Gear Review - DVD Tying Tenkara Flies, Volume 1

I guess I am bit late with this review since I got a copy of this DVD at the Tenkara Summit a month ago (wow, already a month?!) and there is already a number of reviews out there. But that should not be a reason for me not to review it and not let you know what I think of it.

The DVD "Tying Tenkara Flies, Volume 1" was produced by Learn Tenkara's Brian Flemming (that's the guy who has been working on the feature-length documentary about tenkara in the US that is STILL not done yet) and co-produced by Ashley Valentine of LearnTenkara.com and inventor of the Punk Rock Sakasa Kebari which is also featured on the DVD, tied by Chris Stewart, the Tenkarabum.

The DVD is 2.5h long and features 17 patterns tied by no other than Dr. Hisao Ishigaki (Ishigaki Kebari), Daniel Galhard of TenkaraUSA (Amano Kebari) and Chris Stewart of Tenkarabum.com (Killer Bug, CDC & Elk, Sakakibara Sakasa Kebari and others). The content is very insight full and does not only show you in great detail and awesome quality how to tie the featured flies but also gives you an idea that each tenkara angler or tyer has a different approach and philosophy with which most of us can relate and learn from in one way or the other. A bonus is that this is not a fly tying only DVD but it also contains footage of the all 3 fishing with their flies as well as underwater impressions of the flies tied. There are also guest appearances of Rob Worthing and Erik Ostrander of TenkaraGuides.com and tenkara angler Dennis Galyardt.

The production value is very high, I don't think I have seen another fly fishing/tying DVD of similar quality. Whether you are a tenkara newbie or a seasoned pro, this DVD is a must have for your personal tenkara library. I am looking forward to see what Volume 2 will feature!

This DVD is a 'must have' for your personal tenkara and fly fishing/fly tying library. It is available for purchase for around $25 at LearnTenkara, Tenkarabum and TenkaraUSA.

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with LeanTenkara or its staff (Brian Flemming and Ashley Valentine)  nor did I receive any compensation to review the DVD Tying Tenkara Flies Volume 1. However, I received the DVD free of charge as part of a press kit for review. 

RMNP Wild Basin, August 11, 2012

After a busy work week in NYC, I was looking forward to spend some fishing time in Rocky Mountain National Park with my buddy Graham Moran of Tenkara Grasshopper. We had initially plans to hit the West side of the park but my plane from NYC was delayed a few hours and I didn't get home until very late on Friday and had no time to do some research there. So Graham and I decided to hit Wild Basin since I know the area already fairly well.

I brought a new rod back home from NYC that I acquired from Chris Stewart, the TenkaraBum. A soft action zoom rod, the Daiwa Sagiri 39MC that zooms from 11.5" to 13" and weighs a whopping 2.0oz as per Chris' website. I fished this rod back in Utah before the Summit and knew I wanted one. Last week Chris got another shipment and I had one put aside for me. Although I thought that 11.5" might be a bit long in that section of the park, I had to fish it. And it worked remarkably well until we headed way further upstream where I had to get the Daiwa Soyokaze 27SR (9ft) out of my backpack.

Fishing (and catching was great) although it started a bit slow until it got a big warmer and fish became more active. As expected, most fish we caught were brookies with a few browns, a rainbow and a few greebacks in the mix. So we had a Colorado Grandslam combining our catch (I missed the rainbow and Graham missed a greenback).

The weather was a bit cool for the season, with a few showers in the morning but warming up to mid 70ies late afternoon.

first fish of the day - a typical brookie up there

a nice surprise, a good sized brown trout

Graham getting into position with tourists checking out the falls

nice water on the lower section

Graham sneaking up on some fish from behind a big rock

further upstream - perfect for the short 9' Daiwa Soyokaze

chunkie

  

it's getting tighter

nice greenback to close out the day

snowshoe rabbit 

Days on the water: 23

Utah Trip 2012 - Part 1 - Before the Summit

Wow, what a busy week that was! I got to fish quite a bit and met some cool peeps from the tenkara community. Let's start at the beginning:

Day 1 - Tuesday July 24th - Denver to Meeker
Take-off after work, drive half-way from Denver to Park City where I was staying. Half-way point: Meeker, Co. The drive was noteworthy, with temperature ranging from 95F in Denver to 55F just on the other side of the Continental Divide with a crazy downpour that made driving downhill from Eisenhower Tunnel more like sledding. Aquaplaning is the word. Crazy. The Colorado River in Glenwood Canyon looked still impressive but man it is low. A lot of water is being missed downstream. Driving from Rifle to Meeker made me feel like a lonesome cowboy. No traffic, the road to myself, impressive landscape. Oh, and some really bad Mexican food in Meeker. Bland would have been very tasty.

Day 2 - Wednesday July 25th - Meeker to Park City, fishing the Provo River (middle)
Highway 64 to 40, following the White River downstream. Surprised I am allowed to do 65mph on that type of road but hey... this way I will get there quicker. Dinosaurs! Yes, dinosaur status everywhere in the city of Dinosaur. Even at the intersection with 40 and the school playground. Guess the big attraction around is... Dinosaur National Monument. Cool landscape. Still feeling like a cowboy, maybe even more so than the day before. Now I am in Utah and feel like I am almost there. Well, just a few more hours. Passing some interesting water, including Strawberry Reservoir. Man, that looks fishy.  One more hill and Heber Valley is in reach. The Provo flows through Heber... I think I will fish the Middle Provo before calling it a day. When I got to the Bunny Ranch, there were a few cars and a couple guys calling it a day saying the fishing is tough, one a fish or two to hand. One was complaining about the flows and saying he's heading up to the Weber. The other was actually handing me some flies that should work. Beaded San Juan Worms... I am polite and say thank you and put them in a box with "retired" flies. I gear up and head to the river and hes, it's flowing high. But hey, I fished it before with my 9ft 5wt before and the flows were even higher back then and did ok. Well, half an hour into it I had already 5 brown trout. Dinks, around 5" to 7", but all caught on a sakasa kebari. Knowing how to and where to fish high water is key, focus on the edge and slower water. Best trout was around 13" to 14", a bit longer than the handle on my Ito. 18 fish to hand when I was wrapping up around 4.30pm. I forgot how windy it gets on that river in the afternoons. Packing up and driving the remaining few miles to Park City and chill.

Middle Provo River around the "Bunny Farm" 

First Utah trout of the trip

one of many dinks I caught on the Provo

nice Provo chunk - turns out to be the biggest trout of the trip

Day 3 - Thursday July 26th - Fishing with BC of Tenkara Elevated
I met up in the morning with BC in Provo and headed to some "undisclosed" creeks, a request of BC that I honor. The first two creeks yielded only one fish since they were running pretty "off-color". Then we headed a bit south and hit a tenkara perfect little creek with very willing rainbow trout. 'Nough said.

Chocolate Milk Trout 

the harder they are to catch the prettier they are

BC of Tenkara Elevated 

Small Creek Fishing

BC working it

Day 4 - Friday July 27th - Fishing with Anthony Naples of Casting Around and hiss friend Jeff, Paul Gibson of Tenkara-Fishing.com and Chris Stewart, the TenkaraBum.
Friday started out early and with an interesting drive from Park City to Spruce Campground in the Big Cottonwood Canyon over the mountain instead around it (via SLC). This road, which I knew was unpaved, turned out to be probably the worst road I personally drove a vehicle (there was one road that was even worse in New Zealand but I was a passenger only). Anyway, the highlight of this short drive that I spotted a mother moose next to the road and a calf right on the road. I never came so close to a moose before. Pretty cool. Anyway, at the campground we all met and decided to head over to the Little Cottonwood which was the bigger and supposedly easier water to fish. It turned out this was true, the water was rushing, gin clear and strewn with nice big boulders. Fishing was a bit challenging; I started out fishing downstream but I didn't start catching fish until I decided to fish upstream (gin clear water, remember?). I quickly got 2 brookies and a rainbow out of the same pocket water and was able to pick a fish here and here going forward. Fishing wasn't fast but very satisfactory.

Little Cottonwood - fast super clear water with lots of pocket water

One of the "more open" sections of Little Cottonwood

high gradient creek- tenkara!

Chris Stewart, the TenkaraBum

first fish on Little Cottonwood - a healthy brook trough with shoulders

nice rainbow trout on Little Cottonwood

another nice brookie 

Anthony Naples of Casting Around

Anthony Naples

Chris working promising water

When we were sort of done and ready for a break, Chris and I were a bit in a pickle, we couldn't really move back or forward and the only way out was through some very thick brush (turned out that there was also some poison ivy...) and it took us a while and some sweat and strong words to get back to the trail. Anthony met us on the trail, he was smart enough to get off the river sooner that we did. The three of us hiked back to the cars on that trail which was closely guarded by a rattle snake that gave us a nice friendly rattle while we made our way past it (Anthony had the pleasure the walk by it for a third time and point it out to us ahead of time so that we were prepared). Back at the cars, Paul shared a funny story about cops, a sword yielding wanna be samurai and some Japanese tenkara anglers further upstream... some teasing was in order later that evening!

Since Jeff, Anthony's friend had a little accident and got his leg pretty bruised, he and Anthony decided to call it a day. Chris, Paul and I jumped in our cars and headed back to the Big Cottonwood and give it a try. The water was definitively smaller and brushier. Again, it took me a bit to adapt but soon I got into some smaller brown trout with a nice one to close out this day's fishing.

Big Cottonwood - looks nice, doesn't it?

still nice, but increasingly challenging

reward after some stealthy fishing

Friday evening I headed back to SLC for a small get-together with Daniel Galhardo of Tenkara USA, the TenkaraGuides, the Japanese guests and a few new friends for drinks and dinner.

Part 2 - The Summit will follow later this week, I am heading to NYC for business.

Tight Lines, -K

A Few Firsts

Having another day off, I headed today back to Bear Creek, although today it felt like Winter was back again. Gone are the days of low 70ies, today it was more like high 30ies and low 40ies.

Today, I wanted to use two new pieces of equipment: a release box and a new rod.

The release box is something I have been thinking about ever since I saw this post over at Tenkara Fisher. Finally feeling inspired enough I went to the hardware store and bought the supplies, including the wrong glue. It was a fairly easy project - were it not for the glue. I didn't pay too much attention and just got some superglue which is not quite the best for this project. It works, but, well, let's just say it's not easy to work with. Anyway, I finally have a release box and I have plans for a few more already for some of my friends. And I ordered the right cement, too.

The new rod is a Daiwa Soyokaze 27SR, a tanago rod offered by my friend Chris Stewart (aka Tenkarabum) who sent me this rod as a replacement for a rod that whose tip broke last year in  RMNP. A tanago rod is not quite a tenkara rod, although it is a telescopic rod. It is made for smaller quarry, such as minnows. Yes, I said it. Minnows. Small fish. Actually, very small fish. Read more about it here and here.  BUT, the rod, at 9ft, can be used as a tenkara rod and you can successfully fight and land fish that are bigger than 2". Today, I landed a few around 10" and a bigger one, probably 12", that I had at my feet but lost it since I forgot my tamo and tried to land it with the release box. The release box I built is 11.5" long and 2.5" wide, so not really the right tool to land fish. Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that this little rod is has more to it than what meets the eye, it is a nice and handy tool for very small creeks. It has plenty of backbone for trout of 12", probably even bigger fish. The length of the rod will require you to fish in stealth mode since you are loosing about 4-6 ft of reach compared to when using an 11ft or 12 ft rod. I spent a lot of time on my knees today... but with good results! This, or the next size up at 10.2ft. would be a rod perfect for someone who needs a light rod for some backpacking - it weights only 1.69oz (the 9ft does)! A more comprehensive review of the rod will follow after I have fished it some more. I am thinking RMNP...

Back to the fishing today - cold, sun, clouds, overcast, windy mixed in with some fine trout. Of 17 trout hooked, I landed 9 even without my tamo (...). Two came up on top and took my CDC & Elk, all others fell for the RS2. These are my two confidence flies and fishing them together as a dry & dropper just seems to work - all the time.

Tight Lines, -K

River Statistics:
Weather: cold, little sun, clouds, overcast, windy
Air Temp: high 30ies/low 40ies
Water Temp: 39F at 11am
Flow: 18cfs, clear, no runoff (duh, too cold!)
Day on the water in 2012: 6
Fish: 17 hooked, landed 9

PS: don't forget the "Your Tenkara Story" contest, submission deadline is March 31st.  

Bear Creek March 16 2012

I still had some leftover vacation days from last year and decided to take a half day to go fishing while the nice weather lasts. Sunday's outing to Bear Creek was still on my mind and I thought that fishing would be now even better with since it was nice and warm the entire week. Boy was I right...

I made plans with Jason Klass of Tenkara Talk to meet early afternoon; Jason took the whole day off and started fishing earlier in the morning, having a pretty good day himself. And he caught his first trout of 2012! Congrats, Jason.

Jason changing a fly

He told me all his fish in the morning were caught with a Utah Killer Bug, so I tied one on myself but it didn't quite work out for me. I switched to my standard searching setup, a dry (olive CDC & Elk) & dropper (midge larva at first, then RS2) and things started picking up. All my fish were caught on the dropper, go figure. What I really like about the CDC & Elk in this combination that it floats well and that it is a really sensitive "strike indicator". The slightest hesitation will pull it under.

I fished today with two new pieces of equipment, the Ebisu of Tenkara USA and the new yellow hi-vis level line of Tenkara USA*. These are my fist impressions, I will do more testing for a comprehensive review of both.

The Ebisu is a 12ft rod with a 5:5 action. It has a beautiful glossy black finish with gold letters. The "special" thing about the Ebisu is it's handle - made of pine instead of cork. The rod fishes well, it is definitively much softer than the Iwana 12ft. It feels a bit "top-heavy", similar to the Ito when fully extended. I suspect this has mostly to do with the relatively short pine handle that measures 8" and is rather short compared the other rod handles in Tenkara USA's lineup. You notice the "top-heavyness" at first when switching from the Iwana but you get used to it very quickly - as you do with the different casting stroke with this slower stick (I really start to dig the slower actions). One of the larger fish I caught today put an awesome bend in it but I hope I don't have to wrestle fish larger than, let's say 16" in swift currents; the Ebisu doesn't have the same backbone as the Iwana does. Don't get me wrong though, I really like this rod, in particular how nicely it casts a level line - such as the new Tenkara USA yellow hi-vis line. 

This new line does cast really nicely, I used today solely the 3.5. It performs in the same way as Tenkarabum's orange hi-vis no. 3 line. In fact, I measured both with my caliper and they have the same diameter. Anyhow, the lines perform almost identical, personally my first impression is that the yellow line feels slightly softer than the orange line. I am not sure if that makes any difference how it casts but the yellow seems to have, as advertised, less coil off the spool, although I wasn't able to directly compare this to the orange line since I didn't store it one a spool (figures...). I will make sure to test this later. In terms of visibility, well, I have to do some more testing also. The orange line appears to be more visible overall by having more contrast with various backgrounds. The yellow line is slightly less visible against backgrounds of similar color, i.e. beige, dead grass of Winter and beige/sand colored rock. 

THAT BEING SAID, I was fishing most of the time with a dry and dropper and I didn't have to watch the line for strikes - the dry fly took care of that. I will need to do more back-to-back testing with both lines when I actually would watch the line to indicate strikes.

So, without further delay, I know that you also want to see some fish porn, here are some of today's beauties. I was quite excited having landed 3 rainbows of the total 7 trout landed, rainbows are in the minority on Bear Creek and are purely catch & release whereas you can keep some brown trout (how many does escape my knowledge since I practice 100% catch & release). One of the rainbows put a pretty nice aerial show on, jumping 3 times trying to shake the fly.

gotta love them orange dots!

*) The yellow hi-vis level line of Tenkara USA was provided to me free of charge, the Ebisu was bought by myself (used).

River Statistics:
Weather: nice & sunny, little wind
Air Temp: low 70ies
Water Temp: 44F at 1pm
Flow: 23cfs, clear water with very little discoloration from run-off
Day on the water in 2012: 5
Fish: 14 hooked, landed 7

PS: don't forget the "Your Tenkara Story" contest, submission deadline is March 31st.