One Perspective on Tenkara and Fly Fishing in Japan, part 2

(This is the translation of the preface in 「読んではいけない毛バリ釣りの真実」(Trapping Truth about Fishing with Fly), Hisao Ishigaki, 2000, Ningensya Publishing.)

Tackles for tenkara and fly fishing are completely different. Were they different from their origins? Fly fishing uses the reel, in the present form, but the fishing reel was invented in the 19th century. Before then, fly fishing tackle consisted of a fishing line made from braided horse tail, tied onto the tip of a rod. It means the fly fishing tackle was the same as the current tenkara tackle.

There is no bamboo in Europe. Because of it, the material of the fishing rod was finely scraped wood.  It is the reason why it is called “rod,” which can mean stick. This situation led the longer rod to be heavier, and the long one was of no use. But one wanted to get fish further away. There came the idea of the fishing reel, which allowed man to throw further. The necessity is the mother of invention. 

On the other hand, there was bamboo material in Japan, for the proper material for fishing rods. And there were many kinds of it. The dried bamboo made a fishing rod, and nothing compares for the material. Eventually, there was no room for ideas of fishing reels, because there was bamboo available in Japan.

In the Edo period, the rod building technique was at its pinnacle. Being quoted in “Kyosuzume Atooi” (京雀後追, translator note; published in 1667 “Updated Kyoto Guide Book”), “there are lots of goods such as flies and sheath style joint fishing rods.” This sheath style joint meant the multi section rods which had the section to be inserted into the sword’s sheath or inside of a kind of walking stick.  

In the early Edo period, such advanced rod building techniques existed in Japan. This was realized by the requests from ruling class people such as soldiers or nobles. Even for their free time enjoyment, they hesitated to carry around long fishing rods on their shoulders. They could go out fishing, with their rods hidden in swords or sticks.

Then, how was the fly? In fly fishing, I suppose the first fly was a wet fly. The idea of dry fly came in, about 100 years ago. Floating material was invented, and the ideas of shapes and balance to keep the fly floated made the way for it. On the other hand, there is no concept of dry fly in tenkara. And it means that, if you think that fly fishing has come from wet flies, then the origin of the fly fishing had no difference from tenkara. This is the reason why tenkara and fly fishing are in half brother relationships.

But, they diverged hugely later on. Fly fishing acquired the invention of the reel, and the development of floating lines, and it was brought to the U.S.A. and took the path of further development. And it evolved further, from streams to lakes, from the surface to the bottom, and increased its target fish species and areas, to become the flexible fishing styles to accept these various situations. And gradually, it turned its purpose from catching fish to establishing the concept of the game to play with fish, and eventually found the current style of fly fishing.

On the other hand, passing through the same time period, the area to do tenkara did not expand from streams, nor did it go into leisure fishing. Tenkara had been the secret technique or the work of masters to heir to the next generations. It is described that tenkara fishing as a profession or as a business was a labor in harsh conditions, according to books such as “Fisherman; Shinaemon Toyama” (「釣り師遠山品右衛門」）and “The Last Professional Fisherman in Kurobe” (「黒部最後の職漁師」).

The reason why tenkara had been commercial fishing and had not developed as a leisure activity was that the target fish was in the mountains where were inconvenient to go, and that there was a religious taboo such as to abstain from killing living things. Among these reasons, the biggest one was that people could not afford to do it as a leisure, economically and with lack of free time.

There were a few people who did tenkara for fun before the second world war, but such people were very rare. It was around late 60’s that tenkara came to be known, through books like the one written by Soseki Yamamoto. In this decade, the motorization developed among normal people and the area with Masu trout and Whitespotted char was becoming accessible. And an economic boom gave people some excess time and money to play.  Eventually, tenkara came into the part of a leisure activity, departing from commercial fishing.

 As you see, at its beginning, tenkara and fly fishing were half-brothers, but the differences of background cultures and long history made them changed so hugely that one cannot see them as sharing the common origin.

Now, let us see the biggest difference between tenkara and fly fishing. There is a clear difference such as the use of reel, but it is not the qualitative difference as described above. The biggest difference is in the concept of flies. The conceptual difference on flies in fly fishing and tenkara is based on these; what kind of water area it is used, or what sort of area is the basis of its own.

Why does fly fishing require so many flies? There are many boxes for flies, stowed in their stuffed vests. And there are uncountable numbers of flies, with different colors, sizes, and shapes. Are there any necessity to tie flies to make it as similar as real one? I can imagine the joy of tying a fly, with imagining various matters, but are these coming from practical purposes? Rather, do fly fishermen have a hard time selecting a fly from such a wide choice? These are the simple questions coming from tenkara fishermen.

Normally, we do not consider the fly to make the results, or the fly selection decides whether fish bites or not, in tenkara. The dependence on fly itself is much weaker than fly fishing. With enough experience in tenkara, one comes to know that any fly, as long as it is a commonly used one, can do the job. Tenkara masters use fly, of only one kind of his own selection. There are a lot of people who continue fishing through a whole season with only one kind of fly. Some change flies by their color (from his feeling), or by size of large, middle and small. Along the course of it, they do not care about materials. Feathers picked from a duster can work for hackles, and the yarn around you can be a body, and even a fallen hair of dogs can make a fishable fly. 

Historically speaking, tenkara had no idea of tying a fly to imitate something. It is because the current of streams in Japan is so fast that the bait flows away very rapidly. If a fish hesitates to bite, then that fish cannot get a quickly running bait within his territory. First of all, It takes the bait in its mouth, and then it can spit it out if something is wrong. This is the habit of fish inhabiting the stream. For this situation, flies can only have an approximately suitable shape and size, and there is no need to be made to imitate something. Tenkara is the fishing heired from previous generations who mastered the habits of fish in streams.

With such behavior of stream fish, anglers attract fish with the moves of fly such as adverse pull or arc pull. Rods and lines of tenkara are convenient lengths to give motion to flies, and it is well balanced.

Of course, there are some fish which are selective about flies, but it is ok to catch some fish which take the fly you use, and it is not efficient to change a fly only because fish do not bite. It is not important whether there are rises or not, and there is no significance to wait for rises to appear. When you move your fly, the fish follows the fly from its curiosity, aggression, or impulse. You can catch fish without any rises. In tenkara terms, you can scarcely find words to describe rise, except “jump”. It tells us how tenkara did not put emphasis on the rise. It is the tenkara that carries the tradition of professional anglers, who have been considering  effectiveness as a priority.

 In other cases, fish in streams show the habit of choosing the bait (fly) very attentively. This can be seen when the bait flows slowly, on the flat water surface. In such an area where fish have worries about losing its bait unless it acts swiftly to bite, the fish can afford to watch the bait carefully, to decide it is the same as bait it lives on. Depending on the area, even within the same species, Masu Trout or Whitespotted char, behave differently.

Fly fishing is developed in the flat area where rivers flow slowly, so called chalk stream in Europe or in the U.S., by considering how to catch very selective trout. For this, fly fishing has a long history of studying about water insects, and of scrutinizing fly shape, size and color to match the environment. They change flies, and search for the joy in catching a fish with the fly which matches the situation. In fly fishing, you change your fly very often. To do it, you look for rises. This allows you to select the fly which matches the bait the rising fish eats.

Therefore, in the flat area where fish can carefully select a fly, fly fishing can get more fish than tenkara. Tenkara can do nothing in the situation like below, in which it is difficult for fly fishing. The fish make a rise for the bait of the size #25. Only one kind of tenkara fly of #10 is just like presenting the hook for groupers for getting trout. Even giving the action to the tenkara fly does not help (few fish react, very rarely.) It rather arouses the caution for trout. From the beginning, for such a field, tenkara does not give you any hands to get one fish.

  On the contrary, in the river where baits flow away quickly from fish’s territory, only tenkara can get advantage, and fly fishing has some burden to catch one. Fly fishing rods are too short to deal with fast current, and its line is too heavy.  Line on the water has drag in the current, and techniques such as line mending is needed. To get the line away from the water surface, you need to get close to the target, and to shorten the line to fish like tenkara way. Also, in such places, it is useless to change flies frequently to search for the match. 

As you see, the conception about the fly is very different from each other. These differences are coming from what kind of area one is based on. If one can understand its difference of its origin, then both fishing groups can understand each other more. 

Their ancestors are the same, half-brothers. And taking the good side of each other, can broaden the view to enjoy each fishing style. The disadvantage of tenkara is in the presentation to deal with the selective fish in a flat area. For it, tenkara can learn from fly fishing. It is possible to use a midge size fly in tenkara. Some tenkara fishermen say that they do not want to fish, even with adopting such things, but when you want to be an all-round tenkara fisherman, fly fishing can teach you a lot. On the other hand, the disadvantages of fly fishing are the short rod and weight of the line. One could think about doing fly fishing with a 3.3m rod with level line…

In the future, there will be no conceptual boundary between tenkara and fly, in stream fishing, then, I think, the new style of fishing with fly would be made by merging these two currently distinctive styles.