Back in September I posted some general advice for anyone interested in getting into fly fishing. In October we had an opportunity to do just what I wrote about – catch some bass on tenkara, so I thought I would describe that little excursion in a bit more detail to follow up on my previous post.
We were driving through Central Oregon and took a scenic detour to the John Day Fossil Beds. On the way we crossed a placid section of the John Day River with some public access on both banks, so after some hiking and a picnic lunch, we pulled over and retrieved the tenkara rod from the trunk.
I had tied up some size 8 streamers with a bead head to help them sink. My beads were black so I used some black dubbing for a body and some black calf tail and UV flash for the tail. They were nothing special, almost anything would have done the trick.
We scrambled down a short slope to the bank on the deeper side of the river. There were some areas of submerged rocks near shore so I just flicked my fly out and counted to ten to let it sink. Then I pulled it back with a series of tiny twitches and pauses. I got bit right away! Not to be outdone, Tara took the rod and hooked her own hungry bass!
We took turns and landed three or four fish each, all in the same spot, then clipped off the fly, collapsed the rod, and got back on the road. All told, we were probably stream-side for no more than twenty minutes. Most importantly, we had fun, caught fish, and didn’t even get our feet wet!
Fishing for bass or other sunfish with a tenkara rod is a pretty simple and fun style of fly fishing. For anyone curious about tying flies, it’s also a good introduction to tying and using basic flies with an excellent success rate.
