North West Slovenia–the Hidden Pearl of Europe. Part 1.

If I could only choose two words to describe this place they would be Perfect and Paradise!

Particularly for fishermen, this place has it all! The rivers are beautiful with cristal clear water in many tones of blue and green. These light colored river bottoms and picturesque gravel bars are surrounded by densely forested alpine mountains full of wildlife.  Many unique fish species live here in a fairy tale environment that is magical and more than worth every fisherman’s visit. Without a doubt, I know you will love this place like everyone else. This is a fisherman’s perfect playground: it makes you a better fishermen and has everything you could wish for.

I will explain the following about North West Slovania: 

·         The 10 amazing rivers to fish.

·         The 9 different species of fish and how to catch them.

·         Where to get fishing licenses.

·         Where to spend the night.

The rivers in this part of Slovenia find their way over 200 million year old limestone, making the water exeptionally clear. The last ice age left a mineral resin in these mountains that causes a vibrant and surreal blue and green tone in the water and pools.  Combine that with a white river bottom, gravel beaches and green alpine mountains and you get special nature with contrasting colors that are a real treat for the eye. The rivers themselves are in pristine shape, flowing naturally and almost untouched by human influence or other regulations. The 145km of river water  that may be fished is divided over 10 rivers. Because of this abundance of choice, it is impossible to choose only one favorite river. There is just to much to see and fish, more than enough for a fisherman’s lifetime.

The Soca river is large and ranks among the most beautiful rivers of Europe. This river is absolutely pristine and untouched. Around 40km can be fished, all so beautiful that you often forget to fish while there. The upper and lower part have stone and gravel beaches with gentle currents and rapids while the middle part flows through a deep and remote canyon with many big boulders and pocket water. It has many places that are good for Tenkara but require some walking to reach the next spot. All species of trout, grayling and whitefish live in this river and the average size is "BIG". Many of the fish are just too big for Tenkara; fishing here demands skill.

The Idrijca river is also large and has a more mysterious karst character with attractive greenish pools.  The upper part is densly forested, remote and better for Tenkara. The lower part is more open with gravel beaches and longer, slower pools and rapids. 16km can be fished. All species of trout, grayling and whitefish live in this river.  

The rivers Baca, Trebuscica, Tolminka, Nadiza and Ucja are mid-sized and ideally suited for Tenkara throughout the entirety of the rivers.  Because these rivers are smaller than the Soca and Idrijca they have more variety and different surroundings. The total length of these rivers together is around 65km and the average width is 20m or less. The fish can be big too. It is not uncommon to find 60+ cm fish.

The Baca river is a tributary of the Idrijca and the longest of the middle sized rivers; around 21km can be fished. The bottom consists of white, grey and brown stones and and gravel. The pools have a nice bluish hue and the water is very clear. The lower part is C&R only, with a more open character and longer pools with surprisingly big fish. This river has high, densly forested banks in the middle part and more rapids in the upper part. Many sections of the river have impressive limestone plated walls and big rocks. This river one of my favorite rivers that guarrantees a lot of fishing fun. The whole river is good for Tenkara. The upper part holds only wild trout while in the lower part you can catch grayling and a occasional whitefish too.

The Trebuscica river is also a Tributary of the Idrijca. This pristine, untouched river with its white gravel bottom, yellow stones and light greenish toned pools is an intimate beauty where pools and rapids follow each other up quickly.  The water is exeptionally clear and the fish will offer you a nice challenge. The whole river is around 8km, perfect for Tenkara and C&R only. All species of trout can be caught. The lower part has more grayling and whitefish.

The Tolminka river is a tributary of the Soca. It has around 10km of fishable water and is C&R only. The upper and middle parts flow through a narrow, remote and densely forested valley. To reach the water and walk from spot to spot requires some hiking and climbing skills. Almost no fishermen go to this place so you can expect to have the water to yourself. The river has some gorges with steep walls and many big white rocks scattered around. The water is cold, very clear and clean enough to drink with a nice blue tone in the pools. The bottom is light colored and the fish are all wild. The lower part, down the Unesco gorges, is easier to reach and has a more open character with more gravel beaches. All the trout in the upper section are wild. In the lower part  there are also grayling and occasional whitefish.

The Nadiza river offers around 13km to fish. The upper part is remote with some impressive limestone art and big rock and is also the best area for Tenkara. The middle and lower parts are more open, wider and easier to reach. The pools are far apart so expect to do some walking. The bottom is white gravel with nice black stones. The water is very clear, drinkable and has a blue tone to the pools.  

All trout and grayling species can be found. This river also has many chubs and barbels.

The Ucja river has 6km of fishable water. This river offers adventerous and peaceful fishing.  It is very remote and the least fished river of all. It is very difficult to enter, almost inaccessable. The water is cold and fast. The pools are blue toned and the bottom is white. It has the most amazing big rocks, boulders, cliffs, ravines and gorges. To fish this river you need to be fit and have some climbing skills. I do not suggest fishing here alone. It has many dead ends with steep walls and deep pools that you cannot get around. It probably doesn't get any wilder than this. All the trout are wild and the lower section also has grayling.

The Kneza, Koritnica and Bela rivers are fairly small with a combined length around 18km. The Kneza and Koritnica river are tributaries of the Baca river. The Bela river is a tributary of Nadiza river. These rivers are perfect if you like Indian style Tenkara with a short rod and short line. The banks are densly forested with high a variety of pools and limestone art. The Kneza and Koritnica rivers have many impressive limestone plated walls, while the Bela river has a more open character. These rivers hold wild trout and some occasional grayling in the lower parts.

To be continued..

One day of tenkara fishing in Croatia.

My annual family beach holidays at the Istria coast with sunbathing, swimming and snorkling bored me after a couple of days this year. Fortunately I had the possibility to diversify my vacation with a day-trip, fishing the Croatian mountains. The Kupa River and its tributaries in the area of the Risnjak national park make for some good places to fish with the fly.

At the end of August all the big grayling are in deeper pools. I saw teams of 15-20” specimens slowly moving in the emerald water and glistening in the sun. I managed to hook one with a nymph on a stream flowing into a pool, but all the others ignored my flies. The water was very warm and these large grayling were not feeding during the day. To find active fish I went to the tributaries.

The water in the tributaries–Kupica and Curak–is definitely colder than in the Kupa. Both rivers run through canyons where the current is stronger and the fish are much more active in the summertime heat, so I went there to fish. The tributaries are catch and release areas. The Kupica is accessible easily by car from the confluence of the Kupa up to the village of Mala Lesnica. The Curak is also accessible by car for 4 km upstream from the confluence to the Kupica near the village of Isevnica.

Moving alongside the river through the bushes, I fished some runs, sometimes hooking nice little WBTs and found a lovely pool with flowing stream and a visible flock of decent-sized fish near the bottom: grayling! I switched to a heavier kebari and got a take on the very first cast. Fortunately, at this moment my mate with the camera passed me on his way to the next fishing spot and got some nice shots, recording the fight, the catch and the release. All the other grayling spooked and I moved upstream, focusing on the deeper pools. I caught some nice grayling, brownies and bows in two hours of perfect tenkara fishing under the canopies of the beautiful Curak stream.

Lodging near Kupa is available. The hotel “Mance”, http://www.hotelmance.com/ is located in the center of Brod-na-Kupi. Driving through the Kuzelj village I saw the signes “SOBE” which means there are rooms for rent. Also you can contact the fly angler, Darko Gorjan, at https://www.facebook.com/croatia.flyfishing for inexpensive fisherman’s lodging in Zakraic Brodski near Curak, like I did.

Curak. The grayling.

With Darko Gorjan: fly swap :).

Suitability of the Stream.

I have been asked so much recently whether I prefer western-style or tenkara. This is a very difficult question to answer, because I love them both. One is aware of all the conjecture, the arguments for and against, and I'm afraid that the simple truth is that we anglers usually do have a distinct preference for one approach or the other and tend to do our utmost to 'protect' and promote whichever that might be. This is typical of our nature, of course, though while it does the sport no good at all, it might not, finally, do any harm.

So what are the main points of concern, or argument, and are they valid? A lot is made of the minimalistic simplicity of tenkara, which is perhaps obvious, but probably over-stated in comparison with western-style, because apart from having a reel in the system, the latter can be just about as simple. On all the rivers I fish, Europe-wide, I carry very little, with either approach. Indeed, I have known tenkara fishers more burdened with tackle and flies than I am when fishing with fly line.

The delicacy of presentation of tenkara is also a strongly voiced virtue, and we have to agree with this, although again, fishing western-style, with the ultra-light line weights and furls available nowadays, or particularly the leader-only approach, there is very little in it, believe me. I should add that western-style actually has a huge advantage here, particularly again with leader-only in that one can obtain beautifully soft touch down, with control, at significantly greater range than is possible with the fixed line. On the small river this is inconsequential, but the value of this increases vastly in proportion to the size of the river. Having control over line/leader length, however, from cast to cast, is also of huge value, no matter what the size of river. I fear that tenkara aficionados who do not appreciate this point are either in ignorance of this factor of control, or in denial.

The problem here is keeping hooked trout out of the overhanging alders on the right bank: middle Ternoise, at Blangy sur Ternoise, northern France.

The perfect quarry for tenkara, on any size stream:  grayling on the plume tip.

Upper Eden feeder stream; ideal for tenkara and plume tip.

Grayling, Eden, plume tip.

     

Perfect tenkara water on la Ternoise, northern France.

Only the fixed line can work here: upper Ternoise in deep cover. In twenty metres of river I counted nine trout, all of which would not have been accessible with western-style.

I think that responsible river guides and fishing instructors should not concentrate on the tired old ground of casting technique and fly selection (which are comparatively trivial), and should certainly not push the angler towards one approach while condemning others. Rather, they should gear the approach absolutely to the water type and conditions that face them. Beyond that, they should teach wading technique and, above all, how to expediently and safely deal with a hooked fish, of any size. The latter issues, make all the difference out there, and are water-invariant. Many of us have learned how to extend the scope of tenkara towards bigger fish and more open water situations, in which big fish can run, and we can cope with hand-lining, such that we know how to hold the tippet and allow it to slip as it is shortened to the point when we can net or handle the fish; but above all, as we broadcast this beautiful fly fishing approach, we owe it to both the sport and our quarry to teach how to do it so as to minimise any damage we do.

We are now well into the autumn/winter fishing for grayling and I am fishing mostly with tenkara, and double nymph, using either the outstanding Motive 390 or the new Try 360, the latter being supremely gentle and I have to say superbly suited to fishing for big grayling on the Eden in Cumbria and the Category two streams in northern France (the Category ones now being closed for the winter).

Do take a look at the draft details of next year's courses and hosted trips (which include Eden in Cumbria, Slovenia, Czech, the San in Poland as well as the tenkara-suited waters of the Seven Valleys area of northern France) up on my website: www.presentationflyfishing.com.

The oldest tenkara angler I’ve met.

Fishing with the fly in 70s

I met Alexander Vasilchenko–the tenkara angler, bamboo rod maker and my compatriot, who now lives in Germany–on the forum www.tenkara.ru. 

It is a town with a population of 40 thousand; the home water is the small Fränkischen Rezat River so I was very surprised to learn that the local fishing club includes 1200 members.

I never knew that fishing is so popular in Germany. Again I was surprised when we went to the river together to try each other’s rods and saw the riverbanks were absolutely virgin. Not one angler or even angler’s track was seen! Alexander confirmed my impression that the rivers are absolutely not pressured, even being stocked with trout regularly every year.Let me note that, according to German regulation, the fish caught there can’t be released. I supposed that Alexander himself caught all the stocked trout every season and he confirmed it smiling.

Fishing with the fly in 90s

He used to live in Siberia, Russia. There he fished often with artificial flies and did so without a reel. The Siberian anglers have fished this simple and effective technique for centuries. It is similar to tenkara, the most known fixed line fly fishing technique. Joining the tenkara angler’s community was completely natural for him. At the river I observed his perfect fishing skills, which he has developed over dozens of years. Our meeting was in the middle of August; at that time of year Alexander focuses on deeper pools and prefers fishing with small streamers, using a level line and a high visible indicator section. With his great skill in animating the streamer, it received many strikes.

Tenkara bamboo rods.

Fishing now with bamboo tenkara rod

Bamboo rod building is Alexander’s second hobby. Being a tenkara angler, he tried to make a bamboo tenkara rod. He makes the glued hexagonal blank using the traditional technology for building bamboo fly rods, with metal ferrules and a cork handle. Being solid, the rod is definitely heavier but much stronger than those made with carbon.

The heavier blank loads itself when casting, making the rod very slow. Alexander’s casting is perfect and precise. I’ve tried it and failed because I have difficulty slowing my stroke down that much. The main advantage of a solid bamboo rod is the strength: Alexander’s record catch with it is a 3 kilo barbus.

He also tried to make a replica of the traditional segmented cane tenkara rod. The first sample looks fine, but is not yet ready for trial. I hope to try it when I visit Alexander next.

Tenkara Fishing in Austria

Fly fishing in Austria is rarely mentioned in the UK fly fishing magazines, yet it has a wealth of outstanding waters full of brown, rainbow and brook trout, plus grayling. Their high alpine streams are what Tenkara was devised for. My fishing buddy Steve and I have visited Austria five times and two things always amaze me; one is the shear number of fish in the waters (it is not unusual to catch over a hundred fish in a day); the other is how few anglers are to be seen on most of the waters.

Steve Donohue fishing the Tratten Bach 

A typical day involves a lot of walking and scrambling over boulder-strewn banks and up waterfalls, dropping your fly into every likely looking pocket. Good, comfortable wading boots with studded rubber soles are essential, as are a lightweight, breathable pair of waders. A wading staff can also be useful. Most of the waters are at altitudes of over 1000 m, where the weather can be very changeable and many are far from the beaten track so it is important to go well equipped with small rucksack containing water, food, first aid kit, waterproof jacket and warm clothing. I have known it snow in July, whilst in September 2012 we fished in a blizzard. It is also worth taking a spare Tenkara rod in case of breakage.

Stuart Crofts fishing a far-bank pocket on the Krimmler Ach

We both love dry fly fishing so rather than fish traditional Sakasa Kebari flies or nymphs we use big, buoyant dry flies. The summer is short and the fish have to be opportunists, so fly choice is relatively unimportant. A size 12 foam beetle is one of my favourite patterns, as is a size 10 Black Klinkhammer. Whilst fly choice is optional presentation requires a lot of care and attention to optimize success. Maelstroms of white water with small pockets of calm are not the place for ‘long line Tenkara’: a light level line plus tippet the same length as the rod is required if all the line and most of the tippet is to be kept off the water to avoid drag. The Brook Trout, which prefer the slacker water pockets, are particularly slow risers and it is often important to have a drag-free drift lasting many seconds to allow them time to rise. Even when the temperature is sub-zero we still find the fish are willing to rise to a dry fly.

Brook trout, Krimmler Ache, taken on a Foam Beetle    

The angle of approach is also important in achieving the best presentation. Casting directly up the stream is inefficient since firstly and least important in my opinion, is that the fish will see the tippet before the fly; secondly the fish will always be closer to the angler than the maximum casting range possible; thirdly and most importantly, it is very difficult to consistently track the rod downstream in order to keep the line and tippet off the water and to avoid pulling the fly downstream faster than the natural flow. Across stream casting and particularly slightly down and across casting eliminate these problems. The latter also allows the fly to be twitched back into a pocket if it should drift out of it. Fortunately it is usually possible to fish at very close range even downstream since the broken, boisterous water surface breaks the fish’s window to the outside world.

Rainbow, Schwarzachbach

Importantly, avoid fishing just below the hydro-power abstraction points that are often located a kilometer or two above valley level.

Much of the fishing is controlled by hotels. The following are worth visiting:

Hotel Platzer A-6281 Gerlos 198 Zillertal/Tirol, Austria, www.hotelplatzer.at:  Outstanding service, excellent food and a good mix of very varied waters from small brooks to big lakes.

Braurup  A-5730 Mittersill  Austria,  www.braurup.at : Good food, their own brewery and an extensive range of waters. 

All the fisheries that I've fished in Austria were run by the hotels and permits to fish were obtained from the hotels. No state licence was needed.

Tenkara fishing in Trysil, Norway.

Licensing in Norway.

Fortunately, you do not need a state rod license to fish there. You must have local permission only. I bought a weeklong license at the Trysil Hyttegrend reception for 325 NOK (~50 EUR). It covers the Tryselva River and tributaries around Trysil. To fish the nearby Rena River you need a separate permission.

Lodging in Trysil.

Norway is definitely an expensive country in which to live. I found a 2 bed cabin for 60 EUR daily at the Trysel Hyttegrend hotel and camp for me and my junior. It is located between Storvegen and the Trysil center on the beautiful Tryselva bank and is the good place to reach the fishing places in Trysil surroundings by car. 

The flies.

The typical local flies that I’ve seen in the boxes of Norwegian anglers are dries with red tags. Chris Hendriks normally fishes with two dry flies in the team–a high-floating elkhair caddis and a sunken palmer with red tag. Chris also uses CZ rigs with pair of heavy orange-headed nymphs in large deep pools for grayling.

Were to fish.

Fortunately for us tenkara anglers, Norwegian fly fishermen focus on the large, main stem of the Tryselva River. As a result, the smaller tributaries are absolutely not pressured! I normally had about 60 trout takes in 3 hour fishing periods there.

At the hotel reception you get the fisherman’s map along with the permission. With this map and the GPS in your car, you can find all the rivers well. The local fishing rules and limits are also printed in English on the map page.

Despite the fact that you are certainly an expert angler and do not need a guide, I recommend that you hire Chris Hendriks for a day. He will show you the best places to fish, taking into account the season and the water level.

The Tryselva is popular with Norwegian fly fisherman. The main targets are the grayling that come into the runs to feed. I did not fish there much, focusing instead on typical tenkara rivers. I did, however, watch one angler catch five nice grayling standing in one place on the run near the main stream in a half hour.

The Elta pours into the Tryselva on the right side; it is accessible by car in many places. In the section before it enters the Tryselva Valley, the river cuts through the high bank hills. It has a high gradient; the current is strong and flows around limestone rocks. Casting to even the small, deeper spots results in many trout takes. Most of the fish are less than 12’, but in deeper and wider spots you can find larger ones.

In the short section passing through the Tryselva valley below the bridge, you will find some large pools and good-sized grayling there.

When you move 5-6 km upstream, the gradient is lower. The stones are smaller and it is much easier to wade there. The density of fish in the runs is lower; instead you can find teams of good sized WBT in the pools. I’ve got up to 4 excellent takes in the best ones.

Flena River.

The Flena is the Tryselva’s left tributary. It is easily reachable by car: the road follows alongside the river for about 12 km.

In the section before the confluence with the Tryselva, the river also cuts through the high bank hills. It also has a very high gradient so the water current is very strong; it flows around large granite boulders. Making precise casts behind them results in trout takes. Most of fish are less than 12’.

At the lower part, near confluence to Tryselva, I found several nice pools. I searched for grayling there, but found only the kindergarteners with a large number of trout minnows that attacked my fly actively.

The upper part of the Flena runs through small lakes, promising larger fish. Unfortunately I did not have enough time to investigate it properly.

Ljora River.

The Ljora is definitely larger than Elta and Flena. Small trout and grayling mix together in the same runs; the density of fish population is lower and it is harder to localize it. The most interesting places are deep pools, where you can find larger grayling. CZ nymphs work well there. Also I had success with heavier weighted killer bugs.

In general, the rivers surrounding Trysil are great places for tenkara fishing and hope to visit them again next season.

The ANNEXES:

Local permission

Local rules

Area fishing map

New TryTenkara rods

It is a well-known fact that the very best fish live in spots where nobody can reach them with the fly: normally with an overhead canopy, where you simply do not have enough room for the backcast and again where you need the most precise casts in order avoid snagging your fly on the trees immediately above. If you normally fish in wild territory, you may not agree with me. However, if you live in a big city and fish in the nearest rivers, you will understand exactly what I mean.

All the high end Japanese Tenkara rods are wonderfully light rods. Most of them are very soft and slow and targeted to fish small iwana in high gradient Japanese mountain streams. I’ve tried the dozens of Japanese tenkara, seiryu and keiryu rods and had still not found the ideal one. I had an ambitious plan to make a tenkara rod even better than the best Japanese ones:

• so well balanced that you can actually feel the rod load with lightest lines as you are casting. 
• stiff enough for the most accurate and precise casts. 
• with enough backbone to control and land modest-sized fish. 
• with the lowest known weight for tenkara rods with a cork handle.

I do not intend to divulge all the industry secrets here and now, so here are only 3 fact for you to know: 5 types of the highest possible quality Japanese carbon used for the blank. 17 rods were broken when tested (2 by me personally). 

The rod development lasted 8 months from the first technical specification issue through to the first new rod actually sold.

Try 360 6:4 which is the perfect rod for small streams and rivers. You can make any casts with it in a very precise fashion: overhead, underhand and bow & arrow. This is the best rod for fishing in tight areas.

The Try 390 7:3 is a rod for use where there is no overhead canopy and where you would want additional length for longer casts. It is also intended to be the rod for the "long rod short line" approach, which will give you much better drifts than if applying a long line approach with a shorter rod.

Both rods are stiff enough to switch from dry/wet flies to nymphs, whenever required.

I like TryTenkara rods. I hope you too will also like it!

I’m back now from 1^st European Tenkara Convention. It took place in Trysil, Norway and due to the initiative and actions of Chris Hendrix.

The participants on the vendors and guides’ side were at the Tenkara Centre UK with their local retailers Jan Hallagen , Tenkara Pirenee,  Tenkara Norway and The Tenkara Times. Kirby Wilson also presented his beautiful Japanese -style gyotaku pictures. Visitors came from Norway, Sweden and Netherlands and I must highlight their genuine interest in tenkara.

Chris presented a very detailed exposition about tenkara fishing. Misako enthusiastically talked about tenkara and other types of national freshwater fishing in Japan.

When the indoor part finished the participants moved to the waters. The wide Tryselva river is definitely not the tenkara water, but the right place to experiment your first tenkara casts. All the newbies had got into waders and had started to manipulate their rods under the direction of Chris Hendriks. Chris is a brilliant trainer: in half an hour all the participants stared to show off quite acceptable casts.

At the same time, Misako showed an absolutely spectacular and perfect casting technique with a new TryTenkara rod. I'm not a beginner myself, but enjoyed its perfection!

So, the fishing started. It was windy and I gave my Motive 390 with titanium line to one of the participants, Jan from Netherlands, so that he could try it out. 

During the entire convention day I enjoyed inter-acting  with Chris, Misako and other participants. I hope the next convention will definitely take place  next year … somewhere in a good tenkara fishing area in Europe. 

Tenkara on the Kokra.

Running steeply off the Julian Alps in northern Slovenia, close to the border with Austria, is the jewel of the river Kokra.  Fishable way above the thousand metre altitude, and all the way down to its confluence with the magnificent Sava, near Kranj, the Kokra affords ideal opportunity to fish with either leader-only western-style (or low mass fly line) or tenkara.  The water is utterly clear and cold from snow-melt and summer rains while the river consists mostly of pockets and dashing rapids, with some short glides, particularly in the lower reaches.  Heavily treed banks intersperse with pale gravel beaches. Idyllic villages and mills seamlessly interrupt alpine meadows and forested sections.  Nowhere is the river broader than about 10 metres, in summer conditions, and in most places in the upper section above the hamlet of Kokra it is little over half this width.  Even in low water, however, there are occasional surprising depths where fish are poised, while in the very shallow glides, fish are invisibly translucent.  In a country full of incredible fly fishing potential, the little Kokra is magnificent, and one of my and my friends’ favourites.

The Motive 390 was, indeed, the perfect tool for the job; made so by the scale of fishing (size of river and fish) as much as the delightful stiffness, accompanying the low weight, of this rod.  The length allowed the use of a 4.5m leader/tippet which yielded a casting stance at a reasonable range downstream or across of most of the fish-holding pockets.  I fished, as always on the river, without a landing net, preferring to bring fish to hand, because it is usually much easier to deal with the unhooking and releasing process when a net is not involved.  

The above issue is not, of course, a particular problem of the Motive 390.  Indeed, I now believe this rod to be an outstanding design.  It has a hollow carbon fibre tip section, and while one might suspect this will render the tip subject to breakage, it does afford a stiffness without significant increase in mass.  This is significant: where one needs low mass is at the tip of a fly rod (much less important in the butt because of leverage), so the hollow tip provides this, while also being stiffer than thin solid sections.  Tenkara rods usually conform to the flexing ratios of 5:5 (soft), 6:4 and 7:3 (stiff).  My previous regular tenkara companion has been a 3.6m Iwana designated as a 6:4.  This rod is certainly softer than the Motive 390, though I am reluctant to designate the latter as a 7:3.  Simply put, it ‘feels’ like a stiff rod, but with hardly greater mass (and therefore tiring leverage) than the Iwana, and that extra 30cm really does give a presentation advantage, particularly in allowing one to keep almost all the tippet off the water.  

The rest of the morning passed to yield me over fifty fish to the tenkara, including a rainbow of 35cm and a grayling of 34cm.  The rate determining factor was the length of time in dealing with a hooked fish, which is always longer with tenkara than western-style, because of that inherent inability to gather line through the rod and the necessity of hand-lining the thin tippet.  (Note: perhaps the answer to this persistent issue is, after all, a long handled landing net, but the cumbersome nature of this seems to destroy the gorgeous simplicity of tenkara)

Paul had interchanged between nymph and dry fly on his western rig, and came back to the meeting point at lunch time similarly awed by the Kokra, though perhaps with fewer fish than I had caught, simply because the nymph will almost always be slower than dry fly in a river such as this in normal summer conditions. In the afternoon session, Paul fished tenkara, again with both nymph and dry, while I switched to a two weight fly line on a 10' Streamflex.  

By the end of the afternoon we had caught a huge number of fish from this astonishingly prolific river.  The Motive 390 had been both a delight and perfectly suited to the alpine river, which after all is not so dissimilar to the mountain rivers of Japan.  I was able to deal more expediently with the larger stream of the afternoon's section, and its generally larger fish, with the western-style, although the tenkara would have managed comfortably enough here, as it did for Paul.  All in all, the day had been exemplar in several ways: it had reaffirmed that tenkara is at its best on a small mountain river, particularly where stalking is necessary and where casting space is restricted. It had also shown me that the Motive is among a new class of high-performance rods for the fixed line approach.  And beyond it all, was the discovery of one of the most astonishing alpine rivers I have ever fished, teeming with trout and grayling, of high average size.  Oh, and beautiful, did I mention that? 

Tenkara Sling lite.

Normally I travel to my fishing places by train or bus with a sling on my back and a bag with heap boots in my hands.

The single main compartment on the Sling Lite has enough room to place my 25 cm dia tamo, a couple of light moccasins, a raincoat, an empty heap boots bag, and a pair of sandwiches. Up to 4 tenkara rods can be fixed separately in outer pockets; I use two. The padded shoulder strap is easily adjustable, holds the bag against my back while moving through bushes along my favorite streams, and does not prevent the movements of my hands when casting. The fabric is really waterproof, a feature that has been very helpful in this rainy spring.

The Tenkara Sling Lite is a very convenient and useful gadget; I like and recommend it for one-day fishing trips.