Like all aspects of fishing there is a time and place for short rods, out of 100 + days of fishing a year I may use a short rod 6-8 times. I like to carry a short rod in my work truck, I’m a building inspector and travel long distances, many times where I stop for lunch is next to a small creek. In the work truck I generally carry my nissin prospec 360 and my Kiyotaki 24
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I’ve got one (Nissin Tenkara Mini). I’ll be doing a review soon.
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Just stop it now! I just ordered the Wasabi that I didn’t even know existed prior to your confounded blog, that I can’t seem to get enough of. By the way I bought my Kiyotaki from Tom about a year ago or so, and been loving the rod for what’s its intended for.
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Tyson, did you ever receive a reply from Nabeya about their Tsuri-PAL tenkara rods?
No, never received any response.
No truer words could be written.
Small streams are rivers to some…
A “good” angler a beginner to others.
By and large the tenkara community is filled with experts that have been doing it only for a short time. I’m included in that field, not as a fly fisherman.
As a fly fisherman I used a 5’6” 3-weight Sage with a Loop reel. The rod was longer than most of my streams were wide. Often a back cast had to be threaded into a hole in the trees.
You get good at what you practice.
If you practice easy, easy is your thing.
Easy is easy.
Difficult isn’t easy.
But easy is what most people do.
Most people like easy casting.
It’s normal.
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I know a guy that sticks a fly reel in his pocket and casts the flyline with his hand.
Legend.
He rejects tenkara on this premise.
Epic.
He writes guide books on fly fishing my area of the United States and Mexico.
I really like what he does.
He does it well.
I think there is some truth to this but It is not the full picture. Some experience level challenges and environmental influence that an angler may not have a lot of control over. This is not to make excuses for sloth or to say anything negative about people enjoying easy fishing.
It can even be the difference to having a mentor or not. Most of our journeys are self taught experiences, or as you note many of us are at a similar level learning in parallel…vs…having and knowing an expert we can correspond with.
In terms of environment, anglers cannot build skill if they are not exposed to challenging water. There is plenty of water in my area with easy fishing. Some of the rivers are manicured and the parks departments pull deadfall out of the water. There are paths along the rivers and they are heavily fished…and some anglers I noticed do their own pruning of vegetation. Perfect cases of environmental mismanagement.
In terms of skill, its sort of a catch 22. Cant practice and improve skill if you dont have the environment to do so. Fishing a natural river in a dense forest hones skills no angler can hone by casting into a tuna can. Yes accuracy helps but often the variation of casting posture and stroke is improvised in the field. It is ability to read/approach a challenging spot to thread the needle. Most of us live in or adjacent to urban areas where there is no wild habitat.
I am just noting this … as it is sort of like the fish in the fishtank metaphor. “fish grows to the size of its tank” Although this may not be factual as tank specific, it is noted environmental factors have impact on an organisms ability to grow. Like no food…no grow. In an anglers case…no education or poor fishing environment can stunt the growth of their skill level or understanding of technique.
I was reflecting this spring on how much my skill has improved. I have one spot I only fish a dozen times a year and what was difficult is no longer.
I like fishing dense technical streams, but I would also note that I am human and sometimes I just want it easy.
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My buddy likes fishing narrow high gradient streams, with big boulders (often with fast water) and plunge pool after plunge pool just several feet apart. It can be frustrating but besides just enjoying fly-fishing with him for, dang, over 40 years now(!), I like fishing these places with him because it challenges me and makes me a better angler. Watching somebody who is pretty good at it also helps.
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Big fish and super fun (usually technical) hard ascending this king of stream.
I dreamed a little reading your reply.
I remember scrambling up a remote stream in Japan like this.
Variety is the spice of life.
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Having the skill to cast a fly line by hand is quite a talent. 
Sure fly line is heavier than typical tenkara lines, but still light. At least a broom handle would serve the same function for the line as the atlatl does for a short spear - increasing the lever arm. And thereby line momentum.
Watching, staring at, people with excellent skills, that you’d like to acquire, is the first of 52 tips in Daniel Coyle’s book, Little Book of Talent - 52 tips for improving your skills.
[I’ve read more than one account of older Japanese tenkara anglers who stated no one would teach them tenkara skills, they just had to watch the masters from a distance, and figure out what they were doing on their own.]
Filling your windshield with views of top performers. That book is basically a condensed version of his longer book, The Talent Code - wherein he believes greatness isn’t born it is grown.
iow - correct practice (or just the everyday doing) isn’t to establish correct ‘muscle memory’ that will lead to improved skills. Correct practice, is to build ‘myelin memory’, that leads to increased level of skill.
Dough Lemov and Erica Woolway are onto something in their book, "Practice Perfect - 42 rules for getting better at getting better. Repeatedly doing something less than perfect just reinforces incorrect movement. Only repeated correct movement form leads to increased skill.
George Leonard in his book Mastery - wrote that practice is not something we do, it is something we have. And to advance to mastery we must learn to love the plateau. And sometimes the plateau is long. Before another increase in skill happens.
The 10,000 hour rule - myth or fact ?
I first heard of the 10,000 hour rule when reading a joke about 2 guys in New York City. (perhaps in an Oliver Sacks book). It went something like this:
John, “Excuse me sir. Could you tell me how to get to Carnegie Hall?”.
Tony, "Practice son, practice, a lot of practice. Then practice some more. "
https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/22/daniel-goleman-focus-10000-hours-myth/
I rather liked a quote I read in Adam’s recent interview of Paul Gaskell.
PG’s pet quote, “It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows”.
I would only extend that idea by saying it is impossible for a man to learn what he has no interest in learning. The old, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink, idea.
More about the source of Paul’s quote.
https://lifehacker.com/you-cannot-learn-what-you-think-you-already-know-1796095391
I was very lucky to have a good friend who was an early adopter of tenkara introduce me and spent countless hours fishing with me. I still suck… yet my son who has only fished tenkara a dozen or so times can cast a line fairly good, certainly better than I was at a dozen trips. There is a amount of natural talent that some people possess, just like athletes, we all can’t be olympians. My casting has improved dramatically by constant practice and a love of tenkara. I’ve fished my entire life mostly freshwater but later in life a lot of salt water, I’ve never been “great” at any style. Do I care? No I just love to be outside, listening to water, catching fish is the icing on the cake.
I like that too.
On the other hand, I’m not afraid of knowing something. I know what tenkara is and at the same time, I want to learn more.
But I totally enjoy and get that quote even though I think it is slightly flawed.
I always move in the direction of things I don’t know or understand. I go in that direction because I want to know more and understand. When I fish tight streams, the thing I concentrate most on is to understand that I’m going to be frustrated. That’s where the learning is for me. Giving in to getting hung up, re rigging and hanging up again, my record at casting and being hung up is well over 5-6 fly/tippet lost in as many casts. I learn more when I choose to not be afraid to cast, to try. Understanding that frustration is part of it, getting past it and moving on.
Accurate casting, and I am not special compared to the best, is paramount to threading a fly into a hole or flicking or what ever, getting the fly there however you can, you get creative, left handed, right handed, forward, backward, ambidextrous, there is no right or left.
A short fly rod is as short as you can stand. A short fly rod is removing the tip section off of a short fly rod and casting that.
Ever do that?
Any chance you get to cast a fly line by hand, do it. You can learn a lot about how a line reacts by casting it with your arm, knowing when to stop and how to stop.
Dedication to your sport is key.
I like easy too but it is much more rewarding to catch that one fish you target in a pool of many.
Set challenges for yourself and keep doing it.
Sage LL 356 5’6" 3-weight
Fenwick FF565 5’6" 5-weight
Orvis 6’6" “One Ounce” 2-weight
These are the three short fly rods I cut my teeth on.
TUSA Rhodo
Sakura Kongo 3m
Nissin Mini V3 2.7m (keiryu rod)
I’ve caught big fish on these short rods. The Mini is a surprisingly strong rod, my son has caught dozens of fish larger than 18" on it at a very special stream managed for monster trout.
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