Tenkara Forum

[b_in_az]

I only had a few hours before having to watch the kids so my wife could go out with her mom for mothers day, but I wanted to get out and try my new Iwana. I got to where I wanted to fish the Lower Salt River around 6AM, and the flows were so high wading wasn't an option. I did find some calmer water above the bridge, and saw a few trout rising so I thought this was my chance. I had to wade nearly waist deep to get to where I wanted to fish, and when I did all of a sudden I felt wet inside my waders. Yep, a leak. I really wanted to do some casting so for about 20 minutes I fished anyways. Casting tenkara is an adjustment, but it didn't take too long and the fly was going in the general direction I wanted it to. I did get a nasty tangle fishing a beadhead, but that was all my fault and not the rod. I tried a few different flies just to see how they all cast, but I was wet and getting cold. I still had some time left, and Saguaro Lake was only another 10 minutes up the road so I packed up and left.

Made it to Saguaro and hiked around for a while (never been there before) and didn't find any good places to fish from shore, so with only about 30 minutes left before I had to leave I went to the fishing pier. I caught two bluegills on a hares ear and peacock ice body reverse hackle tenkara style fly within the first 10 minutes or so, then caught a snag. I collapsed the rod and pulled on the line, the 6x tippet broke quickly, or so I thought. I went to uncoil the line and the 3x mono extender on the end of the tenkara furled line broke, not my tippet. I couldn't figure out why, then remembered the tangle I got at the river with the beadhead fly. I had to use my nippers to cut a little tippet off the improved clinch knot on the 3x extender, and hoped I didn't nick it at the same time. I thought I was ok but I'm sure I nicked it a little bit and that's why it broke instead of my tippet. The loop in the end of the furled line is fine though, and I stopped on my way home for some 3x tippet to make another loop extender. So my fishing was over when this happened, but you can bet from now on I'll be carrying some 3x tippet with me in case I have to replace it on stream.

The first fish was a 5" bluegill, the second fish was a little bit bigger. I have caught some big bluegills in Illinois, and when I hooked the first fish I thought for sure I had a good size bluegill. It's amazing the fight they put up on a tenkara rod. I'm hooked! I love fishing this way! Without so many extras to worry about, I was able to concentrate on just fishing my fly. Landing was easy, too. In fact I just did it, didn't even think about how to do it while bringing the fish in. It was very instinctive, I suppose.

I got a few looks on the fishing pier as well. There were about 8 other people fishing that had been there all morning and hadn't caught a thing, and I got 2 in 10 minutes. Score a win for tenkara.

[rsetina]

Nice fish! Congratulation on staving off a skunk that permeated the lake. Seriously, nice catch. I think we'll be heading to a lake next Saturday for a few of those. I'm sure it will be fun.