This is what I found at the Tenkara site: http://www.tenkarausa.com/shopping_cart.php
I clicked on every link I could, to find out if $7.50 was for maybe a half dozen flies, but it seems that each fly retails for $7.50.
I probably made a mistake navigating the site, so I would be happy to hear what your thoughts are!
Thanks,
Doug
It’s for 3 flies. I believe it is on their site somewhere. That’s still expensive for flies but the materials are also expensive.
Do you have a Tenkara rod? I was thinking of playing around with one on the small streams around me.
Doug,
The price is for three flies.
From the home page, click on the flies picture. At the top of the page is some text talking about tenkara flies, and at the bottom of the text it says “Price is for three flies.”
I have to say I was a bit skeptical about the blue and yellow hackle, and the caddis/mayfly variant, but I caught fish on them. I haven’t fished them enough to know if they’re better than my tried and true favorites, but I did catch fish.
I read a post on another forum by a guy who bought a tenkara rod in Japan. The shop owner, who apparently is an expert tenkara fisherman, kind of scoffed at the whole idea of matching the hatch. I think tenkara fishing in Japan is primarily on high gradient mountain streams that are probably closest to our brookie streams. Brookies do not require you to match the hatch. The fish I caught on the tenkara flies were browns, ranging from 8 to 13 inches.
You can certainly use your own flies, but I can guarantee you that the fish that have seen hundreds if not thousands of parachute Adams have never seen these flies before!
No I do not have a Tenkara rod. I am glad for Jimmy’s post, because I had never seen them before.
Doug
CM Stewart,
Thanks for the logical explanation. The various Reverse Hackle patterns are interesting! I think the hackle looks a little short and maybe stiff? Maybe they are supposed to be Emergers?
Doug
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.
Aside from the fact that rod collapses and is made of graphite, I think Isaac Walton would be very comfortable with this style of fishing. Long rod, line of equal length, no reel. Turn back the clock for this one.
“That’s still expensive for flies but the materials are also expensive.” I don’t think the reverse hackle wet flies contain expensive materials. Nor does the beadhead nymph look expensive.
I think Tenkara is how you spell Japanese Polish Nymphing - count me among the skeptics regarding its popularity in North America.
Greg,
If you want to fish a nymph Polish style, a tenkara rod is a very reasonable choice, although they are too light to fish the heaviest Polish nymphs. But that is really not what a tenkara rod is designed for. The long rod and light line allow you to keep nearly all your line off the water, so when fishing dries or upstream wets drag is minimized. You can fish an eddy across a current seam, and keep the fly in the eddy. When there are multiple, tricky currents, you can fish with the fly and only a few inches of tippet in just the current seam you want, so the others don’t wreck your presentation.
Many of the tenkara flies have reverse hackles. With the fly just under the surface and only the fly and tippet in the water, you can make the hackle pulse with very subtle pulls on the rod, giving the impression of life. You just can’t do that with a short rod and heavy line.
I still have a lot to learn, but I am pretty sure that the reason tenkara fishing is so effective has a lot more to do with presentation than fly selection, and it allows a delicate presentation that cannot be accomplished any other way.
Edited 11/15/10 to say that I have since decided that a tenkara rod really isn’t a great choice for polish nymphing because the tip sections, being designed for casting a very light line and unweighted fly, are really too soft to get good hooksets while Polish nymphing. If you did want to use a tenkara rod for Czech or Polish nymphing, though, I would suggest the Backpacking Light “Hane” which is by far the stiffest tenkara rod available - stiff enough that it would not be my first choice for tenkara fishing where a very light line and delicate presentation was called for.
Some of the flies should be really expensive because of the material, and process in making them. The feathers used to be made of the native birds. Nowadays, the materials are subs., but they are still very expensive. The materials need to have the right tranlucency in the water to be in their full potential. Some of the best flies are made traditionaly.
[b]There is no reason why Tenkara flies should be any more expensive
than any other, if you tie your own, no problem. A lot of them are reverse hackle
flies, which are no more difficult than softhackle flies you are all familar
with.
Chris Stewart uses quite a few well known non-Japanese flies.
Sawyer’s Killer Bug is a prime example.
Now, I admit I have never, yet, fished with a Tenkara rod, but from what
I have gathered, Chris has done quite a lot. So if you think the flies are too
expensive, get tying, and use your smaller unweighted wet-flies.
Have a look at the Italian Alpine, Reverse Hackle and Tenkara sections
on my site, plenty of ideas there.
[/b]
To date, every fish I have caught on my Tenkara rod has been on a non-Tenkara fly.
While I don’t discount the effectiveness of any fly, it’s all about what you feel will work for you and the way you fish. I know the trout well where I fish and I never planned to change the flies I used when I changed the way I presented them.
So far, trout have succumbed to soft hackle flies like a Snipe & Purple, Partridge & Peacock and a soft hackle version of the Gold Ribbed Hare’s Ear. I also have done well with beadhead nymphs like the Prince and a flashback version of the GRHE.
From what I’ve seen and read about Tenkara flies, matching the hatch does
not seem to be an important requirement for their design and use.
The same seems true of the Italian Alpine flies.
This is because of the speed of flow in the mountain streams, the fish have to be quick if they are going to get anything to eat.
So if you are going to use your Tenkara rod on your home streams,
in which Traditional Wet flies, Spiders etc catch fish, then there
is no reason to use specialised mountain stream flies like the
Tenkara or Alpines. No doubt you will catch trout with them but the are not ‘magic’ flies.
And if you already have a good collection of Spiders etc, why spend good
money to no avail, or not much anyway.
always remember ‘mony a mickle mak’s a muckle’.
I agree with what Donald says about when fishing fast water, the fish never really get a good look. I will go a step farther and suggest that Tenkara allows for very precise presentation. When I say presentation, I mean the ability to precisely manipulate a fly. If we limit ourselves to only fishing dead drift, the only thing that separates our fly from a stick or a weed is the fly’s profile. Adding movement to the fly is another way to make it look alive, i.e. something good to eat.
In my mind, it’s the level of presentation that Tenkara allows that makes it such an effective method.
I have to agree with DT and pszy, with the Tenkara it’s the presentation and the ability to sneak up on the fish lies. It’s commando fishing at it’s best. I have not used any Tenkara flies yet but I do plan on tying some soon then I’ll be able to compare them.
Its all about using what best works for you in your situation at the time and what you are comfortable with. Whether Tenkara or traditional fly fishing 
Flies tied for a rod! What is the reasoning for that? Dry or wet action I understand.
Fish must be way more sophisticated than I imagined?
Local brookie to small rainbow…“Bow, don’t bother with that artificial, it’s being fished on a standard 7’ bamboo rod, wait for that fly that’s designed to be fished with a Tenkara rod. Sorrypal, but youwon’t be able to resist that irresistable Tenkara fly!”
Geez!!
Please, I have no problem with folks fishing the Tenkara rods. Whatever trips your trigger.
But, when you makestatements regarding “Tenkara only flies”, I gotta say whoa, gimme a break.
Please, someone prove to me that these flies only catch trout on Tenkara rods or that it matters in the least!
bobbyg, I don’t think anyone has said that, either here or on any other forum. Perhaps something has gotten left out of the discussion. They are not called “tenkara flies” to limit their use to tenkara rods. They’re called tenkara flies because they were developed in Japan by fishermen who were fishing tenkara rods (which is all they had then). I suppose it’s kind of like Spey flies being called Spey flies. There are a number of different styles of tenkara fly, and some of them are virtually indistinguishable from Western flies. I seems understandable that the styles that are the most different (the reverse hackle) are the ones that get the most mention.
They will work with a western fly rod, and western flies will work on with a tenkara rod. For the last two years, my two best flies, by far, were not tenkara flies (Frank Sawyer’s Killer Bug and Hans Weilenmann’s CDC & Elk).
Do these flies only catch trout on tenkara rods? No, obviously not. Does it matter in the least? Well, perhaps.
The reverse hackle flies probably do work better with a very long rod. As Donald Nicolson mentioned, nearly identical flies were developed in Italy for fishing high gradient mountain streams - with very long rods. The long rod allows you to keep most of the line off the water, and by raising the rod tip give action to the fly by pulsing the hackle. Obviously, you can do that with a 9’ rod as well. It’s just that with a longer rod, you can do it a bit farther away, so you’ll spook fewer fish.
No one is saying tenkara is the be all and end all. A lot of the people who try it seem to like it, and want to share their enthusiasm.
Thank you for the explanation CM.
Bob