BEST WISHES TO YOU ALL!

The time has come to thank you all of you to follow and read my blog and send to you my best wishes for the new year!
Tenkara Enso will be back soon!

CHENILLE KEBARI

Continuing the sort of the fly tying materials I have accumulated over the years I have found back some chenille I thought I had exhausted long ago. An opportunity for a new fly tying sheet!

1) Fix a Tiemco 3769 size 10 hook in your vise and wrap the tying thread dehind the eye to make           your kebari a neat head.

2) Select a partridge flank feather, remove the fluff then stroke the fibers against the grain. Catch the feather by the tip with tight wraps of tying threads then trim the excess above the eye.

3)  Take hold of the feather in vertical position and gently bend the fibers forward.

4) Wind the partridge feather around the shank and keep all the fibers facing forward after every             turn then catch it in with tight wraps of tying thread. Trim the excess of bare stem.

5) Catch in a peacock herl behind the partridge hackle and wrap it around the tying thread. This               simple tip will make the peacock herl thorax stronger.

6) Wrap the peacock herl around the shank to make your kebari a thorax then catch it in with the             thread and trim the excess. Do not forget to unwrap the peacock herl from the tying thread before       cutting off. 

7) Catch in some chenille by tight wraps of tying thread and trim the excess. 

8) Wind the chenille around the shank then catch it in by wraps of tying thread and trim the excess.         Finish your kebari with half hitches then cast off the tying thread. 

Your chenille kebari is finished!

TENKARA STYLE PHOTO CONTEST

The Tenkara Style shop organizes a photo contest on their Facebook page and you are all invited to participate!

The rules of his photo contest are very simple:

-Post your picture on the tenkara style FB page before January 15th. Do not forget to identify  yourself in your post.

-On February 15th the photographer whose picture will have won the most "likes" will be the winner!

 This person will receive a 25€/30$ fly tying materials pack.

-Competing photographers do not have the right to vote but are allowed to share the contest album      on their favorite networks.

Good luck ya'll!

CELEBRITY DEATH MATCH: C&F DESIGN Vs STONFO

There are on the current fly tying markets hundreds of tools but most of what is offered is of poor quality, imported from Asia at low prices and sold in hundreds of shops under different names. I will not waste a line here to write my opinion about these fly shops policies.

I have always been told that "a good worker always has good tools" and that is probably why I always try to be an intelligent customer favoring quality over quantity. 

Tying flies does not necessitate a lot of tools so I think it is better to work with a few premium tools than collecting unusable or unreliable ones. 

I own two different hackle pliers but I think that the time has come to keep only the best of them. 

The older hackle plier of mine is the Stonfo P.M that I did purchase a few years ago to replace an antique hackle plier that was so relaxed it could even not keep closed. 

The plier is made of steel which is not of good quality and it has traces of oxidation; it still can pinch feathers stems but there is some rubber coating on only one of the two jaws and this makes this hackle plier almost barely usable for midge feathers whose stems is super thin. The spring which is supposed to ensure the constant tension of the feather when it is wrapped around the hook shank has unfortunately relaxed too much. It is, to me, one more fault of this tool: because of the weak spring I have to remove the trim bag from my vise to use the hackle plier. I do not use it anymore. It is sold around 9 euros, it is not a bad tool but it is not a long-term investment. 

Being unsatisfied by this one I decided to invest about 20 dollars in a C&F Design hackle plier because I had already experienced their excellent bobbin holders and I was sure not to be disappointed with the CFT 120M.

This model was designed to work small feathers for small flies (The M in CFT 120M is for Midge) and even though I do not tie a lot of midge kebari I did chose this product because of its small size that allows me to keep my tim bag in place. 

The tip is really narrow and slightly curved outward and that detail makes the difference with straight jaws: one can pinch super thin feathers stems without cutting it. Instead of a metal spring like most of hackle pliers the CFT 120M has its two parts linked by a rubber band that extends up to two millimeters. It really minimizes the risk of feathers breakage. The C&F Design tool is shorter than the Stonfo, 65 mm against 95 mm, it is made of high materials so it will work perfectly for long years. 

The CFT 120M is a little bit more expensive than the Stonfo but its price is justified by its perfect functionality and the very high quality of the materials used to produce this awesome tool. 

TAKAYAMA SAKASA KEBARI VARIANT

TAKAYAMA SAKASA KEBARI VARIANT

A few days ago I was lucky enough to chat with a old fisherman of my area and I was really pleased to note that he did share my pragmatic approach to fly tying and agreed with me that real fishing flies had not been designed by the fly tying materials industry neither the fly tying celebrities who mainly tie showcase flies but by anonymous tiers who tied their flies with the materials that they could find easily around them. I think that it was the same everywhere in the world before fly fishing became an industry and Japan was probably not an exception.

When I go fishing I always carry a ziplock plastic bag that I use to collect all kinds of furs and feathers, I did not start this habit. My grand father and father already did the same decades ago. The fly tying stuff they ever bought were hooks.
I still have to wait several months to go back fishing in streams, like many European people, so I start getting ready for the next trout season. The time to open my material collecting bag has come and today I did take guinea fowl feathers.

The tie I propose you today is a variant of the famous Takayama sakasa kebari and my goal with this fly tying sheet is to make you add a ziplock bag to your tenkara gear!

1) Having fixed a Owner Kuwahara (size 3) hook in your vise, wind the 8/0 tying thread around the shank to make a neat head to your kebari. Cast off excess thread.

2) Select a guinea fowl feather and prepare it by removing the fluff from the stem then stroke the fibers against the grain. 

3) Catch in the feather tip with tight wraps of tying thread than trim the excess. 

4) Take hold of the feather with a pair of hackle pliers and maintain the feather in vertical position.         Gently bend the feather fibers towards the hook eye. 

5) Wind the feather around the shank and make sure all the fibers are facing forward after every turn.

    Catch in the feather stem with tight wraps of tying threads then trim the excess.

6) Behind the guinea fowl hackle catch in a peacock herl and wind it around the shank. Do three or         four turns as you prefer then secure the herl with tying thread thread and trim the excess of herl. 

7) Build a body to your keabri by tight wraps of tying thread. When the body has the shape you like secure the tying thread with three half hitches and cast off thread.

Your kebari is finished and ready to go fishing!

TENKARA

Contrarily to what some seem to think Tenkara did not resurrect, or not thanks to them, but there has been a transition area between the end of commercial fishing and the rise of Tenkara as a hobby.
One European country has been ahead of others in the rediscovery of ancient fixed line fishing techniques. Italy is probably the only European country where fixed line fly fishing techniques never extinguished and that is probably why the Italians have been pioneers in western Tenkara.

For those unfamiliar with these videos I think that they were the very first released outside of Japan about the fishing technique that brings us together on this blog: TENKARA.

WHAT KIND OF FEATHERS TO TIE TENKARA FLIES?

From time to time we hear or read about the "ten colors" of Tenkara and I think this expression is a bit intriguing for many but it really sums up the field of freedom that is tenkara.

Japanese tenkara is not the european fly fishing community which is divided in various sects generally busy in sterile controversies.

Fly tying is not an exception to the tenkara freedom and on can find that kebari go from ultra simple to highly sophisticated.

Yesterday tying my fly tying materials I did find back a bag of various quills and it just made me say "why not"!

It has been a long time since I have used quills in my tying as I have been using thread much more during the last seasons so I have tied a handful of quill bodied kebari.

I have always categorized the quills I used in two categories: those from fly shops generally dyed in bright colors and those from any bird that I find when hiking or fishing and it can be turkey, raven, magpie or even seagull!

It has never mattered to me that a feather is from a rare or common bird and I am sure that trout do not give a f#@k!

I propose you today a simple step by step fly tying sheet of a turkey quill bodied kebari. 

1) Insert a hook in the jaws of your vise. I did use a Tiemco 3769 size 10.

2) After winding the tying thread down the shank to the bend catch a quill fiber by its wider part by
    tight wraps of tying thread then wind the thread back towards the hook eye.

3) Wind the quill fiber around the shank on about 3/4 of its length then catch it in with tight wraps of     tying thread. Trim the excess of quill fiber.

4) Select a partridge flank feather, remove the fluff at the base and stroke the fibers back against the       grain.

5) Catch in the feather by the tip then trim the excess (above the hook eye). 

6) Take the feather by the stem with a hackle plier, position it vertically and gently bend all its fibers        towards the hook eye. Wrap the feather around the shank. 

7) After two or three wraps around the shank catch in the stem with tight wraps of tying thread then       remove the excess.

8) Build a neat head with tying thread, finish with several half hitches and cast off the thread. Your         kebari is ready to go fishing!

Now you have until the next season to season to tie some more!

HOW TO CLEAN UP TENKARA RODS?

Many people seem to have a strange idea of what is a tenkara rod and while they should ask themselves how to keep their rods in best possible condition for years they wonder what might happen if they break it.
The myth of rod breaking trouts has a bright future coming! A good angler treats his gear with respect and does what it takes to keep it in perfect condition for years, a bad angler believes in the myth of rods breaking trouts!

As a fisherman, tenkara blogger and tenkara tackle shop owner I always highly recommend to the anglers to be very careful in the maintenance of their rods. Treated well a tenkara rod will have a very long lifespan. You may have noticed but there is almost not any tenkara web-shop to address this issue, yet most never miss an opportunity to qualify themselves as "specialists" and even "experts".

Masami Sakakibara alias Tenkara-no Oni has a simple and effective method thoroughly clean up a tenkara rod. He had the good idea to share a video on this topic. This is very useful so I hope that you will be a lot to watch it and follow this good example.

TSURIKICHI SANPEI

Perhaps some of you remember the manga that was boradcasted at the end of the 1980's but probably not many of you have heard about the 2009 motion picture directed by Yoijro Takita adapted from the manga.

I hope that you like original version movies. Perhaps the manga readers will recognize on which manga volume this story is based.

THE MATING SEASON

If winter is considered by most anglers as the worst area of the year it is for salmonids a good season devoted to breeding.

TENKARA TSURI

I still have to wait about three months before I can go back to my favorite trout streams so my free time is all about tenkara forums, fly tying, preparing blogs posts and watching tenkara videos like these ones: