Patrick's First Tenkara Trout

[Sawtooth]

MikeB,

What length is your Iwana? I have an 11' Iwana (my favorite) and also the 12' handle. What a sweet rod...I'm glad you like it! I really like the way the 11' Iwana loads up and then just rolls that line right out there.

[KurtB]

Son just bought the 13 foot model. Actually caught his first fish on it down in Phoenix on spring break. Couple of channel cats on a san juan worm. Finally lost that fly when about a 3 pounder broker him off. I was impressed enough that I may also get one. He learned about them here so I also blame Sawtooth.

[Ironman]

Yep! It's all Sawtooths fault!!
I didn't even know what it was until I read this thread. Now I have been online reading about it, and looking at rods. Have watched some videos on it as well.

Now I need to get rigged up. Thanks a lot Sawtooth!

[elmbow]

Is the same kind of fishing the "po folks" used to do down on the Mississippi? I seem to recall stories of long cane poles with worms and big cats. My grandpa's bamboo poles were always quite short as he was constantly closing them in car doors, car windows, backing up over them, or stepping on them. Maybe that's a new challenging technique? Flyfishing with 6' poles about 1/4" diameter at the tip?

[Sawtooth]

No elmbow, it is not. Try 11'-14' fly rods, casting reverse hackle wet flies on the tiny end of 12' of line and 6X tippet. It's been going on, alive and well in small circles, in Japan, for a few hundred years. It's actually a very enlightening form of fly angling. The elegance and simplicity opens many doors! It's de-evolution and Evolution all at the same time! Tenkara is to fly angling what traditional archery is to bowhunting. Now I KNOW you'll understand that!

[Sawtooth]

Son just bought the 13 foot model. Actually caught his first fish on it down in Phoenix on spring break. Couple of channel cats on a san juan worm. Finally lost that fly when about a 3 pounder broker him off. I was impressed enough that I may also get one. He learned about them here so I also blame Sawtooth.

Did he get an Amago? It's my big water rod of choice.

[Sawtooth]

It's what the "po folks" used to use on the mountain streams of Japan. It's origins lie with the commercial fly anglers of the distant past. They were working for a living, for sure. Come up to the mountains outside SLC with me in late July and we'll go fishing!

[elmbow]

Can I bring my old 9' 5 weight Fenwick fiberglass with Perrin auto reel? Or will the zip of the reel scare all the phd. trout away?

Actually, the Tenkara technique sounds very cool, but fishing and I parted ways a long time ago. My Grandpap ran the power plant up Logan canyon, (I was born at his home in the canyon), and I was raised early on in the ways of the fly. His fly dope was a mix of paraffin and gasoline, (left a oil slick on the water surface the first time the fly hit the water), and he used about two flies, but he sure knew how to catch those big browns in the plant's tailrace. I got a case of reverse snobbery going about twenty years ago when the sport was taken over by yuppies with too much money to spend, and I've never looked back.

Question for you: How does that 11 ' pole pack on the trail? Or is it sectional?

[karlk]

Sawtooth,

I am an avid flyfisherman so this technique really caught my eye. I checked out the videos and information on tenkara usa's website. Great info. It looks like a great set up for packing in. It looks ideal for dry fly and emerger fishing. Does it work for nymph fishing with heavy flys and strike indicators?

Thanks

[elmbow]

Just perused the Tenkara USA webpage. Very cool stuff, and I see the rods are telescoping, truly making this perfect for backcountry small mountain streams, especially those boulder pockets on the far side of the stream, but I also wonder how it would work for nymphing, and Sawtooth, how is it for the high country lakes?