Article by A.J. Moore
There’s a particular kind of cold that settles into the Driftless coulees in the last hours before dawn. It’s the kind that coats the world in white, pressing down through tent walls and sleeping bag layers with authority. On the morning of May 1st, attendees of Midwest Tenkara Fest 2026 woke to hard frost on the grass at Esofea Rentz Memorial County Park in Esofea, Wisconsin, and made their calculations accordingly. Some pulled on every layer they’d packed and headed straight for the coffee. Some sat in their cars with the heat running. At least a few drove into town to track down a convenience store breakfast sandwich… but nobody packed up and went home.
Midwest Tenkara Fest drew 52 attendees and guests from 16 states to the spring creeks of Vernon County. Among them were anglers ranging in age from six to eighty, spanning the full spectrum from seasoned practitioners to people who had never held a tenkara rod. What brought them all to the same patch of Wisconsin is harder to name than a destination or a schedule. It’s closer to something like continuity and the sense that this thing exists, and it will exist again next year, and that matters.
The Gathering
Organizers, sponsors, instructors, and early arrivals filtered in on the afternoon of April 30th for a low-key potluck dinner and the first of many campfires that would mark the weekend. By Friday evening, roughly thirty attendees had made camp: about twenty in the group site, another dozen spread across individual sites in the park, and a pile of pies from Dave’s Pizza in Viroqua was procured to feed them all.
Saturday, morning began with coffee, juice, and pastries at basecamp followed by the morning’s instructional programming. This year marked the first formal Tenkara 101 curriculum the Fest has offered. With approximately thirty participants, it ran from setup and equipment through casting, water reading, stream ecology, and flies.
Rob Worthing, MD, author, Oni instructor, and tenkara guide, led the casting clinic, and the session ran long because nobody wanted to stop. That’s the best possible outcome for a casting clinic.
Tenkara Angler’s very own, Matt Sment then led the group through a tour of the stream that runs through the park: explaining the various features and flows, and providing context for fishing techniques and trout behavior.
Tom Meagher of the University of Minnesota closed the morning with a session on stream ecology and trout feeding behavior that quickly became a crowd favorite. Armed with white ice cube trays and magnification, attendees got their first real look at the larvae and crustaceans that live below the surface of a Driftless stream — the actual food, in actual scale, that trout are keyed to.
Among the highlights of Saturday afternoon was the appearance of Zoan Kulinski, one of the original founders of the Midwest Tenkara gathering and the host of the years in which it grew from a small, informal meetup into the open-invitation event it is today. His presence was met with warmth and excitement that words can’t do justice. Some things you just had to be there for.
The afternoon also brought a fly tying session with Gary Mineart of Tenkara in the Iowa Driftless, visits to local streams, and a Saturday evening dinner from Big Boar BBQ out of West Salem — smoked chicken and pulled pork alongside slaw, beans, rolls and a potluck spread of attendee contributions.
The bucket raffle for door prizes followed: two DRAGONtail rods, two Tenkara USA rods, a Tenkara Adventure Outfitters rod, flies, accessories, books, and apparel, plus a freebies table so nobody walked away empty-handed.
On the Water
While the wind was varied, stream conditions cooperated. Water levels were average across the area, turbidity was low, and the cold had put trout into a cautious, selective mood. Which is to say the fish were there, but most anglers had to work to earn their attention.
Many anglers did. A handful of attendees caught their very first Driftless trout or first tenkara trout over the course of the weekend. Many caught their first brook trout, and at least one tiger trout came to hand for one attendee. Brown trout were caught throughout. For those keeping a life-list in their heads, it was a productive weekend.
By noon on Sunday, base camp was broken down, gear was loaded, and the park was left cleaner than the group had found it. Some attendees headed home to a dozen different states. Others pointed toward nearby streams for a few more days on the water.
Midwest Tenkara Fest was organized by A.J. Moore and Art Urban and Jared Willadsen (YouTube’s Tenkara Genki), collectively “The Tenkara Chums”. It couldn’t have happened without the generous support of sponsors, donors, instructors, and volunteers who give their time because they believe in what this gathering represents: a true community. One that shows up even when the grass is frosted and the coffee is questionable, and nobody slept quite warm enough. And, one that will be back in the Driftless next spring, same as before, and a little wiser from the experience.
Hope to see you there.
A.J. Moore is a tenkara angler, fly tier, woodworker, homebrewer, game designer, and writer who has fished the streams, rivers, and reservoirs of the Driftless Region for more than 40 years.
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