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.