Last visit of the year

Since the season started I have always fished the same stream that flows nearby my home but today was my last visit of the year. The water level has dropped very fast and I do not want to disturb more the trouts, which are not many, any longer. Hopefully there are not a lot of anglers fishing on this stream.

This last outing has been pretty difficult because of bad weather, sunny sky but cold wind, and the growth of blackberries, nettles and trees make the access to many spots very difficult but that is what makes small stream tenkara interesting.

The gear used in the following video is the Nissin Kawashi 320 rod, Nissin level line (size 3), Fujino fluorocarbon tippet (号0.6) and a black Takayama sakasa kebari.

Kiji Kebari

Since I have started tenkara I have rediscovered the pleasure of tying beautiful and effective fishing flies with simple and natural materials. In the last three years I have created only one sakasa kebari pattern using some synthetic dubbing. And I have not fished with it at all during the two last seasons!

My favorite feathers are cock neck and saddle, partridge flank, hen pheasant wing. These materials have proven to make beautiful and effective kebari.
Lately I have been looking for good quality ringneck pheasant feathers, "church windows" to be more precise but I have realized that most of what I did purchase was low quality. Even though those feathers are not expensive I do not like binning half of a feathers bag. As my grandfather used to say: "Cheap is often too expensive".

If any of you wonders why these feathers are called "church windows" I think that the picture below will give you the answer.

Now I have found a reliable supplier for these feathers I finally can post something about the tying of a nice and effective kebari whose name simply means "pheasant fly". Fly tying is easy, it is only a matter of training. Trouts do not care if the bug they bite has been tied by an expert or a newbie!

The kiji kebari is a wet fly pattern to be tied on heavy wire hooks like the Owner Kuawahara Tenkara, the body is made of 6/0 tying thread. I use thread of this size to made the tying faster and the fly stronger. 

Perhaps will you find this video useful.

Interview for Tenkara Fisher forum

I have done a few interviews for my blogs but I had never thought that I would be the interviewee one day...now it is done.

The administrator of the American forum Tenkara Fisher, my friend Adam Trahan, did an interview with me and I must say that I am honored and proud to have done this because I know Adam's passion for tenkara and fishing in general and he is a very demanding person with a great knowledge about tenkara and other Japanese fishing techniques.

It is a really great to see my name among the other great tenkara and keiryu anglers who have already been interviewed by Adam.

If you want to read this interview, please click here. 

Spring sunday

The winter has been very long this year in my area but this time it seems that we have finally entered spring, all the signs are here. I went on a small local stream yesterday and I think that we are really close to fully enter the fishing season. 

Until my fishing outings have been pretty short and not very productive but I think this is about to change with the recent improvement of the weather. 

With the sunny weather the water level in streams is going to get lower and the water clearer, fishes will be more active on food and that will make fishing more productive and more pleasant. 

I did fish yesterday with my faithful Oni type 3 rod and a Takayama sakasa kebari and if it has not been easy fishing has been more productive than my previous outings. I caught a series of baby salmons in the beginning so I did skip this spot and headed upstream to fish only the fast parts and it was the good choice. I did catch several trouts along the bank, all were very strong muscular trouts. 

As it was the first tenkara outing with good weather conditions I stopped fishing and took a nap under a blooming cherry tree. 

After this nap I did fish a straight line with a pretty nice fast current covered by a dense and low canopy. It was really worth the effort! I did catch several nice sized trouts, in fact my biggest fishes of the season. 

Sunday tenkara

After the rainy week I did decide yesterday to go fishing and enjoy the first sun rays of the weekend. The sky was clear but it was probably not as hot as one could expect.

Once on the stream I realized that my weather forecast was good because it was only 53°F! Even though it has rained a lot the week before the water low has not raised a lot but the stream has a tea-like color that I do not  like a lot.

In such conditions I know that it is hard to catch a lot of fishes so I take advantage of this kind of outings to improve my skills, especially casting accuracy. I never practice the arrow cast because of a personal choice and the fact that in my opinion this casting technique is not suitable with tenkara rods because of their delicacy. It is much more interesting to me to learn how to cast in tight and snaggy places than taking the risk to break my rod tip. 

I did catch a few small trouts and lost two bigger ones because of tree branches over the water that made my hook setting turn bad but after that is a part of the game. The angler can not win every time!

This season is starting very slowly, it is not surprising with such conditions but I am not stressed about that, spring is slow to come this year but patience is a gift. 

My REGAL Medallion vise

After many years of loyal services I have decided to not use my Dyna King vise, a Barracuda Trekker Junior model, anymore. Since I spend a lot of time behind the vise tying the kebari that I sell in my own webshop this vise has proven to offer a too low working position. This vise has many good points such as the complete stainless steel construction, rotary function on super smooth ball bearings, stability, very strong jaws that are also very easy to change but I spend a full day working on it I systematically feel a neck hache because of working in a wrong position.

I had long wanted a Regal vise because the head positioning has a very large amplitude (220° up or down) unfortunately these great tools are poorly distributed in Europe and are often sold at ridiculously high prices. After research on the net I did find a fly shop that offered the almost complete range of Regal products at reasonable prices and my choice was the flagship of this collection: the Medallion traditional head.

After a week of wait I finally had the parcel in my hands! I opened it, the vise was lying  in a very simple carton box waiting to be assembled and take action. It was fortunate that I did receive the vise this day because I had to tie a lot of kebari for a customer in Belgium. 

One of the specifications that made me choose a Regal vise is the fact that the jaws are actioned by a lever and not a rotating cam which means that I will never have to care with jaws settings prior tying kebari on the vise. These jaws are designed to hold hooks from size 22 to 1/0 and that covers even more than my needs. 

The hook tightening in the jaws is incredible and I sacrificed a few hooks that ware taken in them. Most of did bend but the part of the hooks taken between the jaws did not move at all. 

The vise stem has the swivel shaft clamp knob that can be positioned at the height chosen by the user. That is the feature that made choose a Regal vise. The necessary tool to set up the swivel shaft is included in the box. I finally have a vise on which I can work without having to lower the head. My cervical vertebraes warmly thank the Regal vises team!

Regal offers no less than seven types of bases for their vises, three clamps and four pedestals. I have chosen the Traditional bronze pedestal that most of us have probably already seen because it is a very famous model. It is superb! I can not find another word to describe this beautiful object. 

The underside of the base is covered with a cork plate. It does not slide at all whatever is the material of the table where you may use the vise. It is pretty heavy (3,7 lbs) and very stable. 

The box in which comes the vise contains two bolts, one is to secure the vise stem on the base and the other one goes under the head and according how it is tightened it will make the head rotary or fixed.

When I did open the box I was a bit surprised by the size of these bolts. They are really huge compared to the ones of my Dyna King! Their diameter is 24 mm and this really eases the use. I am sure that a Regal vise is designed to be assembled blindfolded. 

Regal Vises offer of course a lifetime warranty and the booklet included in the box contains very clear use and care instructions to keep this great tool in perfect conditions. I have only owned  this vise for two weeks but it has already proven me to be the best choice. Don't we say "A good worker always has good tools"?

A short outing

According to the calendar we are now in Spring but the weather is so bad that it is a bit hard to believe that winter is really finished. I experienced this phenomenon yesterday afternoon during a short outing that was interrupted twice by hail. Thai it why some of you will notice that on the video that concludes this post I have been fishing the same spot twice. The wind was powerful enough to make a dead branch, that has been suspended over the stream for long, drop in the water. 

This outing was also a good opportunity to get my Nissin Kawashi 320 on the stream as this little beauty is really awesome when it comes to fish in the wind. I did try my chance in many snaggy spots where trouts are not often disturbed by anglers but I did not have the expected results; only a few trouts rushed to my kebari but without biting. On the other hand I have some interesting spots on my list now. 

It is not so bad that the beginning of the season is so hard because it will make the fishing even better when the weather conditions are going to improve. The water is still very cold and even on this small stream where I have found a high concentration of caddis larvas trouts will not be very active until the first hatches. It is only a matter of time.