Tenkara With Black Thread And Rooster Hackle

Besides offering what are no doubt the first pictures of fly fishing doyenne Joan Wulff casting a tenkara rod, a new post on the Tenkara USA blog includes some intriguing thoughts from tenkara authority Dr. Hisao Ishigaki on how simple trout flies can be: “It should be noted that Dr. Ishigaki is a leading specialist in the field of ‘Visual Training,” which is used regularly by different groups of individuals, including professional athletes, and he used that to study the vision of fish, particularly mountain trout. Ever since then, he’s been tying one fly pattern, which takes seconds to tie, and many times is tied using only black thread from a $1 store, and some rooster hackle.”
Morgan Lyle also talks about the talk Dr. Ishigaki gave at the talk at the Catskill Fly Fishing Center and Museum Saturday, noting that even Ed Van Put is enamored of the technique: “About 10 years ago, Van Put was given a tenkara rod by a Japanese ambassador and ‘just went ballistic with it,’ he said. ‘I started fishing with it every day, and I’ve used it every year since.'” (From DailyGazette.com.)
A free MidCurrent t-shirt goes to the first person who shows us an image of someone using (successfully) tenkara in saltwater.