Every time I've never fished the Tenkara setup these little bugs produced more fish than the bigger ones.
Ok, I was going to turn this post in to some kind of wow factor of me yanking the reel off my rod but I'm bad a pretending... I got a little tenkara with the midges is all.
I have yet to try the Tenkara way but I will admit to fishing a creek with a nymph on a piece of line with a spinning rod without a reel as a kid. Just ran it through the eyelets tied it around the handle and called er good. That gave me a place to grab the line when I hooked one. It worked great.
The Tenkara crowd sure gets a kick out of the hackle being backwards.. Boy did I throw away a lot of nymphs back when I didn't get the concept of how you could manipulate the curve of a feather.
Well you can do the same thing with ostrich and peacock.. while using one piece.
All but the top flies, are tied on size 20 hooks with a reverse ostrich collar.
Real simple to tie just thread body something shiny for a rib and 3 or 4 wraps of ostrich.
better keep em simple, because... well... the "no reel" thing could bring an extra lost fly or two perhaps.
The very top fly is a little more complicated with a vinyl or d-rib body a reverse peacock necklace and a reverse ostrich.....um.... head or 2nd collar. On a size 22 hook.
Warning I may have butchered the true way of a tenkara fly. Tenkara...? tenkara...? Help me out Troutrageous I'm new at this.
At any rate, this is a way to get the same effect on a small hook without the use of hackle.
I think its fair to adjust the size of the fly but the long rod appears to be what the whole thing is about.
10 comments:
One of my New Years resolutions is to fish some midges. Your post is just the push I needed to get out of my comfort zone and get some small hooks.
Tenkarra midges.
(And you're right, it really is about the long rod - but long rods protect fine tippets real well).
The rod does seem to be the thing. I went ahead and bought a Yamame this winter. Looking forward for spring to use it! No midges though... foam spiders for angry gravel pit bass!
OK, here's one for you Tenkara guys. My friend Yuki is Japanese and when we talk about Tenkara, I still can't pronounce it the way he does.
Mark
Big - Flies look good as far as I'm concerned. I tie reverse hackle tenkara flies, but honestly don't fish 'em all that often. I'm more of a beadhead nympher - prince, zugbug, etc...
@Shoreman - Just ask Owl Jones about how to pronounce tenkara. He asked the question once and should have a good story for ya.
Oh, and I go lower case "t" when referencing tenkara. As far as I'm concerned it's just another method of fishing...like "fly fishing" or "spinning tackle"...I don't capitalize those either.
I only use upper case "T" when I talk about Tenkara USA (the company).
Tie that little bug in all black or a very dark olive brown and you've got a fair imitation of a black fly pupa!
Nice work on those tenkara midges...even if the hackle is er...backwards! Really like the top pic.
@ Mark - a great place to ask how to pronounce it is www.tenkarausa.com/forums
heh. heh.
I got so excited when I saw the title of this entry on Howard's blogroll. I thought you'd used the top three sections of a tenkara rod and fished with it. I plan to try this monday with a level line to match. That small creek I fished last week is just begging for a 4 ft rod and line and i'm going to modify the Iwana to do it. Even if it's just a temp. fix.
I like the flies, though last week the tenkara flies I tried went untouched, and the fish ate griffith's gnats and eggs.
owl
Until a Japanese fella says it in front of me on the stream,, Im just going ot pronounce it like this:
noe'rel
Great looking little flies.
Nicely done
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