"Your Tenkara Story" Giveaway

When I recently ordered some of the Oni Tenkara Spools from Japan, I thought I would order some extra for a little giveaway. Now that they have arrived and I was able to use them on-stream (see previous post here), it is time to launch the first Tenkara on the Fly Giveaway and Story Contest.

I will be giving away the following to the winner of this contest:

-          1 pack of two Oni Tenkara Spools

-          1 custom Horse Hair Tenkara Line made to your spec's

-          half a dozen “Tenkara on the Fly” flies (you can pick the patterns from my Fly Box)

Rules: Submit your personal tenkara story, be it how you discovered tenkara, a great tenkara fishing outing or your personal thoughts and take on tenkara. The story must be new and not previously published or posted elsewhere. Should you want to include pictures/video with your story, you can most certainly do so. The winner will be selected by myself; I will try to pick the most captivating, creative and well written story.

All stories submitted that qualify will be published on this blog in the Your Tenkara Stories tab and the winning story will be published as a featured guest post on the Home page.

Your story needs to be submitted by March 31, 2012 to this email address with "Tenkara Story" as subject. Please include your full name and your email address (email will not be published) so that I can get in touch with you. I will try to select the winner and notify him/her within a week or so after the deadline.

DO NOT SUBMIT YOUR STORY IN THE COMMENT SECTION BELOW.

One last thing: By submitting your story (or video, pictures, audio etc.) to its publishing on this blog and you agree to the rules of this giveaway. Any off-subject or offensive submissions will be disqualified.

Any questions - please ask and happy writing!

Tight Lines, -K




Oni Tenkara Spool - other items in the picture not included.



loaded Oni Tenkara Spool

rod, chair, desk and carpet not included

Last 2011 trip to Bear Creek

After being banned to the indoor activities of fly fishing - fly tying, making lines, blogging, work on the man cave - I finally got a chance to head out for the first time in 5 weeks.

Considering the flows of the local rivers and creeks, I opted to pay one final visit to Bear Creek before the year is over. Heading to the creek, I knew that flows having been moving daily from 10cfs to 20cfs and yesterday was no different. I got to the creek around 9.30ish and it the air was 42F, the creek was flowing at about 10cfs. Well, it was flowing alright but it was iced over in the slower sections (i.e. the slow deeper pools where I was expecting fish to hold). This makes it somewhat challenging to get the fly down to the fish, doesn't it? I took the temperature mid-day and the water was a chilly 36F, still.

I decided to move around a bit and see if I can find any water that holds fish and is "mostly" ice free. I saw some nice trout, 14-16" in size, but unfortunately, they did see me as well and took cover (under the ice, that is).

I took the opportunity also to test some lines, namely a new horse-hair line that I made a few weeks ago and a new hand-tied line of Tenkarabum. Both were made with the 11ft Iwana in mind that I fished with yesterday. The horse-hair line performed wonderfully, casting was a breeze (as long as there was no breeze!) and it would just lay-out perfectly. The hi-vis tip I added is a perfect addition, making it able to detect hesitations in the line just as well as with full hi-vis lines.

Around mid-day the wind kicked-in considerable and I switched to a 11ft long, light, hand-tied line of Tenkarabum. I noticed that the line was definitively light and had much less "mass" than the horse-hair line. Initially, I had troubles adapting my casting stroke but eventually I figured it out. The line was a on the light side for the type of wind I experienced and I wish I would have brought my other lines, but alas, I decided to bring only those two lines and had to stick with it.

I only brought one brown trout to hand, the only strike of the day (if floating ice does not count). The fish took a sakasa kebari, a purple & snipe tied by Ashley of LearnTenkara.

Overall, it was a beautiful day out on the water. By the time I left, around 3pm, the air has warmed-up to an almost balmy high 50ies.

Tight Lines, -K

The RC Sakasa Kebari

Lately, I haven't been able to get out as much as I would like to or was used to during the last few months, so I started focusing on Tenkara "indoor" activity such as making lines (i.e. the horsehair line from the previous post) or tying flies.

I have been playing around with a few ideas for flies and one of them made it to the current Tenkara USA Swap V, this swap is themed Western Fly Tenkara Variants. After a lot of back and forth I decided to take shot at the Royal Coachman.

I tied a few prototypes before settling on the final design, my biggest challenges were how to incorporate the white wing and what material to use. I never tried to tie a wing to a sakasa kebari, and between wrapping the body with red silk, peacock herl collar and hackle it wasn't until a few flies later that I had the best tying sequence figured out (with help of my buddy Jason of Tenkara Talk).

For the wing, I tried calf tail (looks crappy), goose biots (even worse), traditional wet fly wing (meh) and antron (yeah, that's it). I realized that the key for tying in the wing is the ability to finish the fly under the wing, so I used a trick that I learned when tying the mercury RS2 with an antron wing: Tie tie a good length (i.e. 2"-3") of the wing material and fold it back over the hook eye and out of the way, when the fly is finished trim the wing to length.

May I introduce, the RC Sakasa Kebari:

What is your favorite Western fly and would you tie it Tenkara style?

Horsehair Tenkara Line

If you are like me and like to research on the subject Tenkara and try "new" things that are actually quite "old", you might have come across lines made from horsehair. Horsehair used to be the material of choice for a long time before new modern materials (including silk lines) took over.

I recently purchased a Horsehair Line Kit from Tenkarabum to play around and see how this type of lines cast. Making a horsehair line is quite similar to the method I posted in two of my previous blog posts here and here, but instead of mono or fluorcarbon lines you use horse hair.

The kit included a hank of horsehair, plenty to make several lines and have spare hair to fix lines (if necessary) and instructions - very detailed instructions with a lot of tips and tricks, probably mostly based on Tenkarabum's experience making this type of lines.

Hank of Horsehair

The horsehair will be furled/twisted (from as many horsehairs you like, depending on your needs, but typically somewhere between 3 and 8 hairs) into "snoods", about 2ft long, give or take.

You will furl/twist several snoods which you will then knot together to form a line in the length and taper (depending on the number of hairs you used) you like, 6 snoods will give you a line apx. 11ft in length.

"snoods"

My main observations making my first line were that the furling/twisting is much easier than with mono; the inherent stiffness of the dry horsehair makes the tag ends less twist with each other. It will also help if you hold the hair so that the tag ends fall straight down (instead of the tags extending to the side). Also, each horsehair is different, the smoothness, thickness and taper varies, so give this a consideration when you select the individual hairs.

I finished the tip end with a two strand twist/furl of yellow hi-vis mono, this way I can attach my tippet with a loop-to-loop connection (you could also include a tippet ring into your furl, I couldn't find my spare tippet rings so I didn't).

To the butt-end I tied a loop of backing that will attach to the lilian of my Tenkara rod.

The finished line, ready to be fished. I think I will take it out in my next and probably last trip for this year to RMNP. If you are new to making your own lines, be sure to get Tenkarabum's Horsehair Line Kit instead of just the hank of horse hair. The kit comes with 5 pages of instructions, tips, tricks and pictures that will make it much easier making your own horsehair line.

And now, a well-deserved seasonal brew! Tight Lines, K

PS: Please excuse the poor quality of the pictures, I have had some issues with my camera recently; maybe it's time to get a new one.

Disclaimer: I purchased the the Horsehair Line Kit from Tenkarabum at a discount for testing purposes.