Minutes to Learn, Lifetime to Master

Had about 2 hours of free time early this evening, so I thought I'd go to Shadow Cliffs to give my 12ft Iwana a try. There are some pretty nice arroyos in the backside of the park, which I thought may be a good area to scout out, plus I heard there are tons of voracious little panfish swimming around in the arroyo too.

Arroyo At Shadow Cliffs Regional Park

All in all I only had a line on the water for a total of about 40 minutes, the rest of the time I spent untangling my line because of terrible casting technique. I was pretty much just whipping the rod back and forth in a continuous motion, now I know that way of casting the rod is incorrect, hence all the avoidable tangles I got.  For my set-up I was using a 4.5 Level Line that was 1.5 times the length of my rod and a 4ft 5X tippet, this may be a good setup for a veteran Tenkara fisher, but definitely too much for a beginner to handle.

Top: Line Holder with Level Line, Tippet, and Fly
Bottom: #12 Brown Mayfly (just for practice, I believe the hatch season is over)

That's what I get for being so hasty, I should have spent some time reviewing/practicing casting in my backyard before I took it to the water.  But anyway, towards the end of my little venture into Shadow Cliffs, after being very frustrated with myself for lack of ability and preparation, I took a moment to review some casting technique (thanks to some videos I put on my iPod) and shorten my level line to about 12ft (same as the rod) and tippet down to 3ft.  With this new setup and tutorial on casting, I was able to get a few nice casts out there and present the fly nicely on the water before I had to leave.  I will definitely be practicing a bit more before I head out next time.  This was definitely a learning experience and hopefully next time I will have a fish on!

Gearing up with TenkaraUSA

Finally had a full day off of work today, so I decided to go up to Creative Sports in Pleasant Hill, they are currently the only retailer of TenkaraUSA in NorCal, to take a look at some Tenkara Rods. I already had in mind the one I wanted to get, the 12ft Iwana rod, from the reviews I saw that was pretty much the rod that majority of people purchased when first trying out Tenkara fishing. There was also a 9ft4in conversion handle for the Iwana model, which I was interested in, but the main TenkaraUSA website was backordered at least until the end of July. When I got into the shop, there was a pleasant older lady who helped me to take a look at all the gear I would need to start fishing, pretty much all I needed was a rod, main line, tippet, flies, and perhaps some line holders. I inquired about the 12ft Iwana model and she told me that they had just run out, which was kind of disappointing, so I asked if I could see the 11ft model, just to kind of get a feel of how the rod was in my hands. As she was going to pull the 11ft out, I saw a 12ft mark on a random rod case and pointed it out. She checked the tube and it turned out to be one, just my luck! I was super excited and for a moment felt that I was destined to get this rod today! To top that off they even had the 9ft4in conversion handle!

Top: 12' Iwana Rod
Middle: 12' Iwana cloth/hard case (I added the cord myself)
Bottom: 9'4" Iwana Conversion Handle

Now all set with the rod, I started to look at the main line, there are 2 types of line for the rods, one is a traditional braided line and the other is a more modern level line. Unfortunately the traditional line was backordered until mid-July, so I went ahead and picked up a pack of the Hi-Vis 4.5 Level Line, a pack of the older Med-Vis 3.5 Level Line (it was clearanced for $6), and two line holders. Once the traditional line becomes available I will definitely pick that up too with another line holder.

Top Left: Tenkara Catalog/Tip Book
Top Right: Line Holder
Bottom Left: Hi-Vis 4.5 Level Line
Bottom Right: Med-Vis 3.5 Level Line

For the tippet, I just picked up a pack of standard mono 4x and 5x, nothing really to go into here. For flies, I went ahead and got the Size 12 Ishigaki Kebari and Size 16 Gujo Kebari, just so I had 2 sizes to start with.

Top: #12 Ishigaki Kebari
Bottom: #16 Gujo Kebari

It definitely is a much simpler set up and requires much less gear when compared to the standard spin/casting or even western fly gear. I can't wait to get out and try out this new setup! ^.^ Will post more once I test it out.

Perhaps it's Time to Simplify

Recently I was down at Lake Vasona Park and came across some nice stream areas, they do have a nice big lake also.  At the time I only had my travel telescopic spinning outfit on me and I found that to be a bit difficulty to use in the streams, I was getting snagged on overhanging branches/shrubbery.  I definitely spent more time trying to recover my lines/lures then actually fishing.  Eventually, I gave up on the streams, after losing two spinners, and waited to fish again once I got to the main lake.

A stream in Vasona Lake Park

As I was going through all the effort I remembered that a friend of mine from work told me about a method of fishing that's simplistic, been very effective in streams and used for centuries in Japan, Tenkara fly fishing  He had recently purchased a rod from TenkaraUSA, the first official retailer in the US for this type of fishing.  It definitely perked my interest when he mentioned it because I do what to eventually learn and get into fly fishing.  After talking with him about it and going online to watch videos and look at different resources, I decided I was going to invest in one to get me started in fly fishing.

Gearing up for a First Outing

Earlier this morning I stopped by Sports Chalet to take a look at some freshwater rod/reel combos to get me started fishing again out here.  At first, I was thinking I might get a ugly stik combo, since all I had fished with back in NY were ugly stiks, once I got to the store that all changed.  They had a ton of different combos available, but for some reason I was draw to this little Daiwa rod, that I would have easily missed if I just had glanced over the selections.  Without anymore consideration I decided that's the one I would go with!  It's an light (borderline ultralight) 5'6" rod with cork grip and 5 ball bearing spinning reel.  It didn't come pre-spooled opted to go with the Maxima Green 6 lb test line.  Time to put it to the test!

At Shadow Cliffs most of the spaces on the fishing docks were taken up, so I decided to just stand by the bank and cast out a kastmaster.  My first few cast were doozies, I would either release the line way too early or way too late.  After a few unsightly casts I was able to get my kastmaster out a decent distance and even had a little bass hit it.  Even though it was a small bass it put up a decent fight, I had forgotten how exciting it was to set that hook and play the fish in.  The rod/reel performed flawlessly, the bend in the rod seemed so perfect as I was playing the fish, the drag was very smooth, and the cork grip seemed to meld into my hand (granted it was also a small fish).  I was "hooked" on fishing again right at that moment (pun intended). The remainder of the time there I had a few other little bass hit my Kastmaster, everything was under ~5 inches.  I was able to bring most of them in, but a few times I definitely messed up my hookset, mainly because I had been fiddling with the drag and left it too loose.  It was definitely a great experience for my first time out fishing again!

Top Left:  Setting the rod and attaching a snap swivel to my line
Bottom Right:  One of the small large-mouth bass that were hitting my Kastmaster

Oh, How I've Missed Fishing!

It's been over 2 years since I've had a rod/reel in my hand and a line on the water.  Wow that's quite awhile!  I can think of many excuses, maybe my schedule was too busy or I left my gear in NY (lived in Upstate NY before Cali) or etc..., but honestly it's just because I fell into a lazy lifestyle.  Looking back, all my experiences out fishing was always amazing!  Well spent time enjoying the serenity of the outdoors, the suspense of hooking into something big, or even just the company I was around. ^^  So it's about time for me to start back up and get out there again.

Upon a simple search on google, I found that I lived pretty close to Shadow Cliffs Regional Park, just a short bike ride, which allows fishing.  Looking over the trail maps and park website, the park seems to be regularly stocked with rainbow trout (in the spring/early summer) and channel catfish (in the summer/fall), outside of being stocked, there are resident bluegill, sunfish, crappie, and large-mouth bass.  With finding this new place I'm actually pretty excited to get out there, I will probably head to the local sports store and pick up some gear/tackle this weekend, then head to the park for my first time fishing in California!