Tenkara

The fly fishing industry must be in bad shape.  Patagonia is serious about marketing their Tenkara fishing poles to fly fishermen, for around $100.  It’s the Big Bertha of fishing, a promise of great performance for high-handicap fly casters.  If you’re having trouble getting your wooly bugger out beyond forty feet, get yourself a Tenkara.  The idea is to be comfortable with casts of under thirty feet…the length of the pole and line. If you want to practice Tenkara casting, head down to any local fishing store and buy a cane pole, or, if you can’t find a cane pole, get a fiberglass telescoping pole.  They come in a variety of lengths, but around 10-12 feet will get you in Tenkara performance range.  Buy a couple.  They’re cheap. Then, tie on some mono.  One piece about as long as the pole will do fine.  Say, fifteen pound mono.  Tie on your secret, best fly and go fishing.  You’re ready.  Stand and sling out your fly, or your worm under a bobber, and you’ll be doing the Tenkara.

Yves Chouinard, Patagonia’s leader, a fine fly tier and mountain man, has been producing wonderful clothing and climbing gear for years.  He fishes all over the world.  He’s getting older and obviously bored, or he’s out to win a bet with a pal, that his brand can sell anything.  Tenkara is cane pole fishing.  Next Patagonia will be selling black rubber boots and a skirt to  wear over your jeans, and a bucket to sit on while you fish off canal banks and dip snuff.

Anyone who’s waded and nymph-fished in a fast, rocky river will see the attraction—a slightly longer, stiffer pole from which to dangle a fly behind rocks and along current edges.  This has been called nymphing for eons, this dangling thing.  It is not fly fishing, but the equivalent of a bass fisherman’s “flipping.”  Florida fishermen, don’t be fooled.  Go back to your wind knots, managing your haul.  Learn to cast.

Fat Kayak

Don't Fall off Your Sit-on-Top

My kayak gained weight since I last used it, or so it seemed when I loaded it in my SUV recently.  Maybe that’s why I haven’t used it?  I didn’t think about putting it up top, on the rack where I’ve carried it for years, but settled for second-best.  Let it hang out, tie it in, pink surveyor’s tape to flap a warning.  Short trip, an easy decision…at my age, 71.

I made another decision years ago:  don’t use a sit-on-top kayak.  My arse is below the waterline in my sit-in boat, making it more stable than a sit-on-top.  Inuits had to stay dry or die.  

The Mushroom Dance

Best-Advantage Anchoring

Pompano fishing recently with a very experienced friend, we anchored and tossed flies and jigs into “holes," known to hold pompano. I learned a few things. He doesn’t use an anchor chain, which I have done all my boating life, to let the catenary curve of the anchor rode help set the anchor.  He doesn’t want the noise.  Instead, in his 20’ skiff, he has a small laundry basket and 50 of 3/8 nylon line tied off the bow to a mushroom anchor.

Quiet is good, so as a guest you’re encouraged to stay in your area of the boat, seated or standing.  We fished three anglers, with him in the stern seat.  He was able to cast to the area directly to his right and work his fly or lure along the bottom with the current in a wide arc to his right--down-tide--covering a broader area than the other two.  The man in the middle had a narrower casting window, not wanting to over-cast the bow and stern anglers, and the man in the bow had to be careful not to catch the middle angler or his line if he tried to broaden his casting arc by casting up-tide along the anchor line.  Stern man “covers” more water, his piece of the pie is larger.

Memory Flies

Stay with the Ones You Love

We all have memory flies and patterns we enjoy tying and fishing. I came across the flies of Tim Borski when I lived in Key West.  To me all his flies look fishy.  I tied two of his BonefishSliders one summer night, feeling that they’d catch a wary bonefish.  The next morning, wading alone in the Mud Keys, a large single fish suddenly appeared, heading my way, out about 60 feet in ten inches of crystal-clear water.  I crouched, made my first cast with the Slider.  The fly landed two feet ahead of the fish, which raced to crush it.  Fish on, a drag-testing run or two, then to-hand, maybe six pounds of a silvery ghost fish.  How can you beat that?  

Dick Brown is famous for his crab fly, the Merkin.  It’s an interesting, easy tie.  I’ve thrown it in reasonable proximity to maybe five permit in good water conditions.  No interest.  At least a dozen bonefish have turned their snouts up at it, in various sizes.  I watched one day in the Marquesas as my son cast the fly repeatedly to a slow-feeding school of permit.  They never spooked.  Finally, he gave up, exasperated.  I had faith in the fly.  Could be that Brown caught all his fish in the Yucatan, where it’s far easier than in the Keys.  I begged that fly to work.