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