NYT: U.S. Tenkara Anglers Growing in Number

In yesterday’s New York Times, James Card describes the form of fly fishing known as Tenkara as “simply a rod, a line and a hook.” Why, then, is it attracting more and more followers in the U.S.? Perhaps because it can be thought of as fly fishing’s “haiku.”
“Tenkara was done by semicommercial fishermen that sold fish to ryokans, or inns,” [Misako] Ishimura said. “They didn’t want to spend time making flies and they didn’t want to share their secrets with other anglers. So tenkara flies don’t have names, actually, and if it has a name, it comes from the name of the person who tied it.”