tenkara - the book, the complete guide to tenkara, by Daniel Galhardo at Tenkara USA

by Daniel Galhardo

In tenkara–the book, Tenkara USA founder Daniel Galhardo shows just how simple fly-fishing can be. This book is a complete guide to the techniques, gear, history and philosophy of tenkara, the Japanese method of fly-fishing. It is also a manifesto on fly-fishing simplicity. An angler picking up a tenkara rod for the first time will find this book’s concepts well laid out and intuitive. The experienced angler will appreciate the simpler approach to fly-fishing and the advanced techniques shared in the book. Throughout the book Daniel brings the reader along a journey of learning tenkara directly from the masters in Japan as he shares information on the method’s equipment and techniques. tenkara - the book was designed to be interactive and take advantage of all the resources we have created over the years. Thorough the book readers will find QR (quick read) codes that will give access to the videos, podcast episodes and other complementary information to the chapters at hand. The best way to keep fly-fishing simple is to learn how to rely more on technique rather than gear. This book contains that knowledge. Designed and illustrated by Jeremy Shellhorn.

216 pages, Paperback

Published March 1, 2018

Reviews

[James Foster · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tenkara is a solid introduction to tenkara fishing, the Japanese style of fishing using a long rod with a line attached to a tippet, and to a fly. No reel. No leader. No strike indicators. No guides on the rod for the line. A minimal complement of hardware. The beauty of this style of fishing is that there is very little between the fisherman, or fisherwoman, and the fish. The only more direct connection I can imagine is holding a fly in your teeth, hovering over the water, and having fish jump up and grab it!

After reading this book, I took my new Tenkara rod to the river and caught my first fish of the year, and my first on this rod. It was a healthy, lovely, wild 15 inch cutthroat. I bought wholly into the “simplicity, simplicity, simplicity” ethos of the book. I used a single fly, didn’t change the leader, varying my technique rather than my hardware. It was quite liberating, not having boxes of flies, reels of tippet, and not having to try several different, sometime difficult, casting techniques.

This book has a healthy dose of the history of tenkara fishing, and especially portraits of the masters with whom Daniel Galhardo has interacted. Tenkara was developed by commercial Japanese fisherman for the small, wild, mountain streams. It survived because it was effective. It had to be. Tenkara had to be simple, since these fisherman could not afford thousands of dollars worth of gear.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book that I wish existed when I got into Tenkara fishing - because, when I got into it a few years ago, I knew nothing about fishing at all. My hunch is that I'm not all that unique, since backpackers and hikers are very interested in tenkara, and some of them probably don't have much, if any, experience with fishing at all. I knew nothing about knots, what to do if I actually caught a fish, that different types of fish had to be treated differently, nothing, and most books and videos out there assume one knows how to do these things already.

I still know very little about fishing, but some of that is because there's a real dearth of information out there for brand new anglers - it's largely been something passed on from one person to another until recently.

I bought the paper copy of this book and I'm glad I did - I can't imagine the Kindle version, since this has so many images, is going to be as good.