ADVANCED TENKARA FLY-FISHING: Strategies, Tactics & Flies
INTRODUCTION TO KEBARI “We exist to tell people that fly-fishing is much simpler than it seems. We exist because we believe that with more people taking up fly-fishing, they will more closely connect with their environment and help take care of it. We live because we want to share the fun of tenkara. The tenkara story tells us we can leave many things behind. And, after we know that we can leave stuff behind, what we then do is simply a matter of choice.” - www.tenkarausa.com
Making his way along a small foot trail, a 16th-century Japanese commercial angler - armed with a long rod and a short line - is focused on the small mountain stream that makes itself known with the sound of rushing, cold water. The water is cold and clear – ideal for thriving populations of Yamame - which are known for their scrappy fighting habits. The trail runs alongside this stream, and this angler is looking for those deeper pools that have been carved out from the continuous flows of water fed by both deep mountain snows in the spring and the steady rains of summer and fall. As he crouches low to keep his profile out of sight, he casts his sparsely tied kebari pattern into the air and allows it to drop and sink into the seam of water to the left of a large, gray boulder. Here, a 12-inch Iwana, consider a large fish in this mountain stream, sits near the bottom and watches closely for what meager amounts of insects might flow past the boulder. This anglers kebari – with its reverse hackle undulating and pulsing as the fly dead drifts in this seam of water – catches the Iwana' eye, and the fish moves quickly to make it a meal before it’s gone downstream. Our ancient Japanese angler raises his rod and immediately feels the fish's tension as he darts in and around the soft water behind the boulder – desperate to get the fly out of its mouth. Lifting the rod a little higher, the angler raises the fish out of the water and gently onto some mosscovered ground. The battle is short-lived but typical of the mountain fishing that happened hundreds of years ago in many mountainous regions of Japan that continues to this day. 93
