One Perspective on Tenkara and Fly Fishing in Japan, part 1

(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.)

Tenkara and fly fishing are like half-brothers, because both use the hook with feathers, though they are born in different lands, Japan and Europe. This is  my opinion, but some fly fishermen say that fly fishing is the fishing of the noble people and tenkara is the commercial fishing. 

What would you say if you were asked whether you are on tenkara or fly? I assume most of you can answer immediately, to which you belong. For this, there must be a critical difference between these two.

Firstly, the appearances are different.  The vest of tenkara people is very simple, and that of a fly fisherman has a lot of accessories. Their tackles, including lines,  are also different. Fly fishing uses reels, but tenkara does not. These differences seem to be enough to differentiate these two fishing styles, but it is not that simple because there are marginal differentiations. 

For example, the Dry-fly-tenkara. It is often called Doraten or Tenfura, in tenkara terms. A well known storyteller in tenkara world, Mr. Keigu Horie, is one of the enthusiasts of this style. In this style, you attach a fly line on a tenkara rod, and you call a hook leader in fly fishing word. And a dry fly is used, as well as the reversed tenkara fly and fly of #20 or #22 size. A tenkara rod has a fly line with a dry fly attached on it. There are many jargons of fly fishing around it. I wonder whether it is tenkara or fly fishing. Mr. Horie calls it tenkara, but generally (who knows something general about it?), this style is clearly different from tenkara.

On the other hand, we had seen “Non-Reel-Fly” in the market more than 10 years ago. It had a rod like a tenkara one with the fly fishing rig with it. The reason why I wrote “we had seen” is that it disappeared very quickly. I guess it went away because this was not welcomed by fly fisherman to be labeled as “fly.” For fly fisherman, it was tenkara since there was no reel, even though it had a fly line and fly fishing leader.

To make the situation more complicated, some fly fisherman spool tenkara’s level line in their reel, and some others use only tenkara fly with their fly fishing tackles. Then, are these tenkara? And in a rare case, tenkara anglers attach a reel on their tenkara rod to adjust the length of line. Is it fly fishing?

Just as you see, there are fishing styles which lie between the borderline of tenkara and fly fishing. These are often out of stereotypes held by tenkara anglers and fly fisherman. If you need to draw a line between them, it is reasonable to consider its borderline is on the use of a reel. A person who says “I am on fly fishing” does not use tenkara rods, and, on the contrary, one who says “I am on tenkara” does not swing a rod with a reel. The use of a certain type of line is the matter of selection and of preference, and it does not decide the type of fishing.

Now, these two fishing styles can be differentiated by reel usage, on the surface. The further qualitative difference is in the way of their developments. Tenkara had been passed down to generations as a form of commercially oriented fisherman, and fly fishing had been developed by the pursuit for enjoyment. But currently, we have no commercial tenkara fisherman, and we cannot differentiate these by viewing either as a game to play.

 The difference is in the way of thinking about flies. Both of them started from the idea to catch a trout with a hook with feathers. But they were led by the differences such as; whether it is a commercial fishing or leisure and environmental differences brought from rivers in Japan and in Europe.  And they were nurtured to have different concepts. However, it seems that such big differences formed not so long ago.

Let us see origins and histories. Fly fishing originated in Europe in B.C. and tenkara is said to be used in the same period, the late Jomon period. There was an idea to bundle feathers on hooks made from bones of animals or antlers of deers, at the same time. It is said that this form of fly was used in the sea in Japan.

The very first book of fly fishing, A Treatyse of Fysshynge wyth an Angle [A Treatise of Fishing with an Angle],  was published in 1496, in U.K.. Its author is Juliane Berners, who had been labeled as a lady’s name but was revealed to be a male. I assume that fly fishing was actively done then, since such a book was published. It was about 500 years ago that this book was published, and it was the era of the Muromachi period, just around the time of the Onin war. When Japan had wars to win the regime of the country, Europeans were enjoying fly fishing graciously. This difference was immense in the development of fishing. 

 In Japan, there is a record that flies were trading items.  The oldest one was a mention in a guidebook of Kyoto, Kyo Suzume Ato-Oi 京雀後追, written in 1678. To quote “in addition to fly heads, various multi section rods” (quoted in The Collection of Materials on Fishing Hooks, 釣針資料集成, written by Naotatsu Katsube. Note; original translation by translator). “Fly heads” were probably flies to catch Ayu fish, which were made from horse tail or baleen to imitate the head of a fly. Later, this type was called Kagashira (head of mosquito), and it is the origin of Kabari (mosquito fly).

Though there was not a published book about it, we can consider that fly fishing for Ayu was practiced in Japan of that era. Then, the question is who did it. It was people who were in the ruling class with time and money to spare for it. They were soldiers and court nobles, counterparts of the noble class in Europe.

 In the Edo period, it was very peaceful and soldiers had nothing to do and were bored. According to “Diary of an Otatami Official in Genroku Era” (元禄御畳奉行の日記, Story about an ex-soldier official in Genroku Era, around 1700.), they worked one day, and had five days off in a week. It was the life every modern person envies. However, it seems that they had a hard time finding things to do to kill time. One passage in this book said that a person spent one day fishing on a moat, and another day on a pond near Ozone (Higashi Ward of Nagoya City, currently.)

In this period, fishing places are within walking distance of a day trip, and naturally the target fish are ones that inhabit there. Then which fish was the target, that was fun to catch and good to eat? It was Ayu. And it made the fly for Ayu good business, then. 

In Europe, it was trout (mainly Brown Trout) that were fun to follow, delicious, and beautiful, in rivers running in the middle of their own big territories. The noble people who had plenty of free time had toggled around catching trouts, thinking about how to catch them. This is exactly the same situation as soldiers and nobles in Japan.

It means that the target of leisure fly fishing was Ayu in Japan, and it was trout in Europe. In Japan, trout species such as Masu salmon and Whitespotted char were not the target for fun, because these species are living in remote mountain area, for the standard transportation of walking day trip at that time, These fish were only within the territories of professional fisherman or professional hunter (called matagi), and these pros fished these trouts for their specialized purposes.

By the way, from when they started catching these trout, in Japan? The oldest record about fishing for Masu salmon and char was wrote in 1694, “Kaga Clan’s Mountain Patrol; Report of Sobei” (加賀藩奥山廻役・宗兵衛記録). It had such an episode that this official found a group of 5 people who were fishing in Kurobe-gawa (Kurobe river), where Kaga Clan had control over. He broke their hut and released them. But it was not clear whether they were fishing with flies.

The old record, which clearly showed the use of fly, was written in 1878, by Ernest Satoh, secretary of the British Embassy, when he accompanied British ambassador Parks. It was “Diary of Climbing Tateyama” (立山登山日記). It wrote that the Whitespotted char was caught by fly in Kurobe-gawa, and they tasted and enjoyed the fish called Iwana (Japanese name of Whitespotted char). It is said that the guide was a professional fisherman, Shinaemon Toyama. His fly fishing tackles are still kept in the Omachi Alpine Museum in Omachi City of Nagano Prefecture. 

As you see, the oldest record about fly fishing is from 1878, and it was about 120 years ago. But when you think that fly for Ayu had been a product to sell in the beginning of Edo period already, fly fishing for Masu salmon or Whitespotted char might have started since the early Edo period or before.  

In Europe, it seems that there had been fishing to catch trout with fly even before Christ. In the book “For a Fisherman on a Rainy Day” (雨の日の釣師のために) had one passage, titled “Fishermans in the Old Days.” writing about this. A book written in the 5th century B.C. described that, in Ancient Macedonia, they bundled feathers and red wool onto fishing hooks, and catched the fish with spots. About this part, the author assumed that fly fishing was already in place before Christ, since this passage is a quote from a book from 1st century B.C..

(It continues to part 2.)