Mixed Bag: Great Expectations, Lessons (re)Learned and the Tenkara USA Sato

Great Expectations

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
Emily Dickinson

I suspect Emily Dickinson was not a fly fisher, but she captures the essence of it in that line. After all when we sit at the vise and tie our flies we imbue them with our hopes and expectations.We head to the stream fueled by expectations of what will happen. At least I do. Perhaps you’ve conquered that in your life and live purely in the moment- I am not yet that lucky.

It is in that expectant state of mind that I’ve spent the last few weeks. May was approaching. And with it the sulphurs. The emergence of the sulphur mayfly can bring with it some fantastic match-the-hatch fishing. Though this can be somewhat antithetical to some conceptions of what tenkara is; to focus on matching the hatch. For better or worse I have not completely shed the idea of matching the hatch. I’m not above tying on a fly to “match” the various stages of the mayfly during these hatch periods. I know that this way of thinking is more “fixed-line fly fishing” than it is tenkara. I’m happy to keep this distinction.

I wrote about this particular hatch and some patterns to match it in the post called Sulphurs and the Tenkara Rod Co. Teton Zoom Rod.

The trip that I discussed in that post happened exactly a year before the one discussed in this post. So I had very high expectations this time out. I couldn’t believe I was going to be able to get on stream on the same day, one year later. And the weather was looking to be similar. Overcast and a bit chilly. I was all set to have a great day.

Reality

Well … sometimes with great expectations comes great disappointment.

Everything seemed perfect and I was ready with a box full of sulphur patterns. The only problem is that the bugs hadn’t gotten the memo. There were no bugs. No sulphurs at all. Not a single sulphur emerged in my vicinity. And no other bugs either. No caddis, no blue-winged olives. No craneflies. Nada.

So no rising fish. And very frustratingly the fishing was really tough. I knew the fish were there. I was pretty confident in the flies that I was using. But fish were very hard to come by.

It was the kind of day that had me scratching my head. The kind of outing that had me ready to throw away the fishing gear away and take up stamp collecting.

Time to Reset

When this happens sometimes all that is needed is a reset. You need to stop. Take a second to reassess the situation and adjust tactics.

I have to admit I’m not the best at doing that in the moment. It is sometimes only in hindsight that I can take the time to do a post-mortem and decide on a different course of action. If I’d taken a breath and had the patience to re-rig a bit and adjust tactics I could have salvaged the afternoon. But I didn’t.

I make all the mistakes so you don’t have to.

That evening I thought back on the day. If I was completely honest there was one thing in particular that was nagging at my mind. The water where I’d been fishing was moving pretty fast. I was using fairly light flies and a line that was about 12 feet long. Quite often I found that due to conditions and surroundings and with that line length I was forced to fish just a little further away than I wanted. I was quartering upstream fishing at an angle. The pockets were small and the water was swift.

I’d been expecting active fish. Fish that were focused on the upper water column and the surface. Fish that didn’t require deep flies and that might be willing to move to grab a fly. When that wasn’t the case I didn’t switch gears.

My drifts were looking pretty good weren’t they? But what if I’d made that crucial mistake. What if I had a bad drift and the flies were dragging and not getting down? The more I thought about it. The more the horror of it became unavoidable.

Joe Humphrey’s voice was echoing in my head. He’s known to say something along the lines of “the difference between catching fish and not is a single split shot” The point being that if you’re not catching fish go deeper – get down into the strike zone. I know this is very often the case on the spring creeks that I fish. If you don’t get down, you’re not catching fish. Sometimes the fish are willing to move – but sometimes they are not.

I wasn’t going to use split-shot but I knew what I had to do.

Day 2: Chance at Redemption – Lessons (re)learned

That next morning I prepared for the day.

1. I cut 3 feet from my 12 ft line
2. I looked in the mirror and I said “Fish closer, keep the line off of the water, and cast the line directly upstream of the rod tip.”

Then I headed out to conquer my demons.

The day was, as far as I could tell, pretty much the same as the day before weather wise. But I guess we never know what subtle differences the fish and bugs are seeing. Still no sulphurs. Which I was actually glad to see. I was hoping for conditions to be similar.

I forced myself to fish closer in.

I made sure that the casts were directly up stream of the rod tip so that the line was tracking directly downstream and not at an angle.

I kept the line off of the water.

The point of all that being to give the small bead-head nymph(s) that I was fishing the best chance to sink into to the strike zone.

Redemption

Fish started coming right away. It seemed like I was picking up a fish or two from each good pocket that I cast to. The world was right again and I wasn’t going to have to give up fishing.

It was like magic. I was picking up fish in small pockets, many within about 4 feet of where I was standing.

But still it took a lot of will power to stick to the program, I was tempted over and over again to reach that arm out and cast further out and get longer drifts. But those presentations didn’t produce well. Short casts and short drifts were key.

The cast didn’t need to be directly upstream of my position, but directly upstream of the rod tip. When casts weren’t directly upstream, water-loaded, side-arm casting allowed me to achieve this presentation and didn’t require any fancy aerial mending.

Tenkara USA Sato Zoom Rod

A while back Tenkara USA generously sent out samples of their rods for us to check out. For about the last month I’ve been fishing the Tenkara USA Sato Zoom Rod pretty much exclusively. The Sato can be fished at 3 lengths: 10’8″, 11’10”, and 12’9″ (3.25m – 3.9m). I’ve probably got about 12 outings with it now. It’s the rod that I used in the recent trips discussed in this post. I’m very slow to judgement, that’s why I don’t really do many rod reviews per se. I really need to live with a rod for a long time to get to know it. So even at 12 outings, I’m still just getting acquainted.

If you know me, you know I like zoom rods and I like fixed-line style fishing (using nymphs, dry flies, dry-dropper rigs). And the Sato is a good one for my style. Some folks like to knock zoom rods. They talk about how they feel and cast differently at the different lengths. This is true. But I like to think that any angler worth his or her salt can easily adjust their casting stroke to accommodate this.

The Sato handles the small bead-head nymphs (even a pair of them) quite nicely. A rod that is too soft just won’t feel great with that type of rig. I messed about with some different lines and preferred a #3.5 level line for what I was doing with the Sato.

Here’s what I really like about it. The zoom. On the small to medium sized Pennsylvania spring creeks that I fish, the resident brown trout are very often bank-oriented. They like to hang out near the banks of the creek , which means that they are usually underneath those stream side trees. I really like to be able to shorten the rod when I’m stuck fishing below the bankside trees and then extend it when I’m hitting some open runs or riffles. Also I often shorten the rod when landing fish to avoid the trees above me as well.

Though fish can be very bank oriented, sometimes the water is great across the whole stream given the right stream flow conditions. If you look at the first couple of stream pics above (not the one with the Sato pictured though) you’ll see water that is fairly consistent from bank to bank and though many of the rocks are not visible above the water surface, it is very much like a section of classic pocket water. Trout lies are abundant and trout are everywhere. Once in the water I like to be very thorough with my fishing and I don’t want to move and risk spooking fish until I’ve hit all the nice looking spots. The zoom feature is so handy for this. I start at the shortest length and work out. I find it to be a great way to cover this type of water efficiently.

So, I know haters gonna hate. Zoom rods are not everyone’s cup of tea. But I really do like them. And so far I’m digging the Sato. I still need more time to really get to know it, but so far so good. One thing I need to do is find some bigger fish to see how it does with those.

Tenkara USA Sato Specs from Tenkara USA

• Reported Extended Length*: 10’8″, 11’10”, and 12’9″

Note* I measured my Sato and the lengths were not as reported above.
I recorded the lengths of: 10’5″, 11’4″, and 12’2″

• Collapsed Length: 22.75 inches
• Weight: 2.9 oz
• Segments: 9
• Handle Length: 10.5 inches

On his blog Teton Tenkara, Tom Davis, resident rod rating guru, posted an in depth review of the Sato and its little sister the Rhodo back when they first appeared in 2013. Check it out for in depth measurements including RFI, penny ratings, etc.

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