"What is Tenkara?" It's a bit like asking "What is jazz?" Some people would say that Kenny G is jazz, but if that's true then why is Louis Armstrong also jazz? How is it that one term, "Jazz", can encompass everything from Bix Beiderbecke to Allan Holdsworth; from Charlie Christian to Charlie Hunter?

The answer is that Tenkara, like jazz, like fly fishing, like any pursuit or endeavor, is a mixture of things. At it's core Tenkara is a rod with no reel. The line is tied to the end of the rod. However, cane fishing is also a single rod with no reel and the line tied to the end. The difference is that in Tenkara you also cast the line in a style very similar to a standard fly fishing cast.

But we must also realize that as broad a definition as that is, there is still a difference between Tenkara the equipment, and Tenkara the technique. Tenkara the technique often uses a single fly which is presented in different ways. So that begs the question "Is using an elk hair caddis on a Tenkara rod still Tenkara?" I think it is. Western fly fishing, for example, originated by casting a dry fly upstream to a rising trout who was swimming in a chalk stream in Great Briton. So is swinging a weighted nymph in a mountain stream in the Sierras is still fly fishing? Of course it is. And what about the guys catching 150 pound tarpon on a fly? That's about as far from a dry fly on a chalk stream as you can get but we still think of it as fly fishing.

I think there's a tendency for people to think that there is one right way and once they've found a way that works then every other way must be wrong. This is true in music, art and even fly fishing. When Daniel from TenkaraUSA says that Tenkara is very useful just about everywhere you'd use a 4wt fly rod or lighter he's not also saying "and therefore you should throw away all your 4wt fly rods". I'm sure that many of us have known, or know of, fly fishermen who think that dry flies are the only way to fly fish. John Geirech once wrote about a time he was fishing with his buddy A.K. Best. When John used a nymph A.K. chided him saying "If I knew you would be fishing bait I wouldn't have brought you." Joking aside I don't think any of us would say that John wasn't fly fishing.

So I guess a general hand waving sort of definition of a Tenkara rod would be: A long, soft action rod with no reel where the line is tied to the end of the rod and the line is designed to be cast.

It's just another fun way to fish and that's what should matter.