Welcome to Discover Tenkara

Minimum Gear: Maximum Technique

Tenkara Techniques & the Special Culture 
of Japanese Mountain Fly Fishing...

Welcome to Discover Tenkara – if you’re looking to improve your skill, confidence and success on stream (and have fun doing it) then we will bend over backwards to help you. Whether you’ve never picked up a rod – or if you are a seasoned angler – we use our travels to Japan to share PROVEN, authentic tactics to raise your game on your home streams - wherever in the world YOU fish.

Along the way we've uncovered many fascinating stories and adventures - which give the context to all the "how to" coaching information...

Tenkara DVDs & Building your Skills FAST:

But why do we focus so much on building your skills? Make no mistake, the more you minimise your gear; the more important your technique and knowledge – this is the flip-side of the saying “the more you know, the less you need”. It is a really great feeling, though, to approach a trout stream with simple, light tackle while carrying a great expectation of success. That feeling is something that we've had the blind good luck to be gifted by the incredible generosity of the Japanese tenkara community. 

In order to help pass on our own good fortune to tenkara addicts around the world (and to help us fund the air-fares, accommodation and filming equipment!), we began to sell some of the video content that we brought back each year. Following a (quite spectacular) fall out with our original cameraman, we lost the rights to market our first three DVD volumes...However, we are now hard at work creating a new generation of video content - bigger and better than ever before.

Tenkara DVDs


As well as streamlining your kit, maybe you:

  • Also like the culture and elegance of Japanese fly fishing?
  • Or perhaps you’re looking for tactics to help cross-train with modern competition-style methods?

The good news is we are on the same track after we accidentally fell in love with the Japanese way of doing things during our long exploration of modern and traditional European methods of fly fishing … 

Tenkara Print Books:

How to Fool Fish Print book available at British Fly Fair International from DT

"How to Fool Fish with Simple Flies" by Dr Paul Gaskell

  • Unlock the Characteristics of Simple Wet Flies
    Learn the FUNCTIONAL features of flies and how to match them to their perfect presentation tactics
  • 5 Simple Rules to Select Tactics & Flies
    Based on the conditions you are actually fishing (and not what the text books or calendar says SHOULD be happening) - "How to Fool Fish" explains how to exploit the predatory instincts of trout, char and grayling to "hotwire" their in-built biological responses
  • Discover Tenkara Skills used by Top Japanese Anglers
    Stories, high quality (full colour) photographs, diagrams by the author and "how to" instructions reveal the authentic flies and proven tactics of the best tenkara anglers in the world. We also share some of the tales of how we were lucky enough to be shown these little-known flies and presentation skills

Tenkara Guiding & Fly Fishing Guiding: Our Philosophy

The “we” that I mean when I say "our" is me and my fellow fishing-addict JP (John Pearson; you can get to know us better in the “About Us” page on our site).

Tenkara Guiding
Neil M Tenkara Guiding Client
„

What I like about John Pearson 's guiding is he doesn't just point to a patch of water and say "fish there" and wander off, as many 'guides'' do, he will watch and offer to guide you to fishing better than you have before.
John is seen as a master Tenkara fisherman by a great many of his peers, it has been a huge stroke of luck to have John close enough and willing enough to spend time improving my understanding and techniques in the art of Tenkara fishing!

Neil McGhee ‧ Client

More information on guided experiences is available direct from John by Clicking Here to Send an Enquiry

In terms of our overall philosophy one thing is important for you to know – so you can judge whether it’s worth checking out the rest of our site – is our official motto:

“Always go to the source”

No matter if it is a mission for our other site (Fishing Discoveries) to learn Czech nymphing with members and coaches of the World team in the Czech Republic or travelling to Japan for six annual (and counting) trips to meet and study with the widest range of elite tenkara anglers of any non-Japanese guides…that’s where we will go to bring you your info and stories.

Tenkara Lines

There's a TON of confusion over what are the "right" or "best" lines to use for tenkara and, to be perfectly honest, most folks seem to settle on options that make life harder for themselves. Before we'd ever want to sell you any kind of line we want you to be armed with the best, most straightforward and completely honest advice on line choice.

number 3 nylon level line for tenkara

You can't find a more informed or objective English language breakdown of tenkara lines than ours (because, quite simply, nobody else has carried out the same research that we have). The way we see it, we don't do ourselves any favours if we steer you wrong and you have a worse experience than you should on-stream...So we're actually being selfish by ensuring you can make informed, intelligent choices on tenkara lines.

Tenkara Flies

Many folks are astonished to discover that Japanese tenkara flies (or "kebari") do NOT usually have reversed hackles.That doesn't mean that reverse hackle flies (or "sakasa kebari") arenot a useful and important part of tenkara...just that they are veryspecialised and quite "niche" in their use in Japanese tenkara.

Tenkara Flies

Of course, because reverse hackles look so distinctive, they are a branding dream - which probably explains why they are such a dominant image associated with tenkara. But the really interesting stuff (in our opinion) is the way that it's possible to "marry" particular presentation tactics with the different basic dressing styles/materials that you find in Japanese tenkara fly patterns. THEN you can really get to grips with the advantages and fun of fishing tenkara as it ispracticed by top anglers in Japan.


Tenkara & "BIOHACKING" Fly Fishing?

Perhaps our most unique perspective (which brings many unexpected benefits) is our freshwater biology background. We've found that it comes in so useful when tryinge to understand and explain why the tactics we discover actually work…

It's been incredibly fun (and amazingly effective) to combine a life-long fishing addiction (we’ve both fished for more than 35 years for anything with fins and gills) with knowledge gained from a professional career in biological research and practical application ("Dr" Paul) and a Degree in Field Biology (John). 

Paul's Biology of Fly Design



Now we can pass that insider knowledge to you too and – since we are always discovering new things – we know exactly how you feel when you go from “confusion” to“aha!”.

We never forget what it is like to learn something for the first time – because we are always in that same state ourselves.

We also know how to get you fishing smarter and we’ve got lots of stories from the tenkara world to inspire your adventures on stream too.

Tenkara Videos Online

To get started – why not check out our free YouTube Episodes of “Tenkara in Focus”and join in on the adventures we’re having in the ever-growing, globaltenkara community? Just bring your curiosity and make sure you don’tneed to rely on the established fly fishing herd to tell you what youare allowed to enjoy…

Tenkara in Focus brings you fishing, how-to videos, interviews, travel, culture and more...

Tenkara in Focus (and its sister show Kebari in Focus)is free to view online... BUT it is not free to produce. We've faced afew challenges to keep the show in production and we are very gratefulto all our fans who support us via our Patreon page.

Tenkara Rods

In the beginning we stayed away from producing tenkara rods... we thought it would be best to do aproper apprenticeship in Japan before we offer up any game-changing designs.

After working as consultants for Western brands producing tenkara rods in China, we realised the quality control and manufacturing practices of tenkara rods still has some way to go before catching up with Japan. After several years of building relationships in Japan we were able to produce a limited run of a Japanese-made rod with input from some of Japan's "tenkara elite"... The result?

KARASU - Made in Japan. Hailed by many of our Japanese friends as some of the best tenkara rods ever made.

What is Tenkara?

We'd wager there's nowhere on the web where you'll find a more comprehensive "first look" overview of tenkara than on our Complete Guide to Tenkara page.

Distilled from all our research in Japan, travelling thousands of miles (over2000 miles of driving on our last trip alone!) meeting with both the well known and the obscure practitioners of tenkara. Old books, DVDs andVHS tapes, old photos, stories, vintage tenkara tackle, historic and modern fly patterns... we've been incredibly lucky to witness all these first hand at the source. Not only that we filmed and photographed quite a lot of it for Tenkara in Focus!

If you want to catch up on the history many other sites quickly gloss over (or skip) - and you want the "real deal" details the as well as the "first look" complete guide, you might enjoy immersing yourself in our Full Lowdown now. It is packed with the real insiders' knowledge of tenkara - right from its origins.

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