This blog is written by the tenkara anglers and for the tenkara anglers. The older posts can be found at tenkara blog archive >>
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Tenkara Blog
DAIWA Seiryu X45
DAIWA EXPERT TENKARA LT H44 rod
DAIWA EXPERT TENKARA LT H44 rod![]() The Tenkara Times do not plan to produce 4.5 m length branded tenkara rod in the nearest future, focusing on 3-4 meter length rage. That is why we’ve placed DAIWA EXPERT TENKARA LT H44 rod to the e-shop page in order to cover the niche of “very big fish large river rod. This “trophy” rod is of the perfect quality, outstanding strehgth and nice soft decoration. We fully agree with Chris Stewart’s opinion: “For years, I have felt that the Daiwa Enshou LT44SF was the world's best "big fish" tenkara rod. Well, the world's best "big fish" tenkara rod just got better. The Daiwa Expert LT H44 is a more capable rod than the Enshou was.” |
1stStep 360 rod Edition Y2017.
1stStep 360 Rod Edition Y2017.I want the angler’s first step into tenkara fishing to hook him, so I consider 1stStep 360 to be the most important rod in The Tenkara Times product line. This rod provides an easy entry point due the price, but it has the casting feel and accuracy of some more expensive rods. The redesigned Y2017 1stStep 360 features an updated new look with a gloss finish and 3D-look carbon cosmetics near the grip. ![]() |
Tenkara Casting Technique Observations
Tenkara Casting Technique Observations.Casting the line with a Tenkara rod is in many ways a paradox. Some people can cast a line the length of the rod fairly well after only a few casts. Other people struggle to cast the line and have the line extend more than one meter beyond the end of the rod. The paradox is the harder they try to cast the line the less success they have. This summer will be my sixth year Tenkara fishing. I am completely self-taught. Learning on my own how to cast by watching YouTube videos, trying to duplicate their casting motion and timing, reading what others have written about proper casting, and by trying to analyze what I think happens during my casting, and what should happen. What works and what does not work. Some of my conclusions may help you improve your casting skills. I believe you can cast a short line fairly well with poor casting technique. But you can only cast a longer line by using proper casting technique. I recommend that as soon as you can cast a short line fairly well, that you spend a few minutes, 15 to 30 minutes, trying to cast a long line, that is a line that is 1 to 2 meters longer than the rod. I believe it will reveal weaknesses in your casting technique, and it will help you to develop sensitivity to the rod loading caused by the line, which will improve the timing during your cast. And it will help prevent you from learning poor casting technique that will be difficult to unlearn. I found that if I practiced casting a long line for a few minutes, then immediately switched back to casting a shorter line, that my casting technique of the shorter line had improved. First, a list of principles I believe are true:
Basic Fundamentals of Tenkara line casting.Look at the bottom diagram on the below webpage titled テンカララインの軌道, Tenkara Line Trajectory. (Sorry but I am not aware of any similar diagram with English text) There are 8 steps in the basic overhead cast. http://www.honda.co.jp/fishing/enjoy/season/season-201208/step-1/
Step 1 is the start of the back cast. Note how the rod tip is loaded or flexed forward, as the line is dragged from the water. The rebound of that flex will help throw the line back and up at about 45˚. Stop at about 12:00 then pause for a moment. That is where the timing comes in. You pause at 12:00 to allow time for the rearward moving line to extend. Ideally you want to learn to sense when the rod tip has flexed rearward to it’s maximum amount of flex, and start your forward cast just an instant sooner. That way the rod tip will add the most energy into the line during the forward cast. It takes a lot of practice to get this timing perfect. Stopping the back cast at 12:00 position will also position the rod to put more energy into the forward cast. Note that in Steps 1 and 2 the text mentions 12:00 ( 12時). While the rod tip is flexed rearward you start the forward cast. It might help if you try side casting, with the rod tipped over just enough, about 45˚, where you can see the line position and the rod tip position. Don’t start the forward cast to hard or fast. I think if you do you will find the line tends to belly down toward the ground. During Step 3 your goal is to move the rod forward at the right speed to be ahead of the rod tip rebounding forward. At Step 4 you stop the forward cast at 2:00 (2時). That is where the rebound of the rod tip adds its energy into throwing the line forward. The rod tip will have added it's full energy into the line when it has flexed forward as illustrated in Steps 4 and 5. The rebound of the rod tip rearward at Step 6, will tend to draw the line back, but this whipping action will help the line to continue to uncurl, and continue to extend the line forward. In Step 7, if you’re not holding the rod too tightly the rod tip movement will quickly dampen out, and not oscillate too much, as the line continues to uncurl and lie out straight and ideally gently land the fly on the water at Step 8. Some people raise the rod tip just slightly just before the fly lands. To long an explanation I know. But maybe that will help you understand the fundamentals of casting, or at least my theory of what happens. Try to understand what the diagram is trying to illustrate. But when casting don't think about the steps too much. I find it helpful when casting to replay in my mind a video showing proper casting. Keep the principle steps in the back of your mind, and the video replay in the front of your thoughts. Let your subconscious mind figure out the mechanics from an understanding of the fundamental casting principles. The 4-minute video at the next webpage link from Daiwa might be helpful.The narration is in Japanese, but the video quality is good, and you can see the line fairly well. The graphics put on top of the video shows the casting angle of the rod you should be aiming to duplicate. The narration is in Japanese. If a picture is worth a thousand words then a moving picture is worth a million words. The video is an introduction to Tenkara, and how to get started Tenkara fishing. You can skip the first 2 minutes that just point out you need Rod, Line, Tippet aka Leader and a fly. The casting instruction is only the last 2 minutes of the video. The instructor in the video is Katayama Etsuji-san ( 片山悦司さん). He is a Field Tester for Daiwa, and it is my understanding that he develops the Level Line Tenkara rods for Daiwa. The Tenkara tackle set up he recommends is shown in the first half of the video at about 53 seconds. He recommends a 3 to 4 meter rod. Connected to a level line length 1.5 meters longer than the length of the rod, + about 1.8 meters of tippet. That tippet length is a little long for my taste, I would recommend a tippet of only 1 m. This video is also an example of a recommendation to start with a line that is considerably longer than the rod. The section of interest starts at 2:00. Titled 投げ方, throwing or How-to throw (the line). http://www.daiwaweb.com/jp/fishing/fishing-ch/movie/1238712_4385.html#Keiryu Notice that he holds the rod at the top of the grip, the same hold that is shown on the Honda diagram, but that is his style. Some people prefer it. Others prefer to hold the grip in the middle or at the butt end of the grip. Try it or just hold the rod the way you prefer. However, that hold position does help control the correct casting arc. The important thing is to observe the angle of his cast. Where he stops the rod on the back cast and the forward cast. If you watch closely you can see the slight pause at the end of the back cast before starting the forward cast. You might also notice the slight wiggle of the rod during the pause period of the back cast, which is caused by the rod tip flexing rearward and the line loading the rod tip. Also observe the rod angles to avoid. Not to far back, not to far forward. Stop about straight up at 12:00 for the back cast or only slightly past that position. Stop at about 2:00 to 2:30 on the forward cast. If you stop to low the line is thrown toward the water. Try to notice the total time of the cast. The pause. And the speed he moves the rod. He stops the back cast at a point just a little bit past vertical. Which is ok for longer lines. Not needed for shorter lines. Each combination of rod and line will require a little bit different timing. Depending on whether the rod is soft or stiff, a 7:3, 6:4 or 5:5 rod, weight and length of the line, etc. Another video I find useful to think about when casting is this 10-second video of Masami Sakakibara (榊原正巳) casting, aka Tenkara no Oni or just Oni (鬼). Notice how relaxed and unhurried his casting motion is. You might have to over emphasize the pause time at the end of the back cast while learning. Just start the forward cast before the line has time to start falling to the ground. Why I believe practice casting a longer line will improve your casting technique. It wasn’t until my third summer Tenkara fishing that I first tried casting a 5 and then a 6-meter line. I wasn’t very good at first casting a line that long. But I found that if I practiced casting these longer lines for 30 minutes, then switched back to casting a line that was only the length of the rod or .5 m to 1m longer than the rod my casting of the shorter line had improved. Practicing with the longer line slowed down my cast, taught me to improve my pause time at the end of the back cast, and more importantly it helped me to begin to sense the rod tip flexing rearward due to the heavier line loading the rod tip by tugging on rod tip as the line moved rearward.It’s a little bit like learning to balance and ride a bicycle. At first you’re not sensitive to losing your balance, and you fall over. But over time you become more alert to sensing you are going off balance, and you correct it sooner. Pretty soon you have learned to keep your balance and you no longer fall over. Yet consciously you are not aware of it or how you do it. It’s the same thing with casting. You begin to sense the line loading the rod. After some time practicing with the longer line you begin to sense this and to sense it earlier. And you will begin to sense the line loading the rod or the rod flex when using a shorter lighter line with out really being conscious of it. I recommend you try the following: Connect a line that is about 1.5 m longer than the rod with 1m of tippet. Tie a short piece of yarn to the end of the tippet. Start with the line laid out straight on the ground and just do the back cast. Letting the line fall to the ground. Try to notice the line tugging on the rod tip at the end of the back cast or the rod tip flexing rearward. Then turn around and do the back cast in the opposite direction. After doing that a few times, start adding the forward cast after a short pause at the end of the back cast. Experiment with the speed of the casting stroke. Try a fast abrupt start to the casting stroke. Then try it where you start the casting stroke a little slower before increasing the speed of the rod motion to the stop position. Experiment with starting slow then increase the speed only a moderate amount, then by increasing the speed a lot. I think you will find if you accelerate the rod motion too fast the line will tend to drop down in the middle toward the ground. But when your increase in rod speed is a little slower the line will not belly down in the middle, it will curl out straight and lie out farther, extending how far you cast the line. I have found when fishing if I try too hard to cast the line farther, my cast is poor. I have to remind myself to relax my cast, slow down, and let the flex in the rod throw the line. Generally when casting you will pause at the end of the back cast long enough for the line to nearly fully extend rearward and upward before starting the forward cast. However, when casting an extremely long line or after your casting skill has improved your forward cast will start when most of the line is still moving rearward. This next video shows Masami Sakakibara casting an 11m tapered salt water line. By careful observation you will see the forward cast starts when the end of the line is still forward of where he is standing and still moving rearward. That is easiest to see at about 1:15 into the video. Also notice that his casting stroke is still very relaxed, and he cast by pivoting his arm from the shoulder. His elbow height above ground is rising and falling. However, with shorter lines it’s ok to pivot the arm motion more from the elbow combined with a slight wrist motion. I can cast a 7m line ok with a 4m rod. I find it beyond my skill to cast a 10m line. It takes a long time to develop the skill to cast a line that long. I never fish with lines that long. Preferring, most of the time, to fish with a line that is at most 1.5 m longer than the rod. I believe practice casting longer lines has improved my casting technique. I recommend you try it once in a while. It doesn’t matter if in the beginning you cannot cast a 5m or 6 m line very well. Try it for a few minutes, and then switch back to a shorter line. Some people disagree with my theory that this is a useful exercise.
However, Matt Sment from Badger Tenkara wrote an interesting post about the Oni School in Utah last summer. Where Oni demonstrated casting a 10m line with a 3.6m-rod. Writing – that on the water Oni fishes with more practical line lengths of 4m to 5m. But explaining that training to cast long lines serves as excellent training for casting and learning to control more normal lengths of lines in the range of 3-5 meters. Here’s the link to Matt’s post.
http://www.badgertenkara.com/bt-blog/oni-school-part-1-the-master-his-tools-and-his-style
I wouldn’t recommend you increase the length of lines you fish with in large steps. Only increase your line length little by little. What you feel comfortable with. Making a big jump in line length is just for practice that may improve your casting technique. In many places I have read that when learning to Tenkara fish the priorities are; first you learn to cast, and then learn to cast accurately to a small point. One game to improve your accuracy is casting to a small bowl of water as demonstrated in this video. In the video he is casting with a 4.1m rod, with a 5m line + 1.5m tippet. Adam at Tenkara-Fisher made an excellent post - a translation from 桑原 玄辰 Gentatsu Kuwahara’s book, 毛バリ釣りの楽しみ方、How to Enjoy Fly(kebari) Fishing. Casting Practice for Accuracy.http://www.tenkara-fisher.com/content.php?239-Casting-Practice-for-Accuracy Gentatsu Kuwahara sets a high standard. First you learn to hit the pan of water with 50% success rate. Then you learn to hit the pan of water without splashing water out of the pan. You might want to try this with the length of line you normally fish with. It takes a lot of practice to get to the beginner level. I don’t yet meet his standard. Learning to land the fly gently helps trigger the fish to hit the fly, not spook the fish to hide. Maybe my conclusions about casting are correct or maybe not. But this is the way I think about casting. Oleg had read a couple of my forum post on this topic and found it matched his experience, and asked me to write something for his blog. I hope you find this useful in improving your casting technique. |
New TRY 300 rod.
NEW SuperFine Floating Tenkara Line.
NEW SuperFine Floating Tenkara Line.I like to fish with dry flies. Even being an avid tenkara angler that focuses on fishing subsurface kebari flies in pocket water, I still enjoy seeing a trout take a dry fly off of the mirror smooth surface of a pool. ![]() I’ve fished a lot with this line combined with dry flies with great pleasure and now I am issuing prepared lines for sale. The line is completed on the rod side with a girth hitch loop (for lilian attachment) and a mono line section with tippet ring at the other end for tippet. Just in time: the autumn grayling season starts! It is so fun to fish grayling with dry flies. ![]() |
Fish with a system and increase your catch rate.
Tenkara: Searching the Internet with Japanese Terms
Tenkara: Searching the Internet with Japanese Terms. Part 1.I have played around searching the Internet for Japanese language Tenkara websites or videos using Japanese phrases for several years. I do it because I find it fun and challenging. It is a language I do not speak or read. Or only read a little. Over time I have learned several words, learned a little about Japanese sentence structure that helps me translate, more or less correctly, what I find with the help of Google translate. Sure ever now and again I search for Tenkara website in English. But that is a little boring and not much of a challenge. It has come to my attention that at least a few people would like to do this too. But aren’t quite sure how to go about it. I have learned a few tricks that help me do this that might help others. Like most people I started out by collecting a list of Japanese phrases that I could later copy and paste into the Google search window. I started out by only knowing one Japanese word. テンカラ. Using that as my search term I soon found other Japanese phrases to save and use again later. I rarely do this any more. It is much faster to just type the phonetic of the Japanese terms I want to use into the Google translate window to get the Japanese terms I want to search with and start the search for the topic that I am interested in. Finding Japanese language Tenkara websites is the easy part. You can learn a lot just by looking at the pictures or diagrams. Translating the Japanese to English accurately is much more difficult. Google translates some words or phrases in a very weird ways. Some pages translate fairly well. Others are almost impossible to figure out. The only conclusion I have arrived at is that it has to do with the writing style of the author. That being said, learning a little about Japanese sentence structure can often help. And I have a few tips for common odd translations that may help and a few tips about Japanese that may help some too. It will really help you a lot if you learn hiragana. And later learn katakana. Along the way you will learn a few Kanji. Maybe not how to pronounce it but know what it means. I think being able to speak Japanese is a different skill from knowing how to read it. Though of course if you know how to say it that will help you to remember it. Basically hiragana (ひらがな) is the Japanese text for native words. Katakana (カタカナ) are a second set of text for the same syllables that are mostly used for non native words. Though there are exceptions. One of the mysteries is why Tenkara is more commonly seen written with katakana. Kanji (漢字) are basically Chinese text or pictograms adopted into Japanese. If you know the Japanese kanji it will mean the same thing in Chinese, or Korean or Vietnamese. Only the spoken word will be different. Many Japanese are uncertain how to say a given kanji. Furigana (ふりがな) are text in hiragana or katakana written in small font above the kanji to help you know the meaning of the kanji or now to pronounce it. Lastly there is romaji (ろーまじ) Roman alphabet for the Japanese word. Close to the phonetic for the word but not always the same. Later I will give some recommendations for learning hiragana or katakana. I use Google translate. There may be better options, but that is what I use. This web page: https://translate.google.com/ Open the web site and set the left side window for Japanese from the drop down menu. Set the right side to English. Or whatever your native language is. It will look like this: ![]() Please notice the little icon in the lower left corner. It looks like the hiragana for “a” あ. And also notice the little down arrow just to its right side. Later this will be very useful to free you from having to keep a list of Japanese words or phrases. If you click on the down arrow you get a drop down menu with two options. You will be able to type the phonetic for the Japanese word and if before you hit enter, if instead you touch the space bar, you will be given a list of several Japanese characters to choose from. If you have learned the Japanese word you want to use you can click on it and that word or phrase will be written into the left side window. The Google translation into English will show up in the right side window. This is what it will look like when you click the down arrow next to あ. ![]() Or you can choose the other option. It is an icon that looks like a small pencil next to Japanese -Handwrite. Click on it and a popup window will open and you can use the mouse to draw a Japanese kanji that you don’t know. This is useful for simple kanji. Not so good for the more complex kanji. It is also useful for a kanji that you remember what it looks like and what it means, but you don’t remember its phonetic spelling that would permit you to write the kanji into the left window by typing it. Actually the above screen shot shows a hint of some of the other useful functions that you can find on the Google translate window. If you clicked on the down arrow and the left side screen was empty or didn’t have any of the characters already written in that window you would only see the drop down menu. But in the screen shot you can see several Japanese characters printed below the drop down menu. When I took the screen shot I must have had the word Maki , (巻き) written and highlighted in the left side screen. Maki is one of the Japanese words meaning to Wind a fly. If you highlight a Japanese word or phrase written on the left side of the screen in the lower right corner you can see Translation of 巻き. Below that it states it is an adjective, curly. However in this case it is really a verb, to wind the kebari. Notice also on the left side it says See Also – followed by a list of alternate words. You can highlight them and then copy them into the left side Japanese text window and see what they translate into in the right side English translation window. Mostly hidden behind the drop down menu are other Japanese words that were written into the left side window. You can see Kebari-m just to the left of the drop down menu. Which indicates that I had kebari maki written in Japanese in the left window when I clicked on the drop down menu arrow and made the screen shot. This gives a hint of the useful options you can find to use on the Google translation page. If on the drop down menu you choose the top option - あ konnichiwa à こんにちは You will be able to type the phonetic to get the Japanese word you want to use. As an example if you type in “ tenkara” it will appear in hiragana characters as てんから.
After you type in – tenkara – you can just hit enter and enter てんから on the left side screen. Below the left window on the phonetic line you will see the phonetic Ten kara. Below that you will see written - Did you mean: テンカラ. You can click on テンカラ and it will be move into the left side screen and replace てんから . The phonetic below the window will change to tenkara. The English translation in the right side window will stay the same and say Tenkara. Alternately, if after you type in てんから if you don’t hit enter and instead touch the space bar. You will get a popup window giving you 9 optional Japanese words to choose from. Click on the word you want and it will be written into the left side window. From experience I know that Tenkara can be written in at least 3 ways. As option 1, 4 or 6. Unfortunately I cannot capture a screen shot of what this popup window looks like. Hitting the keys to make the screen shot makes the popup window close. But the list on the popup window is printed below. テンカラ 1. テンカラ 2. 点から 3. 店から 4. 天から 5. テンから 6. てんから 7. 転から 8. 展から 9. 典から Here is a short list of Tenkara related words to play with. They are listed in this order – Japanese (phonetic) the default Google English translation in the left side window. Later I will provide more Japanese words, and other hints on how to use the Google translate window. I don’t want the blog post to be to long and this is already at 5 pages. I may have to submit two, three or four post. Try typing in the phonetic without spaces to get the Japanese word or phrase you want to do a Google search with. テンカラ, (tenkara) Tenkara 竿 , (sao) Pole ロッド,(roddo) Rod レベルライン, (reberu rain) level line (a hint, when you type in rain, type the n 2x) けばり, (ke bari) Fly 毛鉤 , (kebari) Fly 毛バリ, (kebari) Bali hair 毛針 , (kebari, sometimes kehari) Fly 逆さ毛鉤,(Sakasa kebari) Upside down fly 花笠毛鉤,( hanagasa kebari) Hanagasa fly 毛鉤巻き,( Kebari-maki) Fly winding ライン巻き仕掛け,( Rain-maki shikake) line winding mechanism(trick) キャスティング, (kyasutingu) Casting 釣り,(tsuri, sometimes dzuri) Fishing 結び目, (musubime) Knot 自作, (jisaku) Self made, homebrew, own. 源流, (genryū) Head waters 渓流, (Keiryū) Mountain Stream. But 渓 流 (Kei-ryū) Mountain Flow. 本流, (honryū) Main Stream (hint – when typing in ryu, type the u 2x to make the u into ū. Try combining terms to do your Google search. Google may give you a drop down menu of optional phrase choices that it likes better. Have fun experimenting. More information will be in the next post. |
MOTIVE 390 rods are back in stock.
MOTIVE 390 tenkara rods are back in stock.![]() MOTIVE 390 tenkara rods are back in stock and they even have some improvements. Firstly, the purple trim is gone. Secondly, new chunky grip with rubberized cork ends is used. Thirdly, the butt cap is now universal and compatible with all other Tenkara Times rod models. We had not changed the blank, so the strength and the action is like it was: the best choice for bigger fish and large waters. |
TRY390 tenkara rod: season Y15 release.
TRY390 tenkara rod: season Y15 release.![]() We’ve upgraded very popular TRY390 tenkara rod. Some cork value is added to the handle in order to make the grip more comfortable, also the painting do not have trims. We had not changed the blank and the action. Special thanks to Robert Worthing for critics and advices considering the handle shape. |