Howdy all,
I was wondering if anyone has any feedback or reviews on any of the Discover Tenkara courses. I’ve read Rob Worthing’s book a few times in addition to How to Fool Fish with Simple Flies (which I’m critical of for pointing back to their courses but oh well), but would like to learn more about presentations in a video or graphic format.
Has anyone taken these courses and if so, what did you think?
All the ones I purchased were really good. I think they pulled some though at some point so not sure if they are all still available.
Here is a link to a post I made about DT courses back in 2021.
There was some excellent content in the email lessons with links to their free web content. I have bookmarked a lot of that content from the original DT website, and YT channel videos at the specific points where content I want to refer back to is. *Ex. A short video segment showing a great aerial mending technique I now use that allowed me to effectively fish and hook - land a trout the first time I tried it from just outside a 12’ long x 5’ high “tunnel” of overhanging brush and tree branches created by the top of a fallen tree that fell across the entire stream into the tall impenetrable brush on the far bank.
In 2021 I purchased the Manipulations course from the “DT Academy” website. It has 8 short “lessons” that each detail a technique. There is an overarching 1.2 hour hosted video. There is even a short segment in the video on how fly design helps with manipulation techniques and putting your fly where you want it that isn’t really defined in the course syllabus menu. And unfortunately the hosted video format does not contain a descriptive chapter menu that would be very helpful in finding the specific segments. Moving the cursor along the playback bar will show where end-of-chapter bullet list summaries are. But I don’t see "chapter start “cards” so the transition to the next desired chapter can take a little bit of time.
To Dr. Paul Gaskell’s credit the materials I paid for are still available to me for review after paying for the course!
I have the Kindle “Tenkara Sasoi - Fly Manipulation for Tenkara & Western…” I also bought “How to Fool Fish With Simple Flies - The Science Behind Japanese Kebari and Euro-Nymph Patterns” book that goes into more detail about fly design than the short segment in the Manipulations video. It bookends well with the Manipulations… course. I also have Paul’s Cutcliff Rapid Streams, and his Small Streams books. I have downloaded them all to my laptop, tablet, and phone so I can refer to them at home and afield.
Overall I believe DT has helped me a lot on my journey.
All of the DT stuff is great. The Sasoi book could be edited a little better for clarity of language (I think they are adapted from the emails) but the techniques discussed are for sure easier shown rather than described. Fooling Fish With Simple Flies is a beautiful book and is much more polished.
The DVDs (which were pulled due to some sort of falling-out with their filmer/editor I think?) pop up on eBay from time to time and are really excellent, lots of great insight into various Japanese anglers’ tying styles 