I’ve tied and had success catching fish with some clones of various kebari or flies that I have found in different places. Here are a few of them.
To a certain extent I believe ugly flies are attractive to fish. This belief comes from things I have found on line, or read in books about the fly patterns used decades in the past. In Paul Schullery’s book, Fly Fishing Secrets of the Ancients, in Chapter 2, which was titled Rag Tag and Rumpled, or similar title. He described a fly, he called the Hank O Hair, that he said was given to him years ago by a friend who said it’s a popular fly at a favorite fly shop in Utah. A few months back I sent Paul a picture of my version. His reply was what I expected. That the original he saw had a little sparser hair, and the shank winding was shorter, only long enough to tie on the hair. But my version has caught a lot of fish. And if anything it is simpler to tie than what most people here see as the stereotype Tenkara kebari. If you do a google search for Hank O Hair, you can find a few websites with instruction how to tie them, but they are quite different from Mr. Schullery’s description.
This one I saw on an old video of Sebata Yuzo. I just call it a Kyogihimo kebari. Kyogihimo 「松経木ひも」is actually a type of string made from very thin wood shaving. I got a bundle of it from a shop in NYC.
I tied the Kyogihimo kebari by over wrapping the Kyogihimo over a base layer of 3M Temflex Tape. Self fusing tape is another material used by Sebata Yuzo. It helps sink the fly. The tape can be left bare, or over wrapped with some other material, such a peacock or ostrich herl, or thread in various colors.
Kebari with the hackle toward the hook bend would be a hackle type called a 順毛鉤 (jun kebari) or Forward Kebari. In contrast to the Reverse Hackle or Sakasa Kebari 逆さ毛鉤 .
Katayama Etsuji (片山悦二) is a field tester for Daiwa. He helps develop their Level Lines and Level Line Tenkara rods. On many websites or in videos he can be seen using a kebari of this pattern & color. I have found them to work quite well.
I would probably judge this hackle orientation type as neutral, neither forward facing or reverse facing. Generally called a 普通毛鉤 (futsū kebari) hackle type kebari. However, the terms futsū kebari and jun kebari are used rather casually some people preferring either one name or the other for kebari of either type. Only the name sakasa kebari seems to be used a little more strictly for reverse hackle kebari.
Has an article written by Takashi Yoshida that begins on page 104. Part of the title is 佐藤垢石の毛鉤を巻く , Winding the Kebari of Koseki Sato.
佐藤垢石 Koseki Sato was a well know fishing essayist, and author of books. I think Mr. Koseki Sato passed away in 1956 at the age of 68 y.o., so these are old school kebari patterns.
Takashi Yoshida’s article in the magazine is about winding 10 different kebari found in Koseki Sato’s book, 山女魚釣 , Yamame Fishing.
This is a picture of page 111 from that article showing three reproductions of the kebari in Koseki Sato’s book.
The Hachi (bee) kebari posted previously was is one of them. Another one I have tied, used, and had success with is the ゼンマイ胴クジャク止め 毛鉤 (zenmai dō kujaku tome kebari).
The literal translation would be Zemai body peacock stop kebari. Probably better translated as zenmai body peacock end kebari. Not a lot different from some other kebari, only the peacock herl has been moved from just behind the hackle to the hook bend. Here is my version.
