Which is more important casting skill or fly presentation skill?

[dwalker (David Walker)]

Thank you for the explanation. However, several things remain confusing.

@todoroki34

“空-合わせ kara-awase” it is not a new method

Oh, I did not expect it to be a new method. Just new to me.

Digital translation often gives the incorrect phonetic for kanji. [ something I am used to]
I did not recognize that 空-合わせ & から合わせ , are the same, because google translate shows the kanji 空 as ( sora).

Earlier I was looking in the forum section - Japanese Language Fishing Terminology.
Wherein I was trying to understand the difference between Atari and Awase.
アタリ, Atari, is defined as a collision or overlap. What we might call a hit, a strike or a take (of the fly).

And 合わせ, awase. Implies some kind of contact. I have noticed if I look at an on-line shop, the link to contact the company also uses the word, 合わせ.

Anyway, you gave this reply. That awase ( 合わせ or あわせ) is a hook-set. Adding:
" There are various kinds hook set and awase.
合わせ
聞合せ ＝kiki-awase ＝ feel a reaction at the rod tip
空合わせ kara-awase ＝ To finish the Drift and equal to hook set
気配で・合わせる ＝ sixth sense hook set。"
Google won’t translate any of those kanji the way you did. But there it was, you had already listed - kara awase, as "to finish the drift and it equals hook-set.

This one - 気配で・合わせる ＝ sixth sense hook set - also caught my attention. Besides tenkara for almost 30 years I have been interested, off and on, in taichi & qigong (chi-kung). So I recognized the first kanji. 気 , as the kanji for Qi, or in Japan Ki. The concept of - life force energy.
Sixth-sense hook-set, would be a good skill to have. Probably a lot of fishing time needed to develop it.

@todoroki34

There are very many hook-set where there is no reaction on the rod tip and line
It is to hook-set a fish that rhythmically moves the stick tip up and down to show no reaction
Predicting the whereabouts of fish
If you know the location of the fish’s feeding lane

This bit remains unclear to me.
I had thought that kara-awase, may have involved watching the tip of the rod. It sounds like that is incorrect. However, I don’t think I have ever experienced a hook set with no reaction on the rod tip and line. By “rhythmically moving the stick tip up and down” Do you mean the rod tip?

I can see from the author’s definition that kara-awase, involves timing and location of the fish.
Only I can not translate it clearly. He writes:

Kara awase tenkara fishing method is:
Cast the fly.
「というタイミングで合わせるのが」Adjust the timing of the hook-set (awase)
「ここらへん・で食いつくだろう」which seems to mean, hold the kebari at the proper location and the fish will eat it. Which agrees with your statement about - knowing the whereabouts of the fish. Maybe that requires. [ 気配で・合わせる ＝ sixth sense hook set]

@todoroki34

His “kebari” matches such a way of fishing

I noticed he calls his kebari - 郡上テンカラ毛鉤 - Gujo tenkara kebari. Using Gujo beadheads. Here is a link to his kebair on an auctions website.
https://auctions.yahoo.co.jp/seller/matumotokatumoto

@todoroki34

If you use a long line this way of fishing is the best

In many of his blog post he list his tackle set up. Usually a line the same length of the rod, 3.6m or 3.8m, plus up to 1.8m of tippet.

I tend to think of a long line as any line, not including tippet length, that is more than rod length + 1.5 m. I don’t like fishing with a line longer than that. For a 4m rod, any line longer than 5.5m.

Maybe not everyone defines a long line the same way.
Fujino-line makes their Soft tenkara lines. 3.3m to 5m. And their Soft tenkara Long type lines are 7m to 10m. They seem to think of long lines as starting at 7m length.

Anyway, I have been trying to read through his book. He writes that he is a self proclaimed student of 片山悦二テンカラ名人, Tenkara master /expert Katayama Etsuji. It is slow going, but I am learning a lot.

[todoroki34 (todoroki toshirou)]

@dwalker

moves the stick tip

mistake to stick tip ・・・ rod-tip

For better understanding

Underwater drift of kebari（This is useful if you sink the kebari）
Repeat a series of movements of drift, stop, drift, stop,drift, hook-set

For this case・・・
stop = 聞合せ
hook-set = 空合わせ
（Simply repeat the same action）

When the kebari and the fish move at the same speed, I do not feel the change of the rod tip and the line
（Even though it holds kebari in the mouth of fish）

When you familiarize yourself with “kara-awase” will be Sixth-sense hook-set

[dwalker (David Walker)]

@todoroki34

Underwater drift of kebari（This is useful if you sink the kebari）

Repeat a series of movements of drift, stop, drift, stop,drift, hook-set
For this case・・・

stop = 聞合せ
hook-set = 空合わせ

（Simply repeat the same action）

That description sounds a lot like テンカラ釣りの止め送り釣りテクニック (tenkara fishing stop feed fishing techniques. Or 止め送り ( tome okuri). Or stop-send.

What Daniel Galhardo has called - pause-drift. Or Paul & John at Discover Tenkara call, Slip & Slide.

Tracing small circles or ovals. With the rod tip, the rod held horizontal. To alternately pause the drift of the submerged kebari down stream, then feed in line to let the kebari drift farther down stream. Using a predictable rhythm.

Very similar to what the guy on the tenkara-beginner blog calls. Tan tan awase (タン・タンで合わせる) .
Adjusting the timing of the awase, with rhythm. Like the rhythm of music notes. Changing the atari + awase action in a steady rhythm.

And since the kanji 空 seems to imply emptiness. It seems to me that 空合わせ means having the fish take the kebari on a slack line, empty of tension. That is during the time feeding or sending the line. Which would also agree with the earlier description of 空合わせ : “There are very many hook-set where there is no reaction on the rod tip and line.”

However, maybe the best goal would be finding tips, & advice about how to develop - 気配で・合わせる ＝ sixth sense hook set.

[dwalker (David Walker)]

@A_Naples

Not to knock the experts… - but when it comes to active techniques I think there’s a lot of bad info out there - and that if more folks just went out and messed around they would be very surprised with what they manage to do…

Most of the joy of tenkara for me is the fact that the gear - being so simple (and elegant) stays out of the way - and makes it’s very possible to be self taught without too much frustration

Ah, I suspect you may have discovered what I discovered several months back. It seems impossible to delete a post from this forum after you decide maybe you shouldn’t post it or decide you should have posted it in a different forum section. The post just becomes hidden when you try to delete it.

Anyway, I don’t have a problem knocking the experts.
At least not within my own thoughts about their opinions.
I take everything the experts say with a huge sack of salt. In every field of of inquiry. Nothing is off limits. And think that most of them are full of crap most of the time.

I have a rule, that I don’t apply 100% of the time, but almost. It’s the 80/20 rule:
20% of the experts might be right 80% of the time, and wrong 20% of the time. And 80% of the experts are only right 20% of the time and wrong 80% of the time. [it’s not a hard rule. In some fields if might be 70/30]

The problem is determining which of them are in the first group, with a higher probability of being right, and which are in the second group, with a lower probability of being right. The hardest task is determining when the first group is wrong, and the second group just happens to be correct.

It worth spending time listening to or reading what the experts have to say, but make a judgement about whether they are right or wrong from either your own observations, or experiences or just from how high the BS detector number is when you listen to them.

I agree. Listen to what expert A says. Balance that with what expert B says, which is often almost 180˚ opposite of what expert A said. Then go out and try both and see if you can prove either one. And while you’re at it, make your own discoveries. Simple systems, like tenkara tackle, offer the greatest freedom of options to discover something new yourself.

Thanks for the advice from Rich Osthoff.

[A_Naples (Anthony Naples)]

@dwalker I’ve been trying to spend less time in the cyber world… and decided i ought to stay out of online discussions mostly as a matter of productivity

[Gressak]

Anthony,

I dig your posts on this thread and in this forum.

This forum is my only window to the tenkara world.

I can see how these discussions may get tedious…but they are also very helpful to folks like me.

[davidsr (David S Riley)]

I second that @Gresham I may not participate in many of the discussions but I read them all avidly.
One thing I do like about fixed line fishing is that I can fish the rod left or right handed and either let the fly drift or ‘work’ it in any way you want. Even if you are not used to using a different arm for casting, give it a go as your arm soon gets ‘programmed’ and it opens a whole lot of new presentation techniques.

[A_Naples (Anthony Naples)]

@Gressak thanks.

The internet is such a giant rabbit hole of distraction for the easily distracted (and undisciplined) like myself

I get on to check for any replies to a forum post and 12 hrs later I’m watching videos of how to Travis pick rockabilly guitar rhythm parts …

[Peder]

Haha, that’s so true for all of us. My arch nemesis often includes (but isn’t limited to) YouTube, Wikipedia, and nearly anything related to tenkara or fly tying, oh and cooking.