Tenkara Thrives Offline

In the spring of 2017, after years of trying to push a deeper understanding of tenkara, (as defined by those who created and named this Japanese Sport) to the west via online groups and forums, I reached a peak frustration point with what many people referred to as the “Tenkara Community" online.

It’s not that I had a problem understanding that some people just wanted to go fishing for the sake of catching fish… It’s not like I couldn’t see the many people who wanted to be "part of the club" but didn't live near trout water but that wanted to jump on board with the newest fishing fad just like the rest of us. What I didn’t understand then and didn't foresee was the resistance to learning, and the insistence of beginners and less educated people who have never read anything about real Tenkara to fight against something they truly didn't/ don't want to try to understand.

What I didn’t expect was that people who really didn’t know anything would want to spend hours and hours arguing just for the sake of arguing and refuse to accept the simple basics even when provided with published and translated information from sources in Japan. I was also frustrated by rod companies trying to control the "story" of tenkara for the sake of selling and marketing more Western "designed" and Chinese made rods to beginners and kids for the sake of spreading fishing to a new generation. That's cute and all, but that's not what tenkara is all about.

By the way, all of that isn't why I'm writing this article, but it IS just one significant catalyst that lead to a quality-of-life change for me. That year I also left my job and decided to go across the country, fishing some of the most amazing places we have for tenkara in the US. It was epic. It was a culmination in all the things I'd learned over the years, helping me catch thousands of fish but more importantly hone my casting and presentation in ways I'd only hoped to do before. I was psyched to do this with Rob Lepczyk, who was a good mentor in many ways from his fishing guide days, and who pushed me to be the best fisherman I can be. Cheers dude if you're reading this.

Then in 2018, after returning to a busy sales job but now in Colorado, I mostly withdrew from the online scene and the online “Tenkara Community” for so many reasons, focusing on fishing and being in the mountains as often as possible. Almost surprisingly, that opened many more doors for me before that season started and helped me see things very differently throughout the season, in terms of how to help spread the sport, and in terms of showing people what tenkara is really all about.

I'm sure a lot of people wonder why I'm so passionate and why I put myself out there so much to define and talk about the meaning of tenkara, to be a stickler about it, most of it is about honor.

There's a lot we learn and gain from engaging with another culture. I think it’s important to try to understand other cultures and do our best to honor the people that invite us, teach us, and share with us what is a bit of a "mysterious" and almost "guarded" piece of Japanese fishing history, now evolved into a modern sport. The people who invited me to Japan, treated me with respect, allowed me access to some of the "holiest" and most impactful of tenkara experiences and individuals asked only one thing of me, to go back and teach it like I saw it, like they showed me, like many Japanese would hope it would be taught. So, I do.

And now here, in Colorado, during these last couple of seasons spent more "off-line," I noticed that in real life, nobody wanted to argue about the simple facts… Nobody needed to use some battle of logic and wits to undermine facts and realities of what was being presented by the originators of the sport; the Japanese anglers. Nobody wanted to say, "tenkara is like pizza and baseball so catching a bluegill or a bass is now tenkara too," while fumbling to tie the right knots on their dry/dropper rig. LOL! No not at all. In fact, I found the opposite to be true.

So, during these last few seasons I took a few more students, beat a few more people up with 12-hour days climbing waterfalls and practicing casting.... and angered a few more wives.

But then seeing students improve immediately, and after seeing people fall in love with the very things that most people just wanted to argue about online, it reinforced what I have always felt, and it was clear what had to come next.

I decided to create a small tenkara gathering much like others in the real life tenkara community have done, (Oni School, Brookies & Beer/Ratskin Canoe Club outings, etc…) and set out to make a list of people that I knew would be open to learning, and who would benefit from the opportunity of exposure to real tenkara and Japanese tenkara anglers. I ended up directly inviting about twenty people, some of whom I had fished with before, most of whom I had not. Of those, about ten people ended up showing up.

Our event was free, I hosted it in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado and I can’t thank Go Ishii enough for not only joining us, but really helping a number of people to see, conceptualize, and then execute effective techniques with kebari in some of the best tenkara water Colorado has to offer.

I did my best to mimic the experiences that I had in Japan for everyone here, and those that we read about in headwaters magazine. I wanted this to be the next best thing to flying to Japan and going into the mountains there. We focused around friendship, cooking good food, Binchotan barbecue, drinking, and much more. We played casting games for prizes like Japanese tenkara gear, flies, knives and more. We smoked trout the Japanese way (Yaki Karachi) and a good time was had by all.

The challenge was real. We taught the beginners casting, and where to look for fish. Meanwhile the intermediate and advanced anglers knew what pockets to look for and how to find a soft seam in hard water. We mostly fished together, often taking turns rather than overtaking each other on the stream and spooking fish. We also split up and did our own things on some days instead. Everyone caught fish, everyone was better at casting and fishing by the time they left, and everyone was able to catch their first greenback cutthroat - which is pretty exciting, because it’s Colorado's only native trout.

We had lots of high-water crossings, some crazy scrambles and waterfall climbs, typical mountain weather, altitude challenges, and overall just one hell of a great time fishing and hanging out with each-other. It was an honor to be able to share this tenkara experience with such a great group of people.

It seemed like by the end of the event, everyone had learned something new about tenkara itself, and had made a deeper connection with the sport of modern Japanese tenkara. I hope to be able to add more people to the event next year, and to continue to grow the connection between the Japanese anglers and the US anglers, outside of the context of business, rod companies, and commercial goals.

This is where tenkara really exists, outside the walls of an office, away from the computer or the phone, off the balance sheets and sales reports. Out on the river, person to person, cast by cast, fish by fish. One kebari and one curious, committed angler at a time.