Short Cast: News from Tenkara USA

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. Hey everyone, Daniel here, your host for the Tenkara USA. Welcome back to another episode of this podcast. Today I'm going to be doing a short cast, an episode where I keep things short and to the point. And I just want to share some news with you so you know what's going on on the Tenkara USA site. So several things have happened since I last spoken to you on this podcast, and I'm also excited about things that are going to be happening in the next few weeks.

1:05So I thought it'd take a few moments to have a little chat with you, and I'm also going to plan a few little changes for this podcast for future episodes, so stay tuned for those. But in today's shortcast, I want to share a few things. So first and foremost, I don't think we had released the honey last time I spoke to you. So on the last podcast, you know, of course, the word had kind of been out because I had been testing prototypes of the rod. We had a very limited edition run that we released at the Tenkara Summit. But we finally released a new rod that's called the Hane. And the Hane is the first rod that I've released at Tenkara USA in almost four years. It's been a long time. So the last rods that I made are the Sato and the Rhodo. and I kind of feel like I kicked the ball out of the park with those two rods. We made some really cool features, very good rods. And it took me a while to figure out what rod I wanted to have that was missing in the lineup for Tenkara USA.

2:09And the Hun is a product of that. So the Hun is a, the main distinction with the Hun is that it's a shorter compact length. So it collapses down to just under 15 inches. So that means that it can fit in a very small day pack really well without any of the rods sticking out when you're going to go bushwhacking and that kind of thing. But I also wanted to make a rod that even though it's going to be shorter on a collapsed length, and there are rods in the market that are like that, but those rods tend to have a ton of compromises. And I wanted to have a rod that didn't compromise the feel. It didn't really compromise any of the strength and durability of the rod and so forth. So this is a rod that took me quite a while to develop because when you try to make a shorter collapsed length but still keep a fairly long length of the rod, so the hunt is 10 feet 10 inches, you have to make multiple segments. And when you end up doing that, you end up adding extra weight to the rod, or you end up making the walls of the rod that are really thin, and all of a sudden the rod is not that strong.

3:17So to really kind of try not to compromise anything, it took quite a bit of studying. And the honey is around 10 feet, 10 inches when it's extended, under 15 inches when it's collapsed. But it's a rod that can handle pretty much anything you throw at it. It's what I'm tagging as your next adventure rod. So I've caught fairly large bass with it so far. A lot of trout on it as well. Performs really equally well with both of those. he also casts line very precisely and very nicely. So that's kind of out there. You can find more information on the tenkarausa.com forward slash rods page about the honey. If you're interested in checking it out, it's going for under just $150. So it's our least expensive rod in the lineup. It's something that I wanted to make very accessible to people that want to take up Tenkara and take Tenkara along their next adventure. So if you're going to go bike fishing, if you're going to go pack rafting, backpacking, this is probably a route you'll be very interested in.

4:21So that's the news on the product front. And he also kind of marks something that I'm thinking is a new phase for Tenkara USA where we start looking a little bit more deeply into product development, product releases, and that kind of thing. And two other news along with that, we're talking about product development, product releases. Just this week, I actually got granted, finally got word that we were granted the patent for the keeper. The keeper, as you might know, is a line and fly keeper. And the cool thing that we developed there with an intern that I was working at the time, Loco Yeda, we developed a system that catches the line as you wind into it. And that was a very unique thing that doesn't exist anywhere else. So you wind the line, you can stop at any point in time, and the line is not going to come out of this pool. The line just gets trapped in there. And so that warranted a patent that we just got released. And there's a couple more features in the Keeper as well that were part of the patent that they send you when you receive a patent with all the illustrations and, you know, this beautiful-looking seal and that kind of thing.

5:32It looks very official. And on the bigger side, I've got some very exciting news that I'm sharing today. If you haven't seen it yet, I hired a new CEO for Tenkara USA. Yes. Patrick Stratton, he's probably going to be on his podcast sometime soon. I want to introduce you to him at some point by having a conversation with him. But Patrick is somebody who I've known for several years. He lives close to Boulder here in Netherlands. He loves the outdoors. He enjoys fishing. He's always hiking. And he and I have known each other for quite a while. Patrick has a ton of experience in the outdoor industry. He was a product manager for the North Face, product manager for REI, and on the senior team of those two companies. He was also, for many years, in charge of product at Mountain Equipment Co-op, which is essentially the REI in Canada.

6:32and for a period of time he was also their CEO. So this is somebody who I tapped into to help me grow Tenkara USA and hopefully help me free some of my time so that instead of thinking through all the little minutiae that it takes to run a business, I can focus a little bit more on the content creation, product development, and just the bigger vision kind of stuff, which I really enjoy. But my goal is to be fully involved with Tenkara USA, but at the same time having an experienced adult next to me who can help make some solid decisions as we try to introduce Tenkara to more people. And that's kind of the vision for Tenkara USA, to introduce the method of fishing that exemplifies simplicity to a lot of people. and I really hope that Patrick is going to help lead the company to this new phase where we can focus a little bit more on new product development where we need to without removing the simplicity component, of course.

7:37And that way I can also focus on things that I feel like I'm good at, like sharing the knowledge and the story of Tenkara. And I wanted to share with you too because Patrick and I, you know, We've been sitting down a lot for the last several weeks as I get him up to speed at Tenkara USA. And we try to kind of get on the same page on everything, make sure that we have things written out. And one thing that I've thought about for Tenkara for a long time is what really is our purpose? What is the aspiration behind Tenkara USA? So when I started the company, pretty simple. I want to introduce this simple Japanese method of fly fishing to the U.S. or outside of Japan. but I kind of feel like to a certain extent we're being accomplishing that so I kind of you know Patrick and I spent a lot of time talking about what what are we doing this for and we came up with a couple of things that I wanted to share with you that I shared with the team when I wrote this down but there's something in business that some people call the big hairy audacious goal I'm going to call it the aspiration what is the big purpose for us to exist essentially What are we here for?

8:46And I believe that Tenkara USA will share the Tenkara story to inspire change in the world through simplicity and open-mindedness. And I was really excited when we kind of narrowed down the phrase into that because I've realized for many years one thing that I'm very passionate about is introducing people to new things. And part of that is because when we are introduced to new things, we perceive the word or we have the ability to perceive the word in a little bit of a different way. Especially, I think, when we're talking about cultural things like tenkara, for example. And the open-mindedness part of it, I think, is super relevant, very, very important in today's world where we're seeing a lot of conflict because we oftentimes, I believe, have a hard time understanding how each other, you know, how we think differently from other people, that there are different ways of thinking about the world, about how to do things. And in my opinion, Tenkara really exemplifies how there's a different way of thinking about things.

9:51And we have to have an open-minded about that. So Tenkara USA will share the Tenkara story to inspire change in the world through simplicity and open-mindedness. I believe simplicity and open-mindedness are super important, and I want to start focusing more on that component of what we do. Of course, there's also the why. You know, what exactly are we trying to do here? So we're trying to enable people to enjoy the benefits of Tenkara by sharing the philosophies of simplicity, open-mindedness, and caring for the environment while providing the best Tenkara information, gear, and service. So that's what I believe is why we are around doing what we do. And that's going to be guiding us as we kind of go forward. You know, when I look at all these different ways of doing things that are shown around the world, I think it'll be kind of nice to use the same kind of story to share that as well.

10:52And that's going to guide some of the content that I'll be working on creating in the next few months and so forth when I free up a little bit more time. Right now, I've been working like crazy with Patrick, trying to get him up to speed on everything. And so that's taking a lot of time. So those are kind of like the big news, I think, for Tenkara USA in recent past. I want to make sure I shared all of that with you. now for the next few weeks i'm going to be traveling a fair amount i um pretty soon here i'm really excited about one of my upcoming trips i'm going to be going back to japan as i do pretty much every year and this year i'm excited because i'm going to be going to this part of japan uh the big island on the northern part of japan called hokkaido and hokkaido is this wild country. It's kind of like a Montana, Wyoming, Patagonia part of Japan. You know, it's very wild, not heavily populated, and they do have a lot of large fish. So first time I'm going to be going there, I've actually tried to go two other times and things just didn't work out. So this time it looks like everything is going to go well. I'm going to be flying to Japan, going straight to Dr. Ishigaki's house, and then from there we fly up to Hokkaido and fish for about a week.

12:10And then the second week of my trip to Japan, I'm going to be spending that week with Jeremy Shellhorn, the designer behind Tenkara the book and a lot of the design that you see at Tenkara USA. And I'm going to be getting Jeremy fully immersed in a Japanese way of thinking about design, about fishing and culture. And I hope throughout that week, we're going to be creating a ton of content and really just kind of getting a lot of inspiration to share things with you. So, you know, we'll be doing photography and video. Jeremy's going to be doing some of his beautiful illustrations or getting inspiration to do illustrations. And one thing I just talked to Jeremy about doing is carrying the podcast with us on the road. So at least, you know, like throughout the week, we'll try to sit down as much as we can, perhaps once a day in the evening and just kind of discuss things and publish those as we go onto this podcast. So that's going to be happening first week of July. So it's still a little ways away.

13:11We have a few other things that we're going to be doing before then. But keep in mind, probably the next episodes of the Tenkara Cast are going to be reports from the road from Jeremy, Shellhorn, and I as we discuss what we're finding in Japan, as we fish with different Tenkara masters, as we visit different regions to get more information to share with you. So kind of excited to get in touch again with Japan, you know, kind of sharing that story of how it's done, how Tenkara is practiced by Japanese anglers, their techniques and so forth. So there should be a lot of things coming out of that, I believe. So that's kind of it in a nutshell. You know, I just kind of wanted to keep you updated in terms of fishing. Patrick and I actually went fishing last week for a bit, but we're just about to start getting a runoff here in Colorado. Um, water was murky and high, although today I was up in a canyon, uh, here in Boulder and the water is low again. So I might get out, uh, this evening, uh, or tomorrow and do a little bit more fishing and then this weekend, uh, before I do some extra travels here.

14:20Uh, so I'm very excited about, uh, doing a little bit of the fishing before the runoff, you know, gets fully blown out and, uh, cannot fish in the mountain streams that I love for a bit, but then I'm taking off. So that's going to be that. So hopefully I kind of thought of things that I wanted to share with you. And the other thing, too, as we have been doing the last few weeks, we are opening a certain number of new shops. So keep an eye out for a fly shop close to you to see who we're opening up and that kind of thing. We're kind of building a capacity to take on extra stores. So that's exciting as well, trying to get Tenkara product close to you. Oh, and big announcement as well that I haven't shared since the last podcast. Next year, we're going to be celebrating the 10th anniversary for Tenkara USA. And I have a hard time believing it's been 10 years almost since I started the company. I actually started the company in October 2008.

15:23But, you know, that's when I started kind of creating the business, all the products and that kind of thing. But we launched the company that was April 12th of 2009. So 2019, April 12th, we're going to be celebrating our 10th anniversary. And it's not too early to share that we're going to make a big deal out of it by hosting the next Tenkara Summit here in Boulder or nearby. We have not picked the final place yet, but somewhere in the vicinity of the Boulder area. And that's going to be our next Tenkara Summit. So save the date. It's actually going to be on the weekend of when we actually celebrate our 10th anniversary. So it's going to be April 13, 2019. That's going to be the next Tenkara Summit. Oh, before I forget. Sorry, so many things. I should have taken notes. Since you're listening to this, I'm assuming you like listening to things. and we just put together a couple of really cool playlists in Spotify.

16:29I personally did not use Spotify until very recently and then somebody told me that I should really check it out and I was like, okay, I'll check it out. And then Jan, who works with me in our social media, she had the idea of creating a Spotify playlist because she uses playlists all the time. People really enjoy those. So look up, if you're on Spotify, look up Tenkara and you should be able to find us by the playlist. names are Tenkara Tunes. It's actually hashtag Tenkara Tunes as one word. And you'll find two playlists right now. One is going to be called Tenkara Tunes Fishing based on the Takenobu song Fishing that you always listen to on this podcast and a lot of songs that are kind of inspired by his style of music in a certain way. It's all different artists and good beautiful music that will be building up and adding and tweaking. But it's a really nice playlist. I was listening to that this morning as I drove some distance and I really enjoy that. The other playlist is also called Tenkara Tunes, but that one is a colon collaboration. So you find two lists there. The collaboration is a collaboration from you. So what we're doing with that one is if you're familiar with Spotify, if you like a song, if you have a favorite song that you enjoy listening to when your time flies when you're going fishing and so forth you can add that song to our playlist called Tenkara Tunes so you just have to follow the Tenkara Tunes playlist for collaboration and then you can add songs as you as you come across them we'd love to see what you're listening to kind of learn a little bit more about different music that is out there but I'm glad I finally gave Spotify a try I was kind of hesitant because I thought the interface was a little clunky in the beginning, but man, that was a cool service. So I really enjoyed finding new music to listen to yesterday. And that's available now, so you can just look it up on Spotify if you're there.

18:28So that's all the news I had to share. You know, our new CEO, Patrick Stratton, that I hope to introduce to you on this podcast soon. The Honey, the release of a new rod that I think should be in everybody's backpack when they go fishing. We got the patent on the keeper, and then we have and cut of tunes. And look out for more great content. I feel like I've not been making as great content in the last couple of years as I had wished. And a big part of that is because of just the amount of time he has been taking to run and grow a business. And I'm really looking forward to kind of getting back to that, which I feel is my root. So I didn't mention what my title is going to be. So Patrick is the CEO and a lot of people are going to ask me, so what are you going to be doing? And I'm basically the founder. Internally, I told the team they can think of me as the chairman. I'm just going to oversee the big overall strategy for the company, overseeing Patrick's work and that kind of thing, while focused on content and product development as well. But I think I'm probably going to be a pretty good person on the role of chief storyteller.

19:37So I'm excited to free up a little bit of my time from all the business decisions and become a little bit more of a chief storyteller where I can try to bring you some cool videos, good information from Japan, trip reports, information and techniques, and more podcast episodes as well. So that's what I'm planning to do with my time here at Tenkara USA mostly. If you have any questions, shoot me an email. You can always get in touch with us, info at tenkarausa.com. You can also put any comments that you have on our blog for Tenkara to Say or the podcast page. And we're pretty responsive. I'm there all the time. So if you have anything that you want to ask, anything like that, feel free to reach out. And just let us know if you have any questions that you want to have on this podcast, answer on this podcast, and so forth. But I'd love to talk to you. and until the next time on the Tenkara Cast when I think I'll be in Japan sharing some stories from the road with you.

20:39Thanks so much for taking the time to listen. Thanks for subscribing and if you haven't done it yet, I'd love to get a review from you, especially on iTunes. Those reviews are very important to get us in front of new listeners so if you have a minute and you don't mind giving me a review there, that'll be great. All right, until next time, the Tenkara Cast. Thank you.