I’ve got to apologize to everyone for being kind of erratic with the Sunday Morning Riffles as of late. It’s something I didn’t mean to neglect, but things just came up (like birthdays, crawfish boils, the NFL Draft, and the NBA playoffs). And I’ll be honest, more than a little bit of procrastination on my part probably didn’t help either.
Now while they’re back this week, they might be a little erratic for a little while more, as I’m trying to go fishing 2 of the next 3 weekends which will definitely interfere with my Saturday evening riffle writing, but we’ll see… Anyway, here’s a sweet batch of riffles from around the fixed line community for you all to take a look at. I certainly had a lot to catch up on and hope you enjoy!
Tenkara 2024 Vol. 026
I dig this video from Naoki Kuroiwa, it looks just like the kind of water I’d love to fish… an easy wade, with lots of plunge pools and runs. He catches a ton of fish as he heads upstream. With all that catching, it’s kind of like watching a Tom Davis video, except the angler is speaking Japanese…
Give a Like
Not to Tenkara Angler, although that would always be welcomed, but rather to Zen Tenkara as they got hacked on Facebook and got locked out of their brand page. That sucks, especially if that’s one of your primary methods to talking to your existing and prospective customers. So even if you think you’re already “liking” them on Facebook, go do it again for good measure, just to make sure. Oh, and if you were considering buying a Zen rod, now would probably be a good time since you never know how much business they lost while this was going on…
Level Line Girth Hitch
Odds are you’ve seen this one already, but I figured I’d share it anyway since so many people ask about attaching level line to their tenkara rod’s lillian. Now, the answer they usually get is to use some sort of slip knot, but Brent Auger from DRAGONtail Tenkara goes a bit rogue and shows a way you can attach it using a girth hitch that’s honestly, pretty cool. May need to give it a try…
Speaking of Zen Tenkara…
Oh, I forgot to mention… After you “like” Zen Tenkara on Facebook, read their blog post on spey casting with a tenkara rod. Karin Miller breaks down how practicing spey casting with a tenkara rod can actually be much easier than that with a “normal” spey rod. If that’s the sort of thing that interests you, this article is very interesting…
What’s a Tenkara NoBoni?
A new Instagram account has popped up called Tenkara NoBoni that claims to be the “Original tenkara angler, time traveler, poet and philosopher. Teaching tenkara, living a spiritual life. Bringing the past to the present.” With the play on the Tenkara no Oni moniker, I was hoping for some satirical wit from an otherwise anonymous tenkara account, instead there’s some posts of “wisdom”? I’m not really sure what to make of it, but it’s exists, so if you’re ten-curious give it a look, even if you don’t choose to follow.
Tenkara in the Iowa Driftless
I’m not sure I’ve shared a video from Gary Mineart in a while, so we’ll make up for it in this week’s riffles. In the following video, Gary fishes Trout River in Winneshiek County using his DRAGONtail Ragnarok 400. The thumbnail image gives away that he catches some really nice fish, so give it a look…
Tenkara for Kids?
What say you on this topic? Well, over on Reddit there were a lot of opinions, so if you want to share yours (or maybe skim the thoughts of others), follow this link to check out what sort of advice other folks are handing out…
Attract Trout!
Our friends at river peak dropped this video about attracting trout with tenkara. It’s got a pretty intense soundtrack to go along with some nice fishing footage. Not overly instructional in nature, but still interesting to watch an angler manipulate line and bring some solid fish to net…
Tenkara Rod Co. is Hiring?
Live in Idaho? Want to become a Fishing Warehouse Supervisor? Well, I’ve got the lead for you! Looks like Tenkara Rod Co. is hiring someone to ship all those rods and other assorted tenkara widgets they sell. Maybe that could be you?
Rocky Creek Special
We do like to post Tenkara Genki videos in the Riffles. Jared cranks them out pretty much every week. But we’re posting the one this week because his video features a little known rod, the Badger Tenkara Rocky Creek Special. This was Badger’s attempt at a 5:5 full flex, small stream tenkara rod. If I recall a story Matt Sment told me once, the prototype was really good, but when they did their initial small production run, the rod came out stiffer than they had hoped which kind killed the project. I could be remembering the details wrong though…
I Guess Outdoors Columns Aren’t Dead?
The SandPaper, a newsmagazine of Long Beach Island and Southern Ocean County (New Jersey), had an interesting reference to tenkara in Jay Mann’s outdoor potpourri column The Fish Story (kinda like the Riffles). He hits on several fish & outdoor related topics and a little over halfway down pivots toward tenkara – with a desire to use a tenkara rod for jetty fishing in the salt. I think he definitely should “Like” Zen Tenkara…
Hampton, Tennessee Tenkara
So this is an interesting video. I don’t really know these folks, but they’re messing around in a little stream with a fixed line rod chasing trout. (Even though this video is on YouTube, I sure hope it was made for TikTok or something, because they gotta turn that camera sideways.) Vertical video aside, the water looks beautiful and it’s a fun little five minute adventure…
Four Hours of Tenkara
That’s right. This video is 4 hours long. I haven’t watched it yet, not even sure if I should be recommending that you watch it, but I’m not sure I’ve seen something like that before on YouTube. It’s from the Japanese Mountain Stream Fishing Channel, who also created a second 4 hour video too. So maybe if you have a SmartTV and just like to have videos running in the background while you do household chores, let this bad boy run for the afternoon…
Tenkara Angler Weekly Article Roundup
Three articles from Tenkara Angler this week…. and we dropped some interesting stuff if you ask me. On Monday, Mike posted about tenkara rod grips and what they’re made of. People sure love them some cork… On Wednesday, Tom released a fly tying video and recipe for the bead head peacock futsu kebari. You gotta try these… And on Friday, we released the 2024 print issue of Tenkara Angler as a free flipbook! Yeah, so if you missed out on the magazine earlier this year, make sure to check out all the great stories and photos now…
Getting a Handle on Tenkara Rod Grips
When fishing with a tenkara rod, much of the experience is personal in nature. With only a rod, line, and fly, the…
Bead Head Peacock Futsu Kebari – Tying Tutorial
Sometimes you need a little more weight to sink the fly, or you need a little more bling to attract the fish,…
Tenkara Angler 2024 is a Free Flipbook!
Thank you to everyone that supported the 2024 print issue of Tenkara Angler magazine! It was a fun magazine to assemble, featuring…
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That pop out, extending net the River peak guy had!!! I want!!!
And the holster to boot!
Like a lot of people, I use a poacher’s knot to attach to my lilian, but was so intrigued by that video when I saw it that I made a new line with the loops for the girth hitch and fished it yesterday. It was really no easier to attach, but it released much, much easier.
With the poacher’s, I almost always need to grab the tag end with my hemostat and fight to release; the girth hitch let go with a gentle tug.
Interesting feedback…
Thanks for the SHOUT OUT Zen definitely took a hard hit and lost so many connections. We apprecthe Follows and Likes ❤️ from the community. Make sure you are liking the NEW Zen FB page.