I think it is important to keep in mind that the early tenkara anglers were commercial fishermen. They use what worked and what they could make themselves or acquire inexpensively. Although there aren't contemporary accounts of their fishing, there are for at least a couple of the commercial fishermen in England and Scotland, who used very similar equipment. James Bailey, a commercial angler who was known as the best angler in Scotland, used a rod made of Hazel and a horsehair line tied to the rod tip. David Webster, a commercial angler in England, used a wooden rod and horsehair line tied to the rod tip long after reels were common place. He also used 9 flies at a time. I seriously doubt that either one of them - or any of the early tenkara anglers in Japan - would have been at all swayed by ideas that they should limit their gear or techniques to fit someone else's idea of what was "proper." The Halfordian ideas that fly fishing should only be done upstream and only with dry flies and only to rising trout, or the purist ideas that tenkara should only be done with a cork gripped rod of at least 11', with only a single unweighted wet fly, and only for salmonids in mountain streams may be fine for someone fishing for sport, but not for someone fishing for his livelihood. I would argue that the "spirit of tenkara" is to use what works.

Personally, I believe that fishing dries, emergers, wets, nymphs, hoppers, poppers, bugs and buggers can all be tenkara. Weighted or unweighted is fine. Brookies, bluegills, bass and bluehead chubs are all fair game. Floating indicators and sinking split shot - if you want to use them go ahead. A few weeks ago I had a great time catching trout with a 7' rod with virtually no grip at all. I would and did call it tenkara fishing.

I had a very nice conversation with Dr. William Hanneman yesterday. He developed the Common Cents system for measuring and comparing fly rods, and is working on an article applying the same techniques to tenkara rods. His suggestion was that we ignore the tenkara vs. not tenkara argument entirely. Call them all "telescopic rods" match them with the appropriate line and go fishing. Wise advice, I'd say.