A conversation with Ishigaki sensei

Ishigaki sensei and Chikara helping with translation

After knowing Ishigaki sensei for about a year and having  had many communications with him via email, and after spending several days talking and fishing with him while visiting Japan, I thought there were some questions I should ask him “for the record”. An interview was in order. On the 3-hour drive back from the Itoshiro to Nagoya, I turned on the recorder and had a nice conversation with Ishigaki sensei. We had so many other lengthy conversations in my time there, and we covered many specific aspects of tenkara, this time I had some slightly broader questions to ask him.

NOTE: Ishigaki sensei gifted us with a few tenkara flies he tied himself, which are now available here for the benefit to an environmental non-profit.

CONVERSATION:

Daniel: Dr. Ishigaki, could you describe your path to tenkara? What led you to pursue this simpler way of fishing? What is your story with tenkara?’

Ishigaki sensei: I first learned about tenkara through a book, “Keiryu no tsuri” (stream fishing). The book was published about 40 years ago by the company “Tsuribitosha”. This book covered  3 types of fishing: lure fishing, live bait fishing and tenkara.

Manzanita tenkara net

Today I completed my first own tenkara net. It’s made of one manzanita branch, found after much looking and worked on for over a month. The end of the handle features a deer antler tip, which in Japanese superstition is believed to protect anglers in the water.

Raw branch:

MORE PICTURES

Tenkara tamo, the experiment continued!

I have been having tons of fun searching for the appropriate branches and then embarking on the adventure of making my own tenkara tamo (tenkara nets). As stated, I have fallen in love with tenkara nets!

After spending a few weeks looking for the ideal branches, I was able to find a couple of branches, one from a manzanita bush, the other from the Jeffrey pine. After near a month in the making, I’m getting close to finishing them. The entire process was documented on the forum.  Here are the semi-final results.

I loved working on something so simple and aesthetically pleasing. It’s not easy, but doable, and beautiful. The details were difficult, especially joining the two arms of the frame.

Though all nets are unique and one-of-a-kind, the manzanita will be more so because the manzanita does not have the symmetrical branches with the right diameters and angles for a net. The Jeffrey pine, on the other hand, has the ideal shapes and the wood is easier to work with.

I’ll venture to say this is the first manzanita net frame in the world built in this manner, and after studying the manzanita I think it may continue with that title since it was almost impossible to find the right branch for it. It’s my most rewarding project, the wood is absolutely gorgeous, and the outer layer of the stripped bark is red, giving it a beautiful natural color and providing for very interesting patterns on the places I needed to strip and sand. I needed to cut the end of the handle as it was curved in the wrong direction, and I figured I could follow the tenkara tradition of using deer antlers for protecting who uses it in the water. A tenkara enthusiast, who also gave me some great advice, offered to send me some deer antler, and one of them was a great match, having almost the same colors as the wood itself.

Stay tuned for the final pictures in a couple of weeks.

Tenkara master, Dr. Ishigaki, to visit California

At the invitation of Tenkara USA and The Golden Gate Angling and Casting Club (GGACC), GGACC is proud to host renowned tenkara fly-fishing master, Dr. Hisao Ishigaki, for a unique cross-cultural fly-fishing event.

WHEN:   Saturday, September 11, 2010

1:00 PM – 4:00 PM

WHERE: Golden Gate Angling and Casting Club, San Francisco, CA

Dr. Ishigaki is known and deeply respected throughout Japan as the leading authority on tenkara fly-fishing. A professor in the field of vision studies at the Aichi Institute of Technology, in Japan, Dr. Ishigaki became first known among tenkara anglers for his research on the vision of fish and of anglers. He has dedicated a big part of his life to introducing this simpler method of fly-fishing to people throughout Japan via many books, articles and DVDs on tenkara. After his first presentation in the Catskills, NY, Dr. Ishigaki is now coming on his second visit to the US to speak about tenkara.

A very friendly and warm angler and engaging lecturer, Dr. Ishigaki says he’s looking forward to making many new friends in the US, and is looking forward to his visit.

During the event Dr. Ishigaki will do a tenkara fly-tying demonstration, a presentation about tenkara, and a demonstration on tenkara casting.

Space is very limited.

Those interested should RSVP at the GGACC website: http://ggacc.org/p/ViewEvent.aspx?eid=322

Tenkara for veterans

Fly-fishing is one of the most therapeutic activities around, and tenkara’s simplicity perhaps even more so. Since the inception of Tenkara USA, we have been approached and supported numerous organizations that work with war veterans and people with limited arm mobility. Tenkara, with no reel, no unnecessary amount of line to strip, no bells-and-whistles, has proved to be a very effective tool in helping people that would otherwise have difficulties, give fly-fishing a real try. It’s not the only tool around for adaptive angling, but definitely a fun tool that also provides some additional independence to those who want to fish with a fly. A fishing method made for fishing with one hand.

Tenkara removes the complexities that were added to fly-fishing over the years and makes it a fun, and above all, simple and intuitive method of angling with a fly. Not having to pass line through the rod guides, strip line to cast, and going through a complicated series of knots, mean that tenkara allows for greater independence in his fishing. Imagine you only have one able arm and want to setup your rod and fish, yourself, for a bit. A rod with a reel by default ask for two hands, frustrating, I’d imagine. As I witnessed, a telescopic tenkara rod is a rod, made for one-handed fishing. It can be held under one’s arm as the plug is removed and the tip is exposed with the able hand; the hand, which in turn quickly makes a girth hitch on hisline and tightens it against the rod tip. And, finally telescopes each segment of the rod out and proceeds to cast, an intuitive cast with no 2-handed stripping needed. These are the few steps needed to setup and fish with a tenkara rod when the fly is already tied on. I was extremely proud to see a tenkara rod, one which I adopted from a foreign country and introduced to the US, serve as much more than a simple fishing tool.

Walking around the banks of this lake, with his western fly-rod already rigged but mostly inside the reel, the war veteran – not only a war veteran but a western fly-fishing “veteran” of 3+ years, who, through a special reel, a special stripping device and some ingenuity – spotted a very good fish. With no time to spare and go through the process of getting his line out of the reel to cast, I gave him my tenkara rod, which I kept rigged for the occasional cast. Not yet fully used to casting with a tenkara rod, his first cast piles up a bit, but it’s no problem, the line is so light the fish was not disturbed. On the second cast the fly didn’t turnover completely, but went far enough, maybe 15ft out, to attract the attention of the feeding fish. In a few seconds it was fish on. A healthy and very feisty 14″ rainbow. Not his biggest, nor his first, but his first on a tenkara rod, maybe the first that provided such a fight he thought he may not actually land it, the first that perhaps felt like an equal adversary. But, also the first fish he had full control over, who didn’t take line, because he couldn’t, and after a very strong fight just surrendered because he realized he couldn’t really run anywhere. He was hooked. The simplicity of it, the fact that he could simply cast when he wanted to, and the won battle – All worth it.

A HUGE THANK YOU TO ALL VETERANS AND THOSE WHO SACRIFICE SO MUCH FOR THEIR COUNTRY!

Tenkara USA's tweets of the week

• A big tenkara WOW: http://bit.ly/bestAK. Wow! Don’t do this at home, really. #