Conversations: Tom Rosenbauer, Orvis

0:00This is Daniel Galhardo and you're listening to the Tenkara Cast, a podcast about the simple Japanese method of fly-fishing, Tenkara. In the Tenkara Cast we'll be sharing information on techniques, history, philosophy, and Tenkara stories from anglers all over the world. This podcast is brought to you by Tenkara USA, introducing Tenkara outside of Japan since 2009. It's only possible we create content such as this podcast and videos because of your support. So we thank you so very much for purchasing Tenkara USA rods, lines, and flies. I hope you enjoy learning more about the simple method of fly fishing. Well, thank you all for tuning in to the Tenkara Cast again. I'm very excited to be coming back from Japan and have a speaker here who a lot of you are probably familiar with, Tom Rosenbauer. I've got him lined up for today's episode and Tom is actually somebody who I've been wanting to talk to for the podcast for a little time.

1:05But I found that like last times that we talked, we were talking more about chocolate making than fly fishing, it seems like. But today we're going to talk about Tenkara and fly fishing and Tom's experience with Tenkara. Hopefully you're going to enjoy learning where he is coming from. And, of course, it probably goes without saying, but Tom Rosenbauer is the guy that everybody recognizes as being associated with Orvis. He's written tons of books on fly fishing, and he's always just a delight to fish with. So, Tom, welcome to the Tenkara Cast. I appreciate you making the time to talk to me today. Well, thank you, Daniel. It's my honor. You've been on my podcast a couple times. The least I can do is come on yours. Yeah, I appreciate that. And I'm not sure why it's taken me this long to book a little time here to talk to you because I have been wanting to talk to you about Tenkara and share a conversation with our listeners.

2:07The Tenkara Cast is a podcast where I've talked about all ranges of topics, all kinds of things. I just usually blab a lot, but I've had a couple of instances of talking to other people, and it's always just a lot of fun. But why don't we get to the gist of it? Actually, let's get a little introduction about your fly fishing experience before we get into the Tenkara. Like, can you just tell us a little bit of how long you've been fly fishing and what you do and what you've been doing recently with fly fishing? Yeah, sure. Kind of boring, but I started fly fishing when I was a kid, and I've been doing it for, it must be right close to, oh, I hate to admit this, but 50 years. um i i taught myself i i learned of course there were no videos back in those days or web the web and i i taught myself from books um badly um i had um a one mentor um that i knew of a gentleman named carl coleman from rochester new york where i grew up who had a little fly shop in his garage, basically. And I started tying flies for him commercially. And he was a great influence on me. He taught me a lot about nymph fishing back before strike indicators were ever used.

3:37We did a lot of upstream, straight upstream nymphing with a floating line and weighted nymphs. And anyway, I learned a lot from him. He's a brilliant, brilliant angler. and then I had another I had another friend from Boy Scouts who also we kind of learned fly fishing together so we kind of learned side by side and it took me you know it probably took me 10 years to learn what somebody learns in two and a half days in a fishing school these days so it was a long process but I've always loved to fish since I was very little and I just thought fly fishing look cool. My father didn't fly fish. I didn't have any relatives of fly fish. And I just, you know, started out on bluegills and small bass. And then when I was old enough to drive and I could get to trout streams, I did a lot of trout fishing, the Catskills and upstate New York and Pennsylvania. I didn't go out. I didn't fish the Western United States until, Oh, mid to late 1970s.

4:45And, you know, since then, being at Orvis, I've been lucky enough to, although I don't, people think I've traveled all around the world and have fished everywhere. That's really not true. I've fished in a few relatively exotic places. But to be honest with you, I love fishing right here in the United States. So between saltwater, which is one of my big passions, and freshwater, there's so much interesting fishing here. I do want to go to Cuba badly because I love bonefish tarp and a permit, and Orvis has got a new trip to Cuba that we just announced. So I'm hoping that I get to go to Cuba soon. Well, they have to put you on that trip because you're always promoting, you know, you're a big voice for fly fishing at Orvis. You're a big voice for Orvis. You have the podcast and everything. I'm sure there'll be a delightful program to have you go to Cuba and promote that.

5:51I can't imagine Orvis. Why don't you talk to them about that, Daniel? Will you put in a word for me? Well, I'm sure they're listening to this podcast. no they don't even listen to my podcast daniel oh we gotta change that yeah i'll uh i'll make sure to talk to the big guys there no um uh that that's gotta be a fun trip but it's uh you know but in that's like what you just mentioned about uh loving fishing here in this in the in the united states one of the things that really struck me when i first fished with you out there in Vermont near the Orvis headquarter was just how excited you were, Tom, catching, you know, six inch and eight inch brook trout. And the first thing that I remember thinking to myself, like when you caught a small brook trout and it was a beautiful little fish and you were like excited. And I thought to myself, it's like this guy, he's fished for all kinds of fish.

6:53He's caught like huge fish in all kinds of places. You know, maybe I got the wrong image, but I know you've been to some pretty cool places. But you were still, like, excited as a child, you know, to catch a small brook trout in your own home backyard. And to me, that always stayed with me. It's like, you know, this is the kind of attitude I always want to have in my fly fishing. I always want to feel like a child and want to catch a fish that I've caught dozens of times before, hundreds of times. and uh so i wanted to tell you that that it's uh it's been inspiring to watch you be as excited for a small fish as you i i hope as excited for a small fish as you're for any of the bigger fish because if you get more excited than that i'm uh i'm afraid to be close to you tom no i you know i i get i get excited about all fish but i don't get i don't get wigged out over really big fish. You know, I get just as excited, but, well, fish is a fish.

7:53You know, somebody once told me that fly fishing is great because it allows us to pretend we're 12 years old again, and I've always subscribed to that philosophy. Yep, and I remember somebody earlier on when we were kind of starting to introduce Tancata here and somebody came online a little bit of a troll you know trying to uh dismiss tank out as a fishing for kids and luckily one of the somebody from japan actually kind of responded right away saying that he actually takes that as a big compliment you know fishing for kids because yeah you know you're fishing as a kid it's like you're finding this joy back in your life and uh What somebody tried to come across as an insult was actually a big compliment to the Japanese person, and I love that. Yeah, that's great. So you fish in Pennsylvania, and of course now you live in Vermont.

8:55Did you grow up mostly fishing out there in New England, like northeastern part of the country? Yeah, upstate New York. Of course, I lived in Vermont for 40 years. um vermont the vermont fishing um is you know it's it's it's good we have some very large fish in the bat and kill that are very challenging we have lots of good as you you've seen um wild mountain streams with wild trout in them um but i you know i i do love the technical trout fishing where you're trying to match the hatch and and um play games with a big fussy fish so i do like to go other places for my fishing. And of course I love salt water and there's none of that in Vermont except in a pickle jar. So, um, uh, so I, uh, you know, I, I travel a fair amount, but it's mostly on my own. It's not, you know, it's not big, fancy trips, usually with friends and, um, you know, usually not to a fancy lodge or anything. I don't, I prefer to keep the fishing intense and the rest of it very simple.

10:07I noticed that, and I think it's kind of true. And a lot of times, I think it's true of a lot of the folks at Orvis in general, and maybe that's another thing where the image doesn't really match the reality. Sometimes people might think, oh, yeah, these guys must be staying in fancy lodges. maybe they don't fish that much and what I've noticed from the beginning is man like people there everybody that works or is like loves fishing and you guys just like you're just a core fisherman that just love fishing hard and keeping it simple to borrow your words I think that's uh it's a good way to kind of put it but it's just really you know a lot of good soul fishing I've noticed there orvis yeah there's a bunch of fishing sickos here and we make no excuses for it yeah well you know you mean you and i both know you're never going to get rich in the fishing business and you're never going to you're never going to make enough money to stay at one of those lodges so unless you get a free invitation you're not going anyway right exactly so let's be let's be content with what we can do right yeah you know as long as i've got a rod in my hand i'm happy regardless of what i'm doing we went pike fishing yesterday and It was pretty slow, but the whole department went.

11:32But everyone caught pike. Everyone caught a big pike on a fly rod, and so it was fun. Nice. And for those who always wondered if you can catch pike on Tenkara, just look up Tenkara pike on Google and you'll find some images. But I'm assuming you didn't take a Tenkara rod yesterday, did you? No, I took a nine weight. Okay. we were fishing pretty big flies you would not even you could there's no way you could cast these flies with a tenkara rod yeah great you would break the rod in half daniel yeah the flies would have been the problem not the fish maybe that's a good episode for the future i have to bring in the people that have caught pike on tenkara and just talk to them about uh you have to get you have to get chris hunt you have to get chris hunt in there yeah that's it that's a good point i think you'll be one of the next people. But let's talk a little bit about Tenka to start talking about that topic, why, you know, some listeners are tuning in to this episode. I should mention that I've followed your work since I started fly fishing. I mean, that's, I think there's a lot of people in the United States in a lot of different parts of the world, actually, because I think I first read one of your books when I was still in Brazil, self-teaching how to fly fish.

12:52and a lot of people are all learning how to fly fish because of what you've written you know like maybe some of the videos that you've produced as well and one of the things that I thought early on when I discovered Tenkara was that man I bet Tom Rosenbauer is really gonna enjoy learning about Tenkara one day and but I didn't introduce Tenkara to you personally you know I think you've heard about it through some other people. Can you tell us how you first learned about Tenkara and what kind of got you to maybe first try it? Yeah, you know, I had heard about it for years because one of our dealers in Japan, our dealer in Japan, Tiemco, you know, we've known them for quite a while and and so i was aware of tenkara um but had never done it until i went to visit colby and brian trough and uh at mossy creek in virginia and we went brook trout fishing streams very similar to what we have here the fish are a little bigger i think um and and colby was fishing it all day long and I kind of said, nah, I'll pass. And I watched Colby, I watched Colby getting these drag free floats forever, you know, down a pocket. Oh, I mean, just the fly just kept floating drag free. And I, at one point I finally said, give me that rod. I got to try that.

14:24and it was fun. I have to admit that Tenkara is not my preferred way to fish, but there are two places here at home where I really like it. I love taking my 11-year-old son, I think he started when he was eight or nine, to a local dock on a lake and catching sunfish with a tenkara because he doesn't have to worry about a reel and a line. He can just make a cast and he's learning how to, you know, really how to fly cast because the motions are the same. People think it's just dapping when it's really not. And he doesn't have to worry about all the other stuff. He catches fish and he He reefs him up on the dock, and we have a lot of laughs, and he can see the fish take the little poppers. And then the other place I really like it is a lot of our mountain streams here are small, but they're quite open because they have kind of wide floodplains, big boulders, and, you know, the foliage grows down to the edge of the water, but you still have plenty of room in front of you and behind you.

15:45and I find Tenkara would be perfect in there. We're mostly fishing dry flies, short casts, and the whole game is to get a drag-free float. The fish aren't very picky. They eat anything that looks remotely edible, and so getting a drag-free float is the most important thing, and Tenkara works beautifully for that. Perfect, yeah, and it's, well, I think, it's understandable, you know, that Tenkara might not be your preferred method of fly fishing, because you have mastery of the fly rod in Rio, and that's, I think, probably a little bit hard to abandon in Rio for every, you know, condition. But, you know, I do feel very honored that somebody like you does take Tenkara out once in a while, and that's really great. Oh, yeah, absolutely. It's just a fun switch. You know, it's a fun change.

16:45Yeah, I was going to ask, like, do you fish with Tenkara differently than when you use a rod and reel? Like, does your fly fishing change at all? Do you do things differently? Or is it pretty much the same, just with a different rod? You know, it's pretty much the same. I mean, I use basically the same flies because I know they're going to work on these small streams and I can see them. and it's pretty much straight upstream but you know I do want to try I would do want to try some more subsurface techniques with that you and I just talked about I do want to try some of those techniques that you have on your on your website on the videos because I've I've really limited myself to just using a dry fly. And I remember when you were here fishing with us, you did really well. I think you caught the biggest fish on the Tenkara rod and you were fishing, you're fishing a kind of a, I don't know, half dry, half wet fly. And you fished it both ways, as I remember.

17:51And I think you caught that, that really nice fish when the fly was sunk and you were manipulating it. Yeah. And it's, uh, and for our listeners too, Tom and I were just doing a podcast episode for his podcast the orvis guide to fly fishing podcast which you can find in itunes and we talked about some of the techniques in tenkara there's an episode that i've done in the past for this podcast and we have a video about like the five main techniques used in tenkara like the dead drift pulsing and that kind of thing and also sinking of the fly without using weights so just to kind of let our listeners kind of know and it's um yeah and the idea you know using a tenkara fly that's not particularly a dry nor a nymph you know it kind of works either way and uh just using one that uh you know like kind of like a soft tackle wet fly primarily subsurface but i think one of the cool things about those as you as you mentioned like i was fishing as a dry and sometimes subsurface.

18:59One of the cool things about using this kind of fly that is not specifically a dry or a nymph is that you can fish it pretty much anywhere you want, any water column, just by changing the technique. So, yeah, I definitely recommend you give it a try sometime. I will. And, you know, the way those Tenkara flies are tied with the soft hackle kind of reversed or cupped forward over the eye, that must give them a lot of action in the water. So it probably helps them sink too. Yeah, so it does do a few things. The action for sure is a big one, and we could have talked about that in your episode. But it's, yeah, when you kind of post the fly, the fly opens and closes. It's got this nice motion. But the other thing that it does too, the reverse hackle, it kind of anchors the fly in the water. so if you have a fly that's really streamlined and you try to pulse it a lot of times you jump right out of the water and with the reverse oh yeah it stays yeah subsurface a little bit more so that's uh ah i never thought of that yeah interesting we'll do a episode four a few months from now for your podcast okay all right but i have to go out and try that first yeah so So you use mostly dry flies with your rod, and do you do, I don't know if you still do a lot of mending with your Tenkara rod, or do you keep the line kind of off the water and less mending when you fish with Tenkara?

20:31Oh, I hate mending. I hate mending with the normal fly line. I try to avoid mends at all costs. I feel that the best way to ruin a drift of a fly and a spook fish is to mend. so um about the only time i mend with a regular rod is when i'm fishing an indicator with an infant fast water but uh no i don't i i don't mend it all with tenkara i just keep the line off the water the whole time okay good that's the advantage to me that's it to me that's the big advantage of it i don't want to have to mend yeah i agree completely and that's kind of uh you know it's probably a loaded question but it's like i want to make sure that tom is not mending and it's been a little while since you and I fished together, but I couldn't remember. I didn't think you were many. I think your technique was really, really good, actually, for Tenkara. So I just wanted to refresh my memory there. Do you ever do, like, different rigs with your Tenkara rod, like dry droppers or using weights and that kind of thing?

21:34I haven't yet. I might experiment with it. Yeah, okay, so mostly dry flies, like an indicator. Yeah, with bluegills, if they won't come up for a little popper, I'll sometimes put a little nymph on, if I can see the fish, you know. But, no, I've been pretty dry fly purist with a Tenkara rod. Well, and actually it just kind of struck me before we called each other here today that I have been working with Tenkara USA. say we have been working with Orvis for almost four years already. It's amazing how fast time is going by. I had to look up our first press release that we put out and it was July 2012 when you guys really first started offering Tenkara to your customers. For some reason, I had like two and a half years in mind or something. It's amazing it's been four. and your rod your rod is the only rod that we don't either make here in our rod shop or build to our strict specifications it's the only rod that we sell I do feel very proud of that that I you know in four years I guess we must be doing something right today you guys are making your own 10 cutter rods and just continue to work with us I appreciate that But what can you tell us about in terms of Orvis wanting to work with Tenkara USA and also in broader terms, like wanting to offer Tenkara to your customers?

23:17Like, why did Orvis decide to embrace this method of fishing, you think? Well, duh. We're in business to make money, Daniel. I was down in Wassey Creek, and those boys sold 16 tenkara rods in an afternoon. And I came back and said, hey, guys, we're missing something here. And Daniel makes a great rod. He's a great guy. Let's get tenkara rods in there and see how they do. You know, it's a fun way to fish. I mean, other than making money, that's our philosophy, really, is we want our customers to have fun catching fish. We don't want it to be horribly expensive for them. And tenkara rods are inexpensive. It's a great way of getting into fly fishing. So, you know, all the signs pointed to the fact that we should do it. Nothing very complicated about it. Yeah, that's pretty simple decision making, I guess.

24:19I was wondering, too, because early on, you might have, or maybe you didn't see too much of it, but it's, of course, early on when we were starting to introduce Tenkara here, there's all kinds of discussions online saying, yeah, Tenkara's fly fishing, Tenkara's not fly fishing, blah, blah, blah. I saw all kinds of weird, you know, conversations, but it was really a big milestone to have Orvis, you know, which has been in business for just about 160 years now. You know, consider one of the most traditional fly fishing companies in the country, if not the world, coming out and being like, yeah, we want to offer Tenkara. And it's, I think, besides, of course, the, you know, the financial decision, I mean, to us, at least from the community and from Tenkara USA, we saw that as a big validation of the method, you know, and there was a little bit more to it, at least in our heads. Do you guys ever talk about, like, you know, is Tenkara fly fishing, is it not, or did it just not matter at all, you think?

25:25We don't care. You know, our philosophy is if you do it with a fly and you're having fun, then it's fly fishing. Period. End of story. I don't care if you fish glow bugs or squirmy worms or shaky worms or whatever. If you've got a fly on the end and you're casting it through the air and a fish eats it, you're fly fishing. Who cares? it doesn't matter to us we don't we don't need to get involved if our customers are interested in tenkara and obviously they are um then we're going to both um sell them the equipment and and give them the necessary help them develop their skills and have fun with it well and it's uh that's probably part of the big reason that i wanted to work with you guys you know the attitude is very much you know like we're in this for the the joy of fishing you know it's not for the joy of fly fishing it's not really the you know like you know the hard line that maybe a lot of people you know might take or even companies once in a while take of you know just purist or not and that kind of thing it's just like we should all be fly fishing you know because we get out and We get to see how the waters are doing.

26:44And, I mean, there's just something to be said about getting more people in fly fishing as well. Yeah. You know, three generations of the family that owns Orvis, actually four generations now, with Simon's daughter Pippa in her video, they all fly fish and they all love it. And it's their life. and although we sometimes have to make some hard-nosed business decisions, we always think of a customer first and we think of what we would want as an angler, as a fly fisher, what we would want to happen. So, you know, it's just good business, but it's also the corporate philosophy that we have. It comes from the top down. And have you guys been hearing much from your customers? I mean, I've been very honored to as well to be part of a couple of episodes of your podcast.

27:47It's going to be three pretty soon here. Have many of your customers been kind of in contact, kind of sharing any feedback about Tenkara and how you guys are sharing it and promoting or anything in particular that you've been noticing? well the one thing i've been noticing daniel is is um and actually one of the reasons i did the podcast with you um is that tenkara is very a very heavily used search term on our website and we analyze those things and obviously um i i think that you know when i go when i go and do like I do do my presentation on small stream fly fishing at clubs or TU chapters or shows or whatever. And, and I talk about tenkara in the small stream fly fishing, um, lecture. I asked people if they know what tenkara is and, you know, sometimes half the people in the room don't know what it is. So I think that there, there are still a lot of people there's, there's still an untapped, market out there for Tenkara.

29:00I think that there's a lot of people that are obviously curious about it because they're searching the term on our website. And so I think that, you know, there's still an unfulfilled demand for knowledge about Tenkara. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And that's only like we've, to a large extent, like I almost feel like we've done a decent job of introducing people that are already fly fishermen into Tenkara, but, you know, one of the big opportunities, I think, with Tenkara is getting a very large number of people that have never touched a fly rod to fly fish because of it, and we have been fairly successful at that, but I think that's still almost like an unlimited number, you know, just getting more people to realize that fly fishing doesn't have to be complicated, so if you're getting those, you know, hands raised, you know, half of the room kind of have heard of Tenkara and that's like the fly fishing audience primarily you know just imagine if you're talking to a room of people that have never fly fished before that's yeah you know those those are even more interesting numbers I think it's a lot tougher sell yeah definitely but you know at the same time I'm noticing like people are everybody wants to do stuff outside and they're just looking for that excuse whether it's hiking whether it's skiing whether it's mountain climbing or you name it, there's an activity there for almost everybody.

30:28Of course, some people are just into video games and they don't want to step out, but I like to think the majority of people are just looking for the one activity that they want to go and partake outside. You know, that's a good point, Daniel. And anecdotally, I know I'm talking to some customers when I've been in stores. A lot of young cyclists or mountain bikers or backpackers are really interested in Tekai Rod because it's so simple. It packs down so small. And, you know, you need that little tiny rod tube and a handful of flies and a spool of tippet. And that's all you need. And that's really intriguing to them because it's so lightweight. and so packable. Yeah, absolutely. There's actually a really cool website talking about biking in particular called the Path Less Pedaled. And it's a blog where this couple, they're just biking all over the place and a lot of times promoting bike tourism.

31:34And they just started something, I think it's called, what do they call it, like rods and pedals or something. It's a little bit of a campaign where they're just taking their fly rods, their tenkara rods and their fly rods they use both everywhere because you know if you're biking around a lot there's a good chance you're going to be coming across some good stream here or there and you might as well have a tenkara rod with you so it's uh absolutely yeah i think that's just the way a lot of people are looking at activities nowadays you know just going out yeah i mean if i were doing if i were doing the mountain biking or backpacking thing i would i I would absolutely take tenkara rod. I don't because there's too much time screwing around with other stuff and not enough fishing time in those activities. Well, when you go mushroom hunting, when the weather warms up there, I'm sure you're going to take one, right? Yeah, I could. Yeah, I never thought of that. There's a couple of little brook trout streams where I do some of my mushroom hunting.

32:36I should do that, Daniel. Good idea. Yeah, that's, you know, that's honestly, that's how I've been fishing at least last couple of years. Most of my fly fishing, like as a, just as a regular activity, like not taking people out and teaching, but just to fish my wife and I, we, one of our biggest excuses to go outside is to go mushroom hunting because we kind of lose ourselves in the forest and we're just. Yeah. Oh, it's great. It's just a beautiful activity where we lose ourselves. I mean, we're just like in a different world. it seems like but we always have a tin cata rod and and we sure enough we always cross the stream and i always have to cast at least a few times and see what happens yeah that's great that's great but uh yeah some other time you and i will have to do uh some mushroom hunting together you have to come out to colorado and partake in our porcini hunting in july and august oh i would like to because we don't we don't get many king bullies here so i would like to do that sometime actually i'm going to be out there in August. Maybe we should do that.

33:40Yeah, definitely let me know when you're going to be here because I'll take you to a couple of spots. It's a blast. We're going to be in Avon for a week in August. Oh, perfect. Maybe we can meet somewhere. Well, Tom, I don't want to take too much more of your time. I just wanted to kind of learn a little bit more about your experience with Tenkara and kind of introduce you to our listeners, a lot of whom are new to fly fishing as well, I've been noticing. So I appreciate you making the time to talk to me for the Tenkara Cast. And I'll make sure to put a link to the Orvis Guide to Fly Fishing podcast that you put out much more consistently than I do. It's a good podcast for people to listen to. And hopefully I'll see you here in Colorado in August sometime. All right. Well, you know, I'm really a novice in Tenkara, and so I hope I gave you some interesting information, but I really, you know, still learning, still learning a lot.

34:46We all are. We all are. Well, thank you so much. Yeah, we all are. Thanks so much for your time, Tom, and to our listeners. Until next time on the Tenkara Cast, thanks for tuning in this time and for following us on Facebook. And if you want more information and if you want to find the links, you can go to tenkarausa.com forward slash podcast and look up this episode for some links that I'll put out there. and as always I want to thank my friend Nick Ogawa also known as Takenobu for letting us use his music which we use in the introduction of every episode of the Tenkara Cast Nick Takenobu just released a new album called Reversal and you can find that at takenobumusic.com. This song is called Che, and I want to say that I really, really enjoyed having his music on my iPhone here when I travel, Tremendo's music as always.

35:52So take a listen and go check out his album at takenobumusic.com. guitar solo Thank you.

37:08Thank you. Thank you.