, and happiness to you too.

[Stan Wright]

Not only can you fish the tenkara with one hand.... Right or left hand. It's also lighter than a rod w/ reel. So much easier especially if your arm or shoulder is hurting.

[flyguy66]

Very true, Stan. But it's my left shoulder that will be operated on, and I'm right-hand dominant. So that's not an issue for me. In my case, I simply won't be able to use the left arm much for awhile, and I do a lot of kayak fishing, fish saltwater quite a bit, and use two-handed rods as well as one-handed tackle and Tenkara...all right and left handed...in the course of working with people with disabilities. While this is cramping my style in many ways, it will also allow me to hone my skills in one-handed activity modifications and adaptive and assistive device knowledge: Tenkara, one-handed fly tying, etc. It never hurts to get better at any of these things when you're teaching them, but the skills you have to cover as an AFFP are so broad that there just isn't enough time to master it all. So you focus on what you need at the present time, but it is usually driven by other people's injuries/disabilities. This time it is my own.

I was introduced to Tenkara living in Japan for 3 years back in the early 1990s and have a degree in Asian History. It is the most popular type of fishing there. Tenkara tackle is sold in stores equivalent to our pharmacies, dime stores, discount stores like Dollar General and Walmart, hardware stores, and virtually anywhere else you can think of that any sort of recreational product might be found. It's the equivalent of the spin-cast rod-reel combo, ranging from a $10 "snoopy combo" to a serious fishing tool. Heck, there are even high-end custom Tenkara rods with exotic inlays and such, but the real insight is the low-end cost and extremely common availability. Tenkara is anything but exclusive, elitist, esoteric, or considered "fishing like a Samurai" by the Japanese! In fact, Tenkara never was a past-time of any Samurai. Anyone who understands Japanese cultural history knows that. Samurai did not fish - period. They had people for that sort of thing. They very rarely hunted. They did not farm. Only after the Meiji Restoration...when they were effectively outlawed...did they begin to engage in bow hunting and falconry, but they still didn't touch the birds or game they shot. To this day in Japan, people who touch animal carcasses, fish, or dead bodies (humans) are called Barakumen. This is a social class in Japan. It is the lowest social class, and they of non-Japanese ancestry (Koreans, Einu, etc.) or peasants. Barakumen translates into English as "the unclean" in the same sense as people used to think of Lepers! Samurai were the top social class in Japan, and many generations of your ancestors had killed and died to get you there. The average life expectancy of a member of the Bushi class male (the social caste of the Samurai) was 28 years old. Most were killed in duels or battle, and most died simultaneously to their opponent. They weren't exactly big into leisure pursuits except for a brief period of "feminization" during the Edo Period, and again after the wearing of swords and top knot hair styles were outlawed in the late 1800s...when the Bushi class effectively dissolved and assimilated into the Japanese political-bureaucratic or agricultural classes.

[Stan Wright]

Bet you miss the onsen... I sure do. LOL
Onsen (Large).jpg

[fishin' chewy]

Flyguy66 if you get too frustrated tying and need some flies so you can fish let me know and I will see if I can wrap a few of your patterns up for you.

[flyguy66]

Bet you miss the onsen... I sure do. LOL
Attachment 9406

You know it! Onsen, the sushi, and Asahi Z...those are the 3 things I miss the most.