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The Incredible Benefits of Tenkara

Tenkara fly fishing is appealing for several reasons, especially: its simplicity, intuitiveness, high effectiveness that stems from the drag-free drifts and terrific presentations allowed by the long tenkara rod and tenkara line, pin-point accurate casting, portability, and fun.

Most anglers who enjoy Western-style fly-fishing are often initially attracted to and enjoy the simplicity of the method of tenkara to catch fish, which uses only a tenkara rod, line and fly and gives you direct connection to the fish. But, simplicity wouldn't mean much without tenkara fly-fishing being effective. Developed by professional tenkara anglers in the mountain streams of Japan, tenkara is an incredibly effective method of fly-fishing. The effectiveness of tenkara fly-fishing primarily stems from the significant advantage of  keeping the fly line off the water’s surface at long distances, with the fly on the other side of multiple currents and the line not being dragged by the currents. Furthermore, tenkara anglers primarily fish with a tight line as they present the fly, which makes hooking and catching fish easy.

Women fishing with “Tenkara USA” logo over top.

Intuitiveness is another reason many anglers enjoy fishing with a tenkara rod rather than a Western-style fly rod. Unlike Western fly-fishing, there is no need to spend much time learning how to cast. With tenkara fishing, you learn how to quickly rig your system (tenkara line to rod, tippet to line, and tippet to fly), learn how to cast within minutes and then are able to focus on the experience of fly-fishing, and on learning the most important aspects of fly-fishing: identifying where fish will be and properly presenting the fly to them.

And of course, with rods that are ultra-portable and a need for minimal equipment or more tenkara gear, tenkara fly-fishing lends itself very well to take along on adventures such as hiking, backpacking, packrafting and much more.

We invite you to browse the pages on our site to learn more about the many fantastic benefits of tenkara and why so many people have been talking about the tenkara advantage for fishing since we introduced it outside of Japan in 2009.


Join Tenkara USA and the tenkara community on Instagram to see why thousands of anglers worldwide have taken up tenkara fly-fishing. Tag your posts with #tenkarausa