Nearly six months have passed since my last fishing trip; I have not had the opportunity this winter to go fishing for pike as the weather was terrible. Winter is coming to an end and the first spring surges have been interrupted by the arrival of some most unpleasant disturbances; rain, wind and hail have put streams in a total mess. I was expecting this year as usual at a difficult season opening but there it is likely to be terrible.A few days ago a friend of mine published on his facebook timeline a beautiful picture of the snowy Ubaye river, the same place where we had fished during the last Tenkara Fest and after "like" the beautiful photo I commented that my opening was going most certainly consist of "giving the gear a walk". It will be about that. The tenkara gear will have a walk!
This year I will of course remain faithful to minimalism in terms of fishing equipment because that suits my tenkara experience perfectly. All the material except rod and tamo will hold within my Zimmerbuilt tenkara strap pack. When one of the world's best backpack manufacturers discovers tenkara and designs bags dedicated to other tenkara anglers, we get this kind of useful, functional and durable piece of equipment.
This pouch is enough to contain my only kebari box, the one that was made by Richard Setina years ago and which is in my opinion the perfect box for a tenkara angler. I obviously have other boxes, a Nissin foam box and another one is a traditional bait box made by a Japanese craftsman of my friends that I somehow diverted from its original use.
My kebari will be three, one of them being a dry. A few years ago I had developed a minimalist dry fly, the Cheran Dry, and since then it has evolved somewhat. The thread body had the disadvantage of making it necessary to lubricate so that the fly remains floatant and I therefore opted for a combination of a natural dubbing and a synthetic dubbing which are both very hydrophobic and I do not need to carry grease to use this fly. The second is an Oni kebari, sakasa kebari type, which is a very useful and very effective wet fly pattern. I had fished all the season 2014 with only this type of tie but with the body in yellow and it had been the opportunity to learn and understand many things about the use of this type of kebari.
The third kebari in my box is a simple zenmai-dou identical to the ones I did take with me to Japan and since those years that my experience of tenkara lasts it is surely the kebari that I used the most.I will have the opportunity to come back in the future on the topic of kebari because it is essential to a valid tenkara approach.For the rest of the fishing equipment the classic Tiemco ceramic blade nipper, Daiichiseiko line cards and a pair of Loon short clamps.
In fact the most of weight and volume in my bag the day of the opening will be the food, drink, the stove and my ultralight Thermarest Z seat.
We are now forty-eight hours away from the day. And I'm ready!
