Tenya; Japanese Traditional Jig Head?

Imagine you are catching a 60 cm red sea bream with a jig head. It uses a kind of jig head style hook with 5 to 8 cm shrimp as a bait. You use a 0.15mm thick braided line with a rod with a sensitive tip. You can feel the attack of a fish directly in your hand.

This is what we call Tenya fishing for snappers, so called Hitotsu-tenya (single Tenya). 

What is Tenya? 

Tenya means Japanese style jig head, or a hook that has a lead or sinker casted or connected. It is used with natural bait put on its hook. There are several types of Tenya for different targets.

Categories of Tenya

Hitotsu-tenya (single Tenya) is the one to be introduced in this article. It targets Madai (red sea bream, Pagrus major). The most popular bait for this is shrimp, and its shape is specialized for the bait. Namely, the hook has a longer shank and relatively large round gape to make it easy to put shrimp without breaking it. Often it has the additional metal at the bottom of the shank, to hold the shrimp securely. There can be a secondary hook with a short leader, to raise the possibility of hooking or for security when the main hook is taken off from the mouth. Its total length is about 6 cm and weight varies 20 to 70 g.

Next type of tenya is Tachiuo-tenya. It is for saber fish (Japanese cutlassfish, or Largehead hairtail, Trichiurus lepturus). The size of this tenya is much larger and heavier. It has a total length of 12 cm to 15 cm with 110 to 150 g. One of the most popular bait is sardine (about 15 cm length). It has a special sting on the shank to hold the bait. 

Another type is Tako-tenya (octopus Tenya). Main targets are Madako (Common octopus, Octopus vulgaris) and Ii-dako (Webfoot octopus, Octopus fangusiao). It has a plate (often made from plastic) to hold very large size or flat shaped bait such as crab, artificial attractors, fish meat, etc. And often two hooks are attached facing the bait side to hook an octopus who is covering the bait to eat. Size of it varies from 8 cm to 15 cm, depending on the size of a target. 

Origin of word “tenya”

Original meaning of Tenya was a shop (used from the 15th century). Then it came to mean specially for food shops or restaurants in the Edo period (17th century). Later in this period, it represented inns which sell food to take away. Much later, probably, someone applied this Tenya (combined shop) to the combination of hook and sinker, as Tenya signified the combination of inn and restaurant. It was a kind of pun, in the Edo period. And to my imagination, Tenya as “shop” implies a nice presentation of their goods in front of their shops, i.e. tenya shop boasts its bait on its hook. 

The history of Hitotsu-tenya

In the earlier period (probably Edo period), there was a method to catch Madai (red sea bream) using light Tenya. At that time, its weight was about 4 to 15 g. It was so small that this light Tenya was specially called Mame-tenya (mame means beans.) They might know that the rig or hook balance of the sinker-hook-bait combination was better with Tenya than bare hook. However, it was not easy to sink such a light Tenya to the target depth. Of course, to make the sinker heavier was not the solution because it worsened the balance. It seemed that the fishing with Tenya in the Edo period was done with the additional sinker at the end of a mainline, with a special rod of about 1 m. Rod had no reel, and the purpose of the rod was for jerking and for hooking. After the fish was hooked, the line was retrieved by hand.

Then, Tenya found the solution from another part of Japan. Near Wakayama prefecture, fishermans invented a special weighted line for handfishing. To reach at a certain depth under the strong current, they placed many sinkers on the mainline. It was called Bishima. Split sinkers of about 0.5g were attached on the line, at every 10 to 15 cm. Total line length was 100m. It made the presentation of rigs under the complex sea current much easier and surerer, especially in the sea water flows in the condition of Nimaijio, sea water near the surface flows in one direction and deeper water flows in another direction.  As for the modern Bishima, line material is braided polyester, 0.60 to 0.70 mm thickness. And this line is sold and used by some enthusiasts and commercial anglers.

Image from this link.

With this Bishima line and light Tenya, fishing for red sea bream was advanced to get better results around Katsuura and Ohara in Chiba prefecture. It is said that the timing when Bishima was brought to this area was around the 1920's, the beginning of the Showa era. 

With this Bishima, fishermen could use the light Tenya at the target depth. So their strategy to get red sea bream had changed drastically since then.

This combination sophisticated the shape and weight of light Tenya. Then, further down to the next millennium, another big change was brought by the use of braided lines.

In the 2000’s, the use of braided lines started to spread among Japanese anglers. They found out that braided lines were strong enough, so thinner braided lines could replace thicker monofilament lines. It was a great advantage for boat fishing in the sea, because it could eliminate the water resistance, as long part of the main line is in the water. For this feature of braided line combined with Tenya, it allowed anglers to present light Tenya in the depth, without Bishima or middle line sinker. 

This style of Tenya is well accepted by lure oriented anglers, as well as old boat anglers. We now see it as one of the most popular ways to catch red sea bream.

Modern Tenya tackle

As described above, the key enjoyment of Tenya for Madai is the direct feeling. With the Tenya of only 20 g or so, one can feel the bottom and detect bites. It is all made possible by a thin braided line and sensitive rod.

The mostly used braided line is 0.12 to 0.15 mm (0.5 to 0.8 gou) with 4 to 5 m of fluorocarbon leader (0.24 to 0.29 mm). The total length of 200 m is more than enough as the first 100m is the part mostly used. In order to reduce the resistance to release the line should be minimized, a spinning reel is used. There are special rods for Tenya, that are 2 to 2.4 m length, with a soft sensitive tip to detect the movements of Tenya. Though the tip is soft, the middle to butt section is strong enough to hold the strong pull of a fish. Depending on your preference or strategy, there are rods with a solid tip, and a tubular tip. As you can imagine, a fast action rod is easy to move Tenya and better for hooking, but it may give a fish awkwardness when they tease a shrimp bait. On the other hand, parabolic action brings you a better cushion against fish to protect the thin line, and it can let fish bite more naturally. The reel size should be 2500 or 3000 size, which provides the well balanced winding power and speed. 

Steps and Techniques of Tenya

The selection of Tenya weight depends on the depth to the bottom and strength of the current. If the depth is 20 to 30 m, the selection can be 12 to 18 g. With the stronger sea current, you can select heavier ones. 

First step is to sink your Tenya to the bottom. To detect the bite while falling, you can do feathering to minimize line slack. Once you feel Tenya to hit the bottom, you quickly take the line tensioned slightly, and then raise the Tenya slightly above the bottom (about 50 cm). This moment is often the timing that fish bites and requires attention. You hold it there for about 10 seconds, then you jerk your rod to lift the Tenya by 3 to 4 meters. Next thing to do is to put your rod downward, without  winding the reel handle, and let it fall naturally. When the natural fall of jerked distance is done, you see the line tensioned by Tenya, to start another jerk. 

You jerk 4 to 5 times without any bite. Then you can wind it up and try the procedure again. It keeps your Tenya at targeted depth for a longer time and may raise the possibility of getting a fish. 

Another change you can make, during this procedure,  is to change the rhythm of jerking. If your target depth is deep and you feel the fish may swim within a wider depth range, then you can try to make the fall time shorter and search fish more vertically.  If your depth is shallower (10 to 20 m,) then you can cast away Tenya and search fish more horizontally.

There are various patterns of bite signals, some are weak rhythmic bites and others are strong snatch. While the Tenya is falling, the bite can be detected by the line movement. When you detect the bite, you need to make a sharp hooking. 

With the hooked fish, one thing you should pay attention to is to save the line from breakage. For it, the key is drag setting. Before you start fishing, you pre-set the drag power. Considering the strength of the line, the recommendation is to adjust the drag to start slipping when you lift 1 kg weight on the line with the rod to be used in the fishing. 

As red sea bream has very strong power and fast movement of head, left to right, loosened line makes the risk of unhooking high. Therefore, it is advisable to keep the line tensioned enough without pumping. The proper drag performance and suitable rod action make it easier.

This Hitotsu-tenya fishing is one of the most exciting boat games near Tokyo. I hope you find this Tenya fishing interesting, and the next potential fishing trip destination.