What is tenkara? Part 2

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. Oh, isn't Tenkara just Kenpo fishing? Oh no, Tenkara's like check nothing, isn't it? No, it's dry fly fishing. Oh no, in Tenkara anything goes. So some of you may have heard a lot of a combination of all of those statements before. and some of you may have read things that I've written that go a little bit more in depth into what Tenkara really is. Today's topic is about what is Tenkara and it's a little different from the first one of the first three episodes that I did for this podcast. By the way, I just looked it up and we're on episode 46. It's been two years since I started this episode but one of the first one was a very brief introduction to what tenkara is. And in that episode, I kind of shared a few of the key concepts. You know, it's a Japanese method of fly fishing that uses just a rod, lightning fly, no reel. The flies tend to be very simple. Primarily, it's a type of fishing that really shines in mountain streams and moving water. So I really kind of gave a superficial definition and a good enough definition of what Tenkara is. But since I started introducing Tenkara here in the States, one of the very heated topics of discussion on online forums for the Tenkara community, including the Tenkara Anglers group on Facebook, has really been what is Tenkara? You know, is it anything? Is it a specific thing? And that's what I want to discuss here today. The topic came about again in the Tenkara Anglers group on Facebook, and I kind of thought it deserved an episode where I can get into some of the vision behind what I had envisioned introducing Tenkara here in the States, but also some of the things that I have being told from anglers in Japan, and some of the things that I feel like are important to know and other things that are important not to care about, to be frank.

2:46So we all know Tenkara at this point, it's a Japanese method of fly fishing, it's a broad line of fly, but what about a little bit more than that? So one of the things that I want to get out of the way is that I do not intend to tell you how to fish. When I started introducing Tenkara here, I would write about what Tenkara is, and sometimes I would call out people on different discussions saying, hey, this is not Tenkara. And my intent was never to tell people how to fish. I couldn't really care less, to be honest. It was more in terms of educating the public of how Tenkara is done in Japan. And the reason that I've done that and I've done years of writing and videos and so forth about introducing what tenkara is in Japan, it has really very little, if nothing, to do with traditionalism or purism.

3:53The reason is because I've decided that I wanted to introduce this method of fly fishing as it is practiced in Japan. My goal was to share the Tenkara story, and as I've talked about multiple times, I was not trying to invent a method of fishing as much as I was trying to share a method of fishing that has been around for a very long time. And more pragmatically speaking, the main reason that I'm interested in that is because I truly believe that the best way to keep fly fishing, very, very simple, is to know how tenkara is practiced in Japan, to know where tenkara came from, and to potentially just fish the way most Japanese tenkara anglers fish. I strongly believe that's the best path to simplicity, to really not trying to reinvent the wheel and add a bunch of stuff to it. You can do whatever you want. But if you really want to keep fly fishing simple, let's look at what Tenkara really is.

4:54And the other thing, too, I figured I was going to be the starting point for introducing what Tenkara is. And if I deviated from what Tenkara is, and somebody kind of got that message and then they deviated a little bit more, things are going to get confusing really fast. It's a little bit like playing telephone, you know, where you share a message with somebody else and then that person has to share it with somebody else and somebody else and so forth. And at the end of the line or the circle, the message has completely been modified. So I think it's really important to have a good starting point and hopefully not spread too much misinformation. So typically when a conversation comes up about what tenkara is, it's because somebody was doing something a little different. And, you know, the example that just came up on the Facebook group was somebody used a tenkara rod using a spoon, like a lure, a type of lure at the end of the tenkara rod to catch some beautiful trout.

6:04and there was a beautiful photograph of somebody with a fish and that was fine. I liked the photo. I thought it was very, you know, fine that somebody is experimenting, adapting it to however they want to fish, really, making it kind of their own thing. My main problem usually only comes with people that are trying to kind of get into the industry in a way. you know, Tenkara rod companies and guides and so forth, when they start kind of having this very out there ideas of what Tenkara is, and then they start sharing that as if that was Tenkara, that tends to start getting really confusing. I think on a personal level, people are going to fish however they want to fish, and I'm totally fine with that. I think that's how it should be. But at the same time, I think we all kind of need to get on the same page about what Tenkara is if we want to really define it.

7:07You know, I think that's kind of important just the way it's important that we understand other sports so that when we are talking to one another, we know what it is that we're doing. So, for example, if somebody goes fishing for the day with a rod and reel and they say, oh, yeah, I was doing some dry fly fishing today. you know, they tell you that at the end of the day, you know exactly what that looks like. It's, you know, a fly that is kind of floating on the surface of the water, and they're probably doing some manding and whatnot, so the fish are coming up to the surface. On the other hand, if that person was using a nymph and say, oh, it was dry fly fishing, that's not very accurate. So we kind of need to put a little bit of language, a little bit of definition so that we can all talk to one another and understand what we did. So a couple of weeks ago, I did the episode on panfish, you know, with Bart Lombardo and TJ Ferreira. And when I did the description of the episode, I was very careful to, the way I described it, you'll probably notice, some of you may have noticed, I said, we're going to talk about using a tenkara rod for catching penfish and warm water species. I did not say we're going to go tenkara fishing, you know, or we're going to talk about tenkara fishing for penfish species. Super subtle.

8:36Maybe you didn't even notice the difference when I just talked. So I can say I was using a tenkara rod to catch penfish or I was tenkara fishing to catch penfish. And those two things kind of bring up about a distinction that I've always tried to make in introducing Tenkara here. So usually I talk about Tenkara, the tool, where you're going to be using Tenkara pretty much in any way you want. In the end, it's just a rod, a line, and whatever you want to tie at the end of it. But then there's Tenkara, the method. Tenkara, the method is this very complete method of fishing that has been done by anglers in Japan. it tends to look very similar across the board in the hands of most anglers in Japan. There's, of course, variations, but there are a lot of similarities. And that distinction is kind of important sometimes, just in terms of how we communicate with one another, especially, I believe, if it's somebody kind of from within the industry, if you will.

9:42You know, if somebody that has a perceived air of authority because they have a blog, because they have a company or a guiding service, and then they start really kind of pushing Tenkara super far outside of where it began, things can get really confusing. Now, why does that matter? I don't know if it really does matter. I actually don't think it matters a whole lot. except that tenkara is super simple, you know, and sometimes people want to make this big complicated beast out of it. And that's where things kind of start getting a little bit frustrating because let's say you're using a tenkara rod to go fishing and you start adding western fly lines and multiple leaders or a leader. and then you start rigging it with indicators and split shot.

10:43I mean, you can do that. But once you kind of start sharing that and people start reading that information, all of a sudden it becomes this really complicated beast. And if somebody who is new to the sport of fly fishing starts looking at that and they're like, man, there's no extra simplicity here. That's a very complicated way of fly fish, just like any other kind of fly fishing. And that's, I think, the main reason that I'm very passionate about sharing what Tenkara looks like in the hands of most Japanese Tenkara anglers because it truly is the best way to keep fly fishing simple while at the same time being very, very effective. I think if I was to make a chart, Tenkara would kind of be the point where effectiveness or efficiency and effectiveness meets the best in simplicity. So if we have, you know, like a chart where on the horizontal X, you know, X's, we have efficiency, like catching a lot of fish specifically.

11:54And then on the vertical X, we're going to have level of complexity. Tenkara is going to be like the point where the two things intercept You know, you have a very efficient method of fishing with super simple way to do it It can be argued that there's going to be ways that sometimes are more effective But they're probably not simpler And there's probably ways to fish in a simpler way Like maybe just use your hands to catch fish if you want But not very effective You know, I think there's a reason that Tenkara, when it was originated in the hands of commercial anglers in Japan, they developed something that looks like Tenkara because it's a truly effective and at the same time simple way to fly fish. So, you know, this conversation, as I mentioned, it brings up like very heated discussions. and I think it's worth mentioning again I don't care how you fish I do care if you are you know somebody who's coming out as an authoritative voice for Tenkara and making something that it it is not if you are somebody who's going out and fishing and you're sharing your experience love to see whatever you do even if it's using a spoon and you know indicators and whatnot and whatever rig you want to come up with.

13:22You know, it's fun to share that with each other. It's fun to see how people are using things. But I think it is important that we do understand where Tenkara comes from, what Tenkara generally looks like, and so that we can kind of get on the same page. So, you know, I mentioned there's the Tenkara, the tool, very self-explanatory. You use a rod, you tie a line to the end of it, whatever you want to do. after that, up to you. Some people argue that the rod doesn't matter. Some people argue the line doesn't matter. That's a tool. Whatever you want to do with it is fine. My parents, I'll share an example. My parents are not fly anglers. They live in Brazil still. They spend most of their time on the coast. Right now, they're actually retired, so they're sailing a bunch. They're fishing a lot. But my dad and my mom, they do not have a fly fishing background. They don't have that much of an interest. And here I am trying to introduce them to Tenkara.

14:26And I will tell you what happened. The hardest thing for me to do to introduce them to Tenkara, because they've been fishing their whole lives, has been to convince them that they could just use an artificial fly to catch fish. So there they go on their sailboat, and, you know, they have their spinning reels and that kind of thing that they use. but sometimes they just want to fish, you know, just with a pole by their boat. And on the one hand, it was a little bit heartbreaking when my mom told me that, yeah, they were not catching any fish, so they put a little bit of shrimp at the end of the fly. But on the other hand, I had to laugh. I mean, you know, that's how they've been bait fishing their whole lives and, you know, hard to change how they do things. They don't believe in the fly as much as I do. I have gone down there with them and I've caught fish on the fly, but they're still not 100% convinced. So it's kind of funny. And they know that's not Tenkara. And I've also told them that that's not really Tenkara, but hey, if you're having fun, go for it.

15:28It's a Tenkara rod. It's a telescopic rod. On the other hand, I think some people have thought that I was trying to tell them how to fish when I started introducing Tenkara here. because I have written a bunch about, you know, what tenkara really is. Tenkara is not dry fly fishing, even though you can use dry flies with it. Tenkara is not Czech nymphing, even though it works great with nymphing in general or Czech nymphs. It's not bait fishing. It's not cane pole fishing. And tenkara is tenkara. It's its own method of fishing. You know, like there's a, in Western fly fishing, there's all these different methods of nymphing. For example, we have the Czech nymphing, which a lot of people know, and then you start getting into different European methods of nymphing. We have the Spanish nymphing method, the French nymphing method, the Polish nymphing method of fishing. Don't ask me what the difference is between all of those. I don't know. But I do know that they're a little bit different.

16:30And if I was interested, I would learn more about it. And I would probably prefer not to call one the other thing because even though the differences are subtle coming from the outside, when you're actually practicing it, I know the differences are kind of big. And that's the same thing with tenkara. Tenkara is its own method of fishing. Tenkara is tenkara. And if we're kind of sharing that as an authority on something, I think it's important that we know that. so let me kind of back it up a little bit and kind of give what I think is a little bit more my definition of Tenkara and this is something that you know I've kind of learned from different anglers in Japan as you find here you also find in Japan there some people care more about what it is than others so for example you know like one time I was talking to Dr. Ishigaki and somebody's fish you know like i was actually showing him a video of catching small mouth bass in a mountain stream um you know like something that looks like any mountain stream in japan almost but you know catching small mouth and in his opinion that was not really tenkara or you know i've shared with uh with him as well uh that you know like yeah i took a tenkara rod to a pond close to my home once.

18:01And he's like, yeah, that's not really Tenkara. So there you go. That's kind of his opinion. You know, the fish species matters for him. The fish species or the kind of water are important. On the other hand, I've talked to other people that have been fishing Tenkara for decades, and they might have said, no, Tenkara, you know, just about anything goes. I've talked to another teacher of mine and in his opinion he has a little bit more flexibility he might use floatant and that kind of thing so there's differences in opinion in exactly what constitutes tenkara in Japan as well but out of all those observations what I've come up with is that if we want to get more strict in the definition of what tenkara is as strict as I would make it is we're using a tenkara rod at the end of it we have a very very light line that's important because once you start adding like a western floating line you start deviating so much from it you don't have like the angles that we're using in tenkara you know the line is going to sag and that kind of thing and then you have to start adding liters and so forth. So I believe the line is an important measure. I don't have a very specific line weight, but I do know that a Western fly line on the end of a tenkara rod just does not feel like tenkara. So line is kind of important. In terms of the rod, you want to be able to cast all day, and you want to be able to have reach. So yeah, my definition of tenkara rods will probably be a rod that is between 9 and 15 feet in length approximately. Any shorter, you don't have any length. You don't have the reach that you want in any kind of stream fishing. Much longer than that, the rod starts getting really heavy or tip heavy, and it starts getting really hard to cast all day the way we cast with Tenkara. So in terms of the equipment, that's how I would define tenkara. You know, I haven't seen any experienced tenkara English in Japan using much longer or shorter rods. Next, I would say at the end of the line, tip it, but you know, tip it is just kind of like a necessity thing. I mean, I'm not going to get too much into that. That's just something you have to have in between your line and your fly. Otherwise, you can't really thread the fly that kind of thing uh for the flies um if i were to define what tenkara is um i would say flies that are not on the extremes essentially you know flies that are you know and this is kind of like a gray area of course there's all kinds of tenkara flies um but i would say like you know if you're using a super heavy fly, you know, all of a sudden it's, you know, like you kind of lose the versatility of other flies that are used in Tenkara.

21:09So maybe the flies do matter. Not a whole lot, but, you know, you just want to be aware that most Tenkara anglers in Japan, they're not using super heavy flies like a Czech nymph. They're not using like a very buggy terrestrial fly. again just to just to kind of repeat myself whatever you want to do is fine i'm just kind of giving my observations of how tenkara is done in japan um if you want to use bait go for it if you want to use a spoon i don't care um just don't go tell other people this is tenkara you know just kind of try to make a distinction i think of hey this is just using a tenkara rod but i'm doing this and then in terms of techniques with tenkara we're typically casting we have very precise pinpoint casting primarily and I say primarily because you can use different techniques so instead of doing the up and down cast that I probably do 95% of the time once in a while I might dap I might just lower my fly onto the water I don't think that really means it's not tenkara is just one technique that is used within tenkara.

22:24Bow and arrow cast, if you need it, use it. I don't think that takes away from the definition. But the reason I bring up the casting is because sometimes people want to say, oh, that's just dapping. And that's not true. You're not really dapping. You're not lowering the fly or letting the wind blow your fly for you. You're typically casting when you're fishing with tenkara. I'd say that's kind of you know the main pieces of it when you start getting into you know I'd say like bodies of water can kind of really does shine in mountain streams that's where the method was developed you know if I had to be even stricter I'd say like yeah and you're fishing in a mountain stream or river or any kind of moving water. But honestly, you know, I think Tenkara can look so much like Tenkara when you're fishing in a pond that to me, that's not a huge concern. Mountain streams, mountain rivers, moving water, that's where you're going to see Tenkara shining. That's where Tenkara developed.

23:36Don't know if it means it's Tenkara or not, if you're going outside of that. Again, you can fish shit, you know, it's, I'm not going to get into, into that that much. I don't know. It's a little bit of a long rambling episode. Um, you know, the, the, as I mentioned, this conversation gets kind of heated online sometimes. I do not think online groups are the place for us to try to, you know, keep defining Tenkara. You know, I think at this point the answer is out there. Uh, I've written in a book about what tenkara is. You know, a lot of different aspects of what goes into making tenkara right there in the book. I do follow more of a purist, you know, traditional kind of point of view in the book because as I mentioned in the book as well, I believe that the best way to keep fly fishing simple is to kind of do it how they do it in Japan. Outside of that, you know, do whatever you want.

24:37I don't quite believe like, you know, in tenkara anything goes, as somebody has said. You know, I think when you're talking about in tenkara the method, you know, things start getting complicated. If in tenkara anything goes, might as well use a reel and that's in tenkara. And then things just get really confusing. So that's it. That's kind of my thoughts. You know, I thought it kind of has to be addressed. If you have some thoughts, I'd love to hear it on the podcast page. I'd prefer not to start another huge online conversation about what is or isn't Tenkara. The answer is out there. But if you have some thoughts about it, if I didn't cover anything in this podcast, or if you kind of feel like there's a different definition, feel free to come to our podcast page, Tenkara.com forward slash podcast. Look up this episode, What is Tenkara? maybe I'll call it part two I'm not sure uh but look up the more recent what is Tenkara episode and kind of put your thoughts in there and let me know um um I don't know if I did a good job at covering all that I wanted to cover uh in this episode um but um you know hopefully I kind of touched upon the topic it um again conversations get heated uh you know fly fishing is a funny sport. It's kind of a, people get into the silences of defining what fly fishing is. I mean, that was the first conversation that we had when I started introducing Tenkara here. People would be like, oh, that's not fly fishing. It's like, well, who cares? I'm fishing with a fly, I'm casting it, and I'm having fun. And, you know, I think that's kind of like a very important part of it.

26:24Go have fun. But if you do decide to start a tenkara business and start blogging about it, kind of coming out as an authority on it, do make sure that people know what tenkara is or isn't. I think that's important to educate people so that we don't lose the culture that kind of went into developing tenkara. I'm not a staunch traditionalist or purist by any means. I do practice tenkara how it is practiced in Japan, because that's kind of how I can keep my fly fishing very simple and very effective. I do love the cultural part of it personally. You know, I think it's, you know, this is a method of fishing that, you know, it kind of declined a fair amount in Japan. And who knows, maybe in a few other, if I hadn't introduced tenkara here, it would have reduced even more. and we would have lost this cultural element from Japan.

27:27And I think it's really kind of important, or at least very cool, to maintain this tradition, to kind of help maintain it alive, to know what tenkara is. I'm very thankful personally that I didn't start introducing tenkara as if it was Czech nymphing. I could have done that in the beginning. but then we would have lost this cultural element that's to me just personally beautiful. So yeah, if you're kind of coming across as a voice of authority, do a lot of people know what Tenkara is because it's a method of fishing that some people developed hundreds of years ago and we're honoring their invention, if you will, their development when we share what Tenkara is. the teachers that I have in Japan get really, really happy by the work that I'm doing here, introducing Tenkara for what it is. You know, I do get, you know, like very good compliments or very warm feelings from the teachers in Japan because they see that I'm introducing something that's part of their culture.

28:44So they really like that, you know, just kind of preserving something. that should be around. It's kind of like, you know, I think if we, you know, if we started seeing cricket moves in baseball and all of a sudden, you know, like baseball starts looking like cricket and I'm sure people would be kind of sad. You know, it's kind of nice to preserve something that has been around for a long time. I don't think you need to speak Japanese. I don't think you need to know the terms. but I do think it's kind of nice to know where Tenkara came from you know, the hands of commercial anglers how it is practiced in Japan now by most people not using heavy flies, not necessarily sticking with dry flies keeping their kit really, really simple not using leaders, you know, just really kind of keeping it to what you need to use my closing thought is that You know, in tenkara, you use just what you truly need and nothing else.

29:47And at the same time, versatility breeds simplicity, which I mentioned in my book. So if you can keep your tenkara simple, using just absolutely what you need, rod, line, tippet, and fly, then you're doing about right. You know, that's what tenkara is. if you're using a tenkara rod with bait like my parents did or with a spoon you're using a tenkara rod you know it's a perfectly fun tool to use for doing a lot of different things and that's fine and all I want is for you to have fun just go out and fish the way you want to fish and share your photos of how you're doing it so that's my rambling thoughts I'm going to finish this episode Hopefully I didn't bore you way too much. This conversation, I think, could go on for a long time. Maybe I'll try to do an episode with other people at some point about what their thoughts are about Tenkara. But again, visit us on the web, tenkarausa.com forward slash podcast to share your thoughts and opinions.

30:53Let's not start that conversation on a forum or the Tenkara Anglers group, just because things are getting kind of mad or kind of boring and kind of aggravated. And it kind of goes on forever. And I think, you know, it just kind of doesn't feel good. So let's just not do it there. Let's go somewhere else. Let's take it on the Tenkara podcast or in person, you know, go fishing with somebody and talk about it. But again, thanks so much for listening. This is episode 47. We have 46 episodes already uploaded on the Tenkara Cast page on SoundCloud, iTunes, and so forth. If you have a minute, I'd love to have a review from you. I haven't had a review in a while, especially in iTunes. You know, I think a lot of people do look up podcasts on iTunes. if you have a chance to give me a rate or a grade on iTunes for this podcast in general, I appreciate it. If you don't agree with everything I said on this particular episode, just share your thoughts instead of a review. But in any case, I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you're enjoying all the podcast episodes that I've been doing, trying to do a little bit more regularly now as we start nearing spring. And once again, I appreciate your support for in buying Tenkara USA rods, lines, and flies. That's the work that I do. You buying the product allows me to continue creating content, moderating forums. You know, it kind of allows our team to survive and create more product. And so I appreciate your support on that. If you enjoy listening to the podcast, watching the videos.

32:43I'd appreciate your support in purchasing a rod, line, or fly from us at one point. Until next time, and next time I'll probably try to announce events for the year as well. We're done with the fly fishing show season, but we're starting to think about the Tenkara Summit. So next time, hopefully I'll share some information on that and other things. Thanks so much for listening. Until next time on the Tenkara Cast. Thank you.