Interview with John Gierach

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 Tancariocei Rods, Lines, and Flies. I hope you enjoy learning more about the simple method of fly fishing. So I have updated my bio to say that now I am featured in a book called All Fishermen Are Liars. I'm not sure if I should be flattered by that, And I can't really say that I ever expected in a million years to be in a book with that as the title.

1:01But I probably am very honored, actually, to have been included in the pages written by no other than the famous fly fishing author, John Girac. And last year when John released his book, All Fishermen, Not Liars, one of his many books, all beautiful, I had the pleasure to sit down with him, do a little bit of an interview. We did that for a video to promote his book last year. But of course, I have the audio track from our interview. And the video was also kind of a very condensed form. And I thought this would be a good chance to release our interview, our entire conversation that we had that day, talking about his experiences with Tenkara, what he thinks about Tenkara, the industry as a whole, and things about his books and his writing as well. You might notice a couple of different cuts in the interview, and that's because we might have had to reposition the camera.

2:05It was not like something that we sat down just as a recording for the podcast, but the conversations there in its entirety. Mostly I had to cut the pieces where the cats kind of came in and we got distracted by how cute they were. That was always pretty cute, actually. It was very fun to have that. You also notice that, you know, I talked, for example, about when I did the interview with Girak. It was the day after our fifth anniversary at Encada USA. Now we have been in business for a total of six and a half years. It's hard to believe that I have been running a company for six and a half years now. Wow, time is flying for sure. But so the interview was done last year. We recorded it in April. April 13th is the date that I have here on my digital files. And hopefully you will enjoy listening to our conversation.

3:07The day that we went out, it was a snowy day. the day that we met for the interview. And at least here in Boulder, we are just about to get our first snow for the season. So he kind of reminded me of that day that I spent with Girak and his cats in the writer's den at his house. So hopefully you enjoyed the conversation that we had. If you haven't really picked up a book by John Girak, I'd highly recommend you look him up and pick up a couple of books. If you want to read his story about Tenkara, pick up the last one, All Fishmen Are Liars. And there's several beautiful books that I really like. He's very famous for Trout Bomb. He might have been the one that we can give credit for creating the name. and Trout Get the Blues, I think, is, or, now I'm forgetting the title.

4:12I shouldn't go there. But in any case, listen to the interview. Let us know how you like, you know, the conversation on iTunes. If you can leave us a review and on our podcast page, tenkarausa.com forward slash podcast. and we'll see what else we can come up with to top this interview. It's going to be hard to come up with something for our next podcast episode, but hopefully you'll like it. Until next time, guys. Yeah, I got into Tenkara because I'm a writer always sniffing out new stuff. So I heard it was in the air. I heard about it. and it was Japanese and that intrigued me so I started looking around and naturally found you Google Tenkara, what do you get? You get you and then I didn't want to I didn't want to do one of those stories where I went out for an afternoon and tried it and wrote a story You know, I wanted to do my due diligence.

5:24I wanted to learn how to do it. So I gave a summer to it, a season. And I didn't fish exclusively with tin car because I went other places, swung spay rods and whatever. But around here on the small streams, I decided to give it a season and learn how to do it. And then I don't remember if I suggested to you that you come out or if you suggested coming out, but we hooked up. I remember it because, so actually, as a matter of fact, so I sent you a rod, and then at one point, I forget if you emailed me or maybe I think you emailed me asking a question, and I'm like, that's John Gerak right there. He's going to write about the Tenkara, and he better know what he's writing about. So I better go and teach it to him personally, and that's the first time. So I kind of invited myself to your home. It was like, let's go fish together, and I'll kind of show you what I've learned from people in Japan. So, yeah, I made sure to invite myself.

6:26Plus, one of the cool things about having a fly fishing business is that I can connect with the people that I've been admiring for a long time. So I kind of jumped to the chance of fishing with you. Well, and you can write off the plane tickets. I can write off the plane tickets, but mostly I can meet people that I've been reading about in paperbacks for years before I got into the industry myself. Yeah, so I jumped to the chance of fishing with you. I thought this would be a good chance to share all the stuff that I had been learning. Yeah, so we hooked up and fished. So we hooked up and Ed Engle came up and we fished for, what, about three days. and then you moved to Colorado because you liked all the creeks. I did. Yeah, I didn't foresee that. I didn't realize you were going to pack up and move here. Yeah, I fell in love with Colorado immediately. That was my first time in Colorado, actually, so that was a nice reason to come and visit.

7:30I don't know if I told you the story, but essentially I left here and I went to the park and I fished a bunch after you and I fished together. And then I drove through Boulder and I immediately called Margaret and I was like, we have to move here. It's such a good vibe to the whole area, the front range. Well, you said you were amazed. I mean, you'd come out to the house and we'd drive 15 minutes and be fishing. Yeah, yeah. I mean, five minutes and we're on a stream. Exactly. And you were telling me, well, I have to drive three hours from home to get on water. I was getting so tired of driving three hours to go fishing. Yeah. Yeah, and it's all perfect Tenkara water, you know. It's like, so I created this business to spread Tenkara, and I'm trying to share the stories, and it's really tiring when you have to drive three hours to do it. Yeah, so I called her up, and for two years, I pastored her every month. I was like, we had to move to Colorado. And she's like, no, I don't want to go away from family.

8:32But it finally just happened. Yeah, now we're 30 minutes away from each other. That's pretty cool. But anyway, yeah, we fished together, and I had fished for a couple of months off and on with Tenkara before that, and I just found it to be really interesting and compelling. You know, I don't do it exclusively by any means, but that's just because of what I do for a living I just I have to go out and do other stuff and I really, you know I'll take you in the other room and show you stacks and stacks of fly rods and piles of fly boxes I really like the simplicity of Tenkara but I really like the I really like all the complicated goo guys of conventional fly fishing too Well, you had a quote in your book. It was not a story in Tancado. It was a different one about how, you know, for, in a way, I think having a combination of habits and some brand loyalties, and we can probably extrapolate that to be, you know, to have habits as well as a certain way that you've been doing fishing for a while keeps your life simple in a way, too.

9:56So it's kind of a... Yeah, yeah. So I can see that. You've been fly fishing for, how long have you been fly fishing now? It's got to be, it's got to be over 40 years. So about 40 years before you discover Tenkara. Yeah, more or less. So, you know, and that kind of puts you in a very interesting position too because you've seen so much stuff come and go in fly fishing. You've seen so many different things, so many different rods. Where do you think Tenkara fits in with fly fishing? Why has it done for fly fishing, if anything? Well, at first I wouldn't have been surprised. I didn't have an opinion one way or another. I just thought it was interesting. It wouldn't have surprised me if it had been a flash in the pan like noodle rods or something. Or like, actually, I think switch rods are probably going to end up being in a few more years.

10:59but it wouldn't have surprised me if it was just a thing that happened for a while and then you didn't hear any more about it but it's really caught on it's caught on surprisingly well I didn't see the film tour in Boulder I saw it up here to benefit in Lions but I heard when that piece came on where guys were tenkara fishing the audience applauded didn't he? So, you know, it's gotten to be a thing around here. And like you say, a lot of the water around here is real friendly to it. That complicated pocket water where it's all about drift and, you know, you have to get close and high stick and all that stuff when that's what Tenkara is. One of my favorite quotes, I think, and I use that on occasion, in my presentations is you say that you sometimes giggle out loud at the long reaches I had and beautiful drifts you were getting in some pocket water.

12:03I don't giggle out loud anymore. I'm pretty used to it. At first, yeah. It was pretty cool. So you were there by yourself fishing and you just let a giggle out? Well, yeah, I do that anyway. I love that quote. Let me backtrack a little bit because we were talking a little bit about where Tenkara came in. It could have been a flash in the pan. But it's not. I mean, it's something that's been around for a long time. Even though you also acknowledge in the book that one of the famous fly fishermen said that you would have probably been a fad. I don't know if you used that word or not. But it's Tuesday, actually. As a matter of fact, yesterday was our fifth year anniversary, which is completely five years. but one of the things one of the interesting things that we've seen with Tenkara is like all these very very experienced fly fishermen taking it up because they know it can be simpler than fly fishing can be simpler than it's made out to be and then tons of beginners that are usually have been intimidated by fly fishing and they're like oh this is an easy way to get into it more so the very experienced and the beginner than the people in the middle that are just hardcore, you know, fly fishermen that are flying really heavily for five or ten years.

13:27Why do you think that, you know, like, why do you think it is that we have so much of that very experienced fly angler taking up Tenkara and the beginner, but maybe not so much in the middle? Do you have any thoughts on that? Well, I actually wasn't aware of that, but I would say the guys in the middle are still trying to learn what they're doing. so they're not looking for anything new. And beginners are obvious. A beginner comes at fly fishing. We were just talking about this the other night. A beginner comes at fly fishing, and he looks at all the flies and all the rods. I've got a line catalog here, and it's like... 51, 52 pages of lines that you might need, right? And in fact, you need maybe two.

14:33So people are intimidated by that. And when they look at Tenkara and they go, yeah, you've got a rod, you've got a line, you've got a fly. What else? Well, nothing. And a spool of tippet. Maybe clippers. And that's it. and I think people just go, oh, yeah, that's what I was hoping for, was something like that. And then the more experienced people, they're more experienced. They've got the stuff. They know how to use it. They know how to catch fish, and then it's something new. So, yeah, do I buy another, you know, do I buy a 7th or 8th or 9th rod and reel in a new line, or do I buy a thin car rod and try this? So what I'm interested in, there are some, I know there's a handful of guys who just do it exclusively. And what I'm curious about is how many people are going to do it like I do it, which is like where it seems appropriate, where it seems like it's the best way to fish or would be the most fun.

15:39but then you know if I'm going to go someplace and fish king salmon I'm probably not going to want a tenkara rod I'm going to want a 14 foot 10 weight spay rod you know I see it as like one thing in the arsenal yeah and I think to a large extent it is you know like I mean there is all this different target fish for example you know that there's always the thing of having the appropriate tool for, you know, for the job. Yeah. You know, so we've always kind of stayed away. We're probably the first ones to say this is not designed for steelhead fishing. Yeah. You know, Tenkara is really, you know, it's ideal for certain situations, like mountain streams. That's where it shines. And honestly, like when I look at people fly fishing, all the mountain streams that we have in this area, it looks so cumbersome now that I do Tenkara. But I'd been fly fishing for, I think, 13 years when I discovered Tenkara.

16:43You know, and I loved it. But now that I look back, it's like when you're fishing moving water, there's no better tool, in my opinion. Because you do get those beautiful drifts on the other side of the currents and the seams. And they can really get very effectively with a heavy line touching the water, and you have to mend it. so we do see a good mix of maybe talking more specifically about the experienced fly angler they take up Tenkara like I did when I first discovered Tenkara I bought a rod in Japan brought it back, on my first trip I took my Tenkara rod and my western fly rod and I kind of used it half of the time I ate a rod half of the time and on my second trip I also brought both of my rods along and I just started with the Tenkara out of rod and I just didn't stop using it. And that was it for me. I stopped using my other stuff because I fish moving water pretty much for trout exclusively. But if I was fishing if I was going on a trip to go fishing for salmon, I probably would rent a rod nowadays because I don't have any other stuff anymore.

17:54But like yesterday was... You know enough fishermen so we could lend you a rod. Yeah, I could probably borrow one. But like yesterday we had, so yesterday was our fifth year anniversary. And on our blog I put a, you know, we're doing a five rod giveaway to kind of celebrate that. And in less than 24 hours we had 280 comments on our blog. So essentially I asked people to put a comment in there about what Tenkara has done for them or what their experience has been on Tenkara. and there's a couple common themes which kind of go with the beginner and also the experienced angler and for the beginner they're like thank you for introducing this here it's like it allowed me to go fly fishing but then there's a lot of these comments from the experienced anglers saying yeah like i started doing tenkara changed my fly fishing forever yeah and there's a lot of them saying now my other rods are gathering dust. And it's one of those things, if you fish a certain type of water, you know, it does the job.

18:56You probably don't have to carry. Yeah, I think there are fewer and fewer people who fish one kind of water all the time. And I actually kind of envy that. I wonder if I didn't do this for a living. I wonder if I wouldn't just fish these little creeks and be done with it. Probably not, you know, because there's too many fish. and too many cool places to go. But what's going to interest me is how many of the experienced fly fishermen sort of go exclusively with Tenkara. I think some, but probably not many. And how many of the beginners who start with Tenkara are going to finally say, well, what if I want to cast to the middle of the lake? or what if I need more line, more cast? So I don't know. I think it'll just be interesting. Yeah, one example, too.

19:56Like, I don't know if you saw that this last week, Patagonia started selling 10 caravans. I saw that, yeah. And it's completely driven by Yvon Chouinard, the owner of Patagonia. And he's one of those people that is one of the very experienced anglers in the country. and he does one of two things. You know, like last he told me, he does spay fishing for salmon or steelhead or tenkara for pretty much anything else. So, like, that's kind of the two things. And those are two different ends of the spectrum. So if you're fishing with big fish, there's a tool for that. If you're catching trout primarily, there's a, you know, tenkara does pretty much all of that. So I think that's kind of one example that we see a fair amount. but tell me a little bit something that was very interesting when I came to visit you and I didn't know before and you do talk about in the book is the fact that you actually had a real curiosity and interest in Japanese culture from college and that type of thing so tell me about that a little bit well it's just an amateur thing and it sort of came out of the counterculture We were interested in Zen back in the 60s for obvious reasons.

21:19And it was just that. I mean, I've always appreciated Japanese art and Japanese poetry and Japanese movies, for that matter. But you've also done Japanese poetry back in college, and you also have Gyotaku, which is the Japanese crowd painting. I've done some Gyotaku now and then. I fooled around with that. And I've got a couple of bonsai trees upstairs. Yeah, I just always appreciated that sensibility. Of course, as Ed points out, hi, Cokie, who's my other cat? Cokie. As Ed points out, the Japan we're interested in was pretty much over 1,000 years ago. But I think you can find remnants of it here and there. such a good picture it was funny, I got a great picture of her essentially nosing the fish in the monitor it's almost as if she was checking out the fish well you remember I think the last time you were out here, this cat was all over you, remember, sitting up on the porch yeah I think he came into my room in the middle of the night a couple of times or something yeah Yeah, she does this thing about getting in bed with strange men.

22:43Glad she's not a teenage girl. Yeah, so that was the, that was the, probably the reason I didn't just shrug and go, oh yeah, another new thing. Japanese, Japanese must be cool. You know, ancient Japanese. So yeah, I thought it would be cool. Do you think that's part of what really kind of intrigued you and kind of prompted you to give it a try? Like the fact that it was Japanese? Or do you think it was more because it was fishing? No, at first, yeah, well, of course it was fishing. But yeah, at first that was what interested me about it. And then now I don't care. I don't care where it came from. which is a cool method of fishing yeah it's just for places where it's appropriate it's really fun so tell us a little bit about your book in general you know what what does John Girard write about I write about travel and fly fishing and I'm I'm interested in the places people go to fly fish and I mean the civilizations as well as the habitat and I'm interested in the people who do it and why they do it and I've been told, well it's been pointed out to me that in the last couple of books I'm writing more like a travel writer and less like a fly fishing writer so there's plenty of fishing and plenty of fish get caught, but it's more about where I go and people I meet.

24:42I think there's at least one story that was good, what do you call it, the temporary purist. I thought that was kind of like a nice philosophical piece. It's not really much about traveling at all. I thought it was kind of a nice piece as well, because it's like, yeah, we kind of try different things. I mean, we do have one thing that kind of appeals to us the most. So, like, tell me a little bit. Are you a purist, a dry fly purist? But Tenkara is kind of something that comes in once in a while. Well, no, that story was out about being a temporary purist, where when it's dry fly season, I'm a dry fly purist, and then when it's not, I'm fish with the best of them. I wonder if it's going to fit in with purism. Do you think... Well, with some people it becomes a purist thing where now that's all they want to do.

25:48With me, it's another method. I mean, I don't really see it as better or worse than anything else. It's like appropriate. you know you pull up to a stream and you go this is tin car water or no this is too big I'm going to need a real one perfect I thought it was kind of a good piece I think I might have highlighted you know one thing that you do in your books that I love pretty much throughout the book and there's like all these like brilliant nuggets like you just always have really really good quotes there's always a like a I wouldn't say a bumper sticker but kind of like just a little nice philosophical quote and it's that's like one thing that has always been one of my favorite things about your writing I think it's that kind of there's a conclusion there's like a moral something that you've drawn almost every paragraph which is pretty amazing well it's just you know it's technique. You figure out what you want to say and say it once well instead of two or three ways poorly.

27:11But I'm just as happy if I can find somebody else who said it beautifully and quote them. Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm going to quote you a lot. Because you do say things very beautifully, I think. how you said how you decide to fly fish on any given day is one of those rare things that need not concern anyone else. It's yours alone and the only rule is that if there's something you love, you should do as much of it as you can. And that kind of I think that's kind of interesting because in fly fishing we do have this thing of people criticizing different styles or being so stuck in a certain way of fly fishing. And as you say, I mean, there's generally no, you know, there's no better or worse way to do it. And I think that open-mindedness is also what allowed you to try tenkara and allows you to try all those different methods.

28:14Yeah, but by the same token, if somebody decides I'm only going to fish with a tenkara rod or I'm only ever going to fish dry flies, there's no reason why they shouldn't do that. You know, we just do this for fun, and people should do it however they want. I finally just got totally bored with all the, you know, nymph fishing isn't really fly fishing. Well, sure it is, you know. Do it with a fly rod, and it's legal. It's fly fishing. And, you know, Lee Wulff and those guys back in the 50s and 60s were catching big Atlantic salmon on four-weight bamboo rods, but fine, but why, you know? Actually, just a question in general, I guess, you know, like, I mean, one of the things that I see that I tried to create with Tenkara is just something that would show people how simple fly fishing can be, you know, just like, it doesn't have to be this complicated thing that, In a way, I perceived the industry has tried to be making, and the media in general, too.

29:27I think a lot of fly fishermen, fly fishing authors, too, they try to make this thing seem to be out of reach, maybe to put themselves up, or just because they do experiment so much and try so many things. Do you think fly fishing has become way more complicated than it needs to be over the last few decades that you fly fished? Well, that's a hard call. I mean, it has gotten more complicated in the sense that there are lots more flies and lots more rods and lots more lines, lines especially, super specialized lines. You can buy a line for every species under every condition. and I think some of the complications are business driven I mean if you fish you can fish 20 times a year buy a good fly line it'll last you for 10 years especially if you clean it But if you can convince that same guy that he needs nine different lines, we can sell him eight more lines.

30:54So I think part of it is that, and I think part of it is sort of business-driven in writing. There's a lot of how-to writing, and so you've got to find something new to write about. And, you know, I remember once, years and years ago, an editor said to me, well, we need something new. And I said, well, I don't know. You know, like the fly has been invented, the rod has been invented, the canoe exists. You know, what do you want? What do you mean new? So there's always that pressure. But then at the same time, fly tires, rod makers, all those guys are just inveterate tinkerers and they're always trying to figure out a way to do it better and every once in a while somebody does I think you had a quote I forget which story about you know it's kind of like human nature I think to when you find simplicity in one area of your life you inevitably you get all Victorian somewhere else.

32:12Yeah, I like that quote. Well, it is human nature. I mean, we kind of like our complications. Right? So where do you think, and I was thinking about that when I ran it, so I wonder, the people that are now adopting Tenkara, we've shown them that this area of their life can be simple. What's going to become complicated? Yeah. Well, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If your life is too complicated, it isn't because you have a reel on your fly rod, right? I mean, and God, you know, I've talked to people who say, yeah, I have six to ten car rods because I like the simplicity. And I go, well, that's great for Daniel. Yeah. Yeah. And it's one of the messages I try to send. It's like, hey, you know, any of our rods will work anywhere, but I think people kind of, they think of it, you know, the rods as candy.

33:16And it's like, you know, I think there's this thing about the toys. And I guess people are just very drawn to, you know, to the toys. I've always kind of taken more of the philosophical thing, that things can be much simpler than they look and much less intimidating as well. Well, it's true. You can pair fly fishing down to just almost perfect simplicity. But then every once in a while you go someplace where the fish want a certain fly in a certain way. And, you know, the reverse tackle pulsing tenkara fly doesn't work. I mean, nothing works all the time. So there's always that, too. I mean, you just stumble into these situations where what you know doesn't work. And so you try to come up with something new. And that's where a lot of this stuff comes from. Yeah, and I think the way I look at it, you know, like with Tenkara, I mean, I've got a, you know, I'm a very strong idealist in certain areas.

34:27and I always like to think that really the best way to keep it very simple in a way is to look at how Tenkara is practiced by the essentially the masters of Tenkara in Japan that are kind of taking their learnings from the original Tenkara angler the commercial angler right so Tenkara is originated by these people that are dirt poor that had you know no fly shop next door to go buy gadgets you had a bamboo pole they made a line that would be a little hard made a fly that was as quick to tie as possible and they caught hundreds of fish because they had to in a way so I take my pretty much all my philosophy driven by that original to the point where I use one fly everywhere and I try to really learn how to use that fly but it is one of those things where there's endless debates and endless ways that we try to improve it.

35:30Do you think fly fishing can be as simple as I make it out to sea? You can go out with one fly? Yes, sure, I do. The question is do you want it to be that simple? If you want it to be that simple, it can be. But if you're like me and you love the complications, then it can be complicated too. And I think that exactly kind of nails it on the head because I'm the type of guy, I mean, I had been fly fishing for a long time and I probably complicated things for a period of time. But I think that's really driven by personality and desires and how we wish it to be because I'm honestly like, in my life there's too many areas that are complicated or I felt like they were complicated. Fishing was the last one that I wanted to be the same. And I also, I always joke when I'm presenting. I'm the type of guy that, you know, I go to a restaurant, and I absolutely hate looking at a menu with 30 options in a menu.

36:36You know, if I go to a restaurant that has three options, I'm in heaven. That's like, and it's exactly the same thing for fly fishing for me. I just, I don't like tinkering. I like kind of picking a fly and to know that I can catch fish with that. so I think that does speak well to you know we all have different approaches well I you know I like both I like both I've been tying flies for probably 40 years and I enjoy it and I have flies that I really like and I'd go insane if I had to fish one fly I mean you what you tie five flies in the spring and fish them all summer, I mean, that'd drive me insane. What would I do with all my fly-tying material? All my tools and stuff. Yeah, one of my teachers in Japan, he never looks at the flies that he's picking when he's fishing, Dr. Ishigaki. Pretty much most of his flies are identical, but he does say that he gets bored of tying the exact same flies, so that's the only reason he ties different flies.

37:45and I think flytiny is a hobby on its own it's fun well I'm probably a classic example because I go back and forth I when I'm fishing tin cara I think I love this simplicity and you got everything in your pocket everything you need in your pocket and then I'll go down to the catch and release water on the south plat and change flies 32 times trying to catch this one fish. And, you know, I like them both. Thanks for listening to the Tenkara Cast. I really hope you enjoyed this interview with John Gerak and that you've been enjoying the episodes that we are putting out there, trying to bring some good content for you to listen to on your drives to your favorite fishing spots or on your way to work or during work if you need something to distract you a little bit from your daily tasks. This song was Light the Flame by Takenobu. I'd like to thank him for letting us continue using his music for all of our videos and podcast episodes.

39:06I really enjoy the music that he puts out, and I've heard that he's got a new album coming up. So that's going to be exciting. Can't wait. If you have any ideas for things that you'd like for us to cover on the podcast, do share a line with us, send us an email, leave a note on Facebook, or on our website, tenkarausa.com forward slash podcast. And until next time, we're the Tenkara Cast. Thank you.