okay , why do these guys only have a couple of flies and we , regular fly gear fisherman, have so many patterns to choose from?
okay , why do these guys only have a couple of flies and we , regular fly gear fisherman, have so many patterns to choose from?
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It is a Zen thing... I switch between Tenkara and western style. When I fish Tenkara I take a small shoulder bag with everything in it. When I fish western I wear a 28 pocket vest (and have stuff left over). Go figure.
yep, 500 flies for a couple of fish
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For my Tenkara fishing, I take a couple "western" flies to fish.
For my conventional fly angling, I take a couple "western" flies to fish.
Lately, for either approach, it has been three or four of the same FEB golden stone pattern and three or four of the same Duck's Green Drake pattern.
In the near future, it will be a few of the same FEB October Caddis pattern.
Through that timeframe, I'll take along a few of a couple smaller caddis and mayfly patterns and a few Griffith's gnats, just in case.
After that, when the weather gets really cold, it will be a few of the same rubber legs stonefly nymph pattern.
May sound boring, but the fishing ain't.
John
The fish are always right.
no John , i am with you, its just curious to me how many bizzzilion flies there are out there, variants, and how few tenkara flies there are. as a commercial tyer, i just cant keep up with all the newness of gotta have materials anymore and have stopped trying to. its just mind boggling..... in my own pack , i have just a few flies for the places i have dialed in and a couple streamers.
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I have went from a vest to an over-the-shoulder bag... and I have fished maybe 6 different flies so far since March. It would be fewer, but the different fish I am after require different styles of flies. You can't target bluegills using size 1 bucktail minnows too effectively!
The Green Hornet strikes again!!!
If you mean the Japanese anglers who know what Tenkara is, it is because they typically are fishing only a specific place and time for a specific kind of fish.
I get a laugh out of the "I fish Tenkara" and "I fish WESTERN" comments. Get real, guys. If you are fishing a body of water in North America with your pole and string rig, you're fishing Tenkara in name only. Whatever, I don't care, I just gotta laugh. ( I lived in Japan, and was exposed to Tenkara-style fishing while I was there.) We tend to make a whole lot more out of labels and image than we do out of the activity itself.
You may be right about the specific place / time / fish thing in Japan. My own take is that they are following a tradition of using a simple, effective system to put food on the table ( kind of like farm boys using worms to bring home some dinner - how many kinds of worms are there ?? ) or have something to take to the market for a profit.
As to distinguishing between one style of or approach to angling and other styles or approaches, words are helpful, at least to those of us who have some interest in communicating about such things. Tenkara is a word that in this country at this time on this Bulletin Board pretty much suggests a certain approach using a particular kind of gear, to distinguish it from conventional or "western" fly angling gear, and from switch and spey gear, for example.
For the vast majority of us, it's not a matter of making stuff out of lables and image, it's actually a way of talking about the activity itself.
I do think that some of your comments disparage the owner of the FAOL website and this Bulletin Board who chose to provide a Tenkara Forum for people to share their experiences, and a lot of good people who enjoy the opportunity to do so. If all that makes you laugh, you are most likely laughing alone.
John
The fish are always right.
Well said John. Thanks kindly.
Yup, that happens a lot! In fact the older I get, the more often it happens. Last I looked, this isn't the tenkara forum.
What makes me laugh is that by and large, in most cases, someone using a cane pole, string and a sponge spider would be looked on as inferior but someone using a $200 graphite pole, a few feet of fly line and only carrying a few copies of the same fly would be looked on as philosophic, advanced, and superior. Again, that's a generalization but if you're honest you know it's true in the fly fishing world today.