What Is Tenkara Fishing? Rod, Setup and Basics for Beginners

What tenkara is

Tenkara is rod, line and fly, with nothing between your hand and the fish but the rod itself. Wikipedia describes it as a simple Japanese style of rod angling, traditionally used for mountain stream trout. It says it began more than 400 years ago with professional fishermen in Japan's mountain streams, targeting yamame, iwana and amago, and that commercial use lasted until the early 1900s. Interest revived in the 1950s, and Tenkara USA, founded in 2009 according to the same article, brought the method abroad.

Wikipedia is explicit that tenkara and Western fly fishing developed independently. The overlap is that both use flies.

What is a tenkara rod

A tenkara rod is a telescopic rod: it collapses into itself for carrying and extends for fishing. It has no reel seat and no guides. Wikipedia says tenkara rods are usually 3.3 to 4.5 metres long, with 3.6 metres common, and that early rods were bamboo while modern ones use carbon fibre or fibreglass.

The Fly Fishing Place describes a typical carbon-fibre rod as about 10 to 14 feet extended, collapsing to 15 to 25 inches and weighing 2 to 4 ounces. As a real example from a maker, Tenkara USA's page for its Iwana lists a 12-foot (360 cm) rod, 20.5 inches collapsed, 2.7 oz, nine sections and an 11-inch cork handle, for trout of 20 inches or less and most fish species.

Line weights do not apply. There is no reel and no cast line, so the numbers on a fly-rod table (1 to 12) do not describe a tenkara rod. You read length, collapsed length and weight instead. Our tenkara rods page lists them.

Tenkara setup

A tenkara setup has three parts after the rod.

The line. Wikipedia names two traditional choices: a tapered, furled line about as long as the rod, or a level fluorocarbon line, which it says is lighter but harder to cast. The Fly Fishing Place lists level fluorocarbon in 3 to 5 weight, or tapered and woven lines, starting about rod length.

The tippet. A short length goes between line and fly. Wikipedia gives about 30 cm to 1 metre. The Fly Fishing Place says roughly 3 to 4 feet in 4X to 6X.

The fly. Traditional tenkara flies are called kebari. Wikipedia says they are reverse-hackle wet flies, tied with the hackle facing forward, and The Fly Fishing Place names sakasa kebari on size 12 to 16 hooks. You are not limited to them, since modern tenkara often uses artificial flies of other kinds.

That is the whole kit. The Fly Fishing Place says a complete kit can weigh under 12 ounces. It also means one fewer thing for the Hook Drawer to eat, since there is no reel with a manual to lose.

Check what comes in the box when you buy. Tenkara USA's Iwana page offers a rod-only option and a "complete set", and does not list the contents of the set on the page I read. Some rods are sold without a line, so a rod alone is a rod.

How to tenkara fish

The principle is to keep the line off the water. The Fly Fishing Place describes a rod that does most of the work and says to keep the line off the water with a high rod tip, and Tenkara USA's drag-free drift article says to strive to keep the main line off the water for most techniques.

A few basics from the sources:

• Casting. There is no shooting line. Because the line is fixed, you place the fly and keep the line up. The Fly Fishing Place says tenkara needs less casting power than a conventional fly rod.
• Drift. Tenkara USA's article says to cast upstream of the target and, as the fly drifts toward you, lift the rod to keep the line tight. It adds that you should not normally pull the fly while it drifts downstream, so the fish has a chance to see it.
• Where to fish. The same article suggests places where fish can hold without effort but still get food from nearby current, behind or in front of rocks, and along seams between currents.
• Fighting a fish. With no reel, the rod flexes to absorb runs. The Fly Fishing Place says fights rely on rod flex, and points out that trout stress rises above roughly 65 to 68°F, so fights should be short.
• Knots. It also says poor knots lose more fish than anything else, which is not a tenkara problem alone.

Tenkara fishing for beginners

Start small. The Fly Fishing Place advises starting on smaller streams, where the fixed line length matches the scale of the water. It lists backpackers, small-stream anglers and beginners among the people tenkara suits, and calls it very light and portable. The long rod helps you place a fly in a small pool and hold the line off the current, which Wikipedia lists among its advantages.

For a first rod, a fixed length around 12 feet is the common size, per Wikipedia. If your streams are brushy, go shorter. Our tenkara rods page shows lengths from the shortest to the longest we track and what each includes.

Where tenkara falls short

The Fly Fishing Place is straightforward about the limits. Tenkara is built for accuracy rather than distance, so long casts are not its strength. Wind may need a heavier line or shorter tippet. Very brushy streams need a bow-and-arrow cast. Clear water and selective fish call for longer, finer tippet. And with no reel, large fish are a problem. If your water is a big river or you want to fish for larger species, a conventional rod and reel gives you more control.

What to read next

If you are weighing it against standard gear, our tenkara vs fly fishing guide compares the two. If you are new to all of this, fly fishing gear for beginners covers the conventional kit. The Tenkara USA page covers the best-known tenkara brand in our data.

Fish don't read spec sheets. You should.