Find Your Tenkara

My tenkara journey began a little over a year ago.  Before my "conversion" I was extremely skeptical of this seemingly handicapped style of fishing.  I was a traditional rod and reel slinger, then went to western fly fishing.  For three years I kept tabs on tenkara, wondering if it would fade or catch on. So I decided to tap in one day and just ask questions....and man was the response of this community awesome! Eventually I was invited out to try it and have been hooked ever since.  I say that snippet to say that before I was into tenkara, I was just fishing with gear and a little bit of thought to it.  But I found that tenkara offers a journey of developing your own art instead of copying a drawing so to speak.

 

What does it mean to find your own tenkara?

If you've been in the community for long you've heard it before. Yet, what does it mean? What does the process look like? Is it only for those purists? Is it only for those who seem to do it every day?

Discovering your tenkara means developing your personal (almost intimate) style in which to present your offering to the fish in any and all situations one can be faced with. The gamut of style is wide open. Tenkara Masters in Japan are masters for a reason: they have developed a personal style of fishing within tenkara fit to their body, mind, geographic location, gear, and surroundings to effectively catch fish.  

Discovering your tenkara takes time. I'm only a little over a year into this wonderful method of fishing, and boy do I have a ways to go to truly hone in on my tenkara. I've tested and been through several rods, lines, tippets, and kebari combinations. Fast rods and slow rods, light lines and heavy lines, light kebari and heavy kebari, zoom rods and fixed rods, the list goes on, and that will continue! It takes time to find even just what gear is a good fit for your style and your stream conditions. I live in the Denver area; we have several amazing areas to fish tenkara - mountain streams, backcountry streams and ponds, high mountain lakes just to name a few.  With each body of water, my tenkara must change...but it must be my tenkara that creates success.  If it's not, then I might as well cast a net to harvest fish. 

Discovering your tenkara at its simplest understanding has to be this: the difference between your style and your tenkara cohort's style to effectively entice and land a fish. They can have similarities but can't be identical. That is why tenkara has been my hook line and sinker - err I mean hook and line! It is such a personal way to develop your ability to experience the joy of feeling the tug at the end of the rod. 

I hope you all take the time and purposed mindset to find your tenkara. 

How's your journey coming?