Received this DVD in the mail today. It’s a pretty good DVD.
The biggest distraction from watching his instruction was letting my mind wonder to look at the beauty of the river he was fishing.
Some people may say, why watch a DVD where you can’t understand the language? Well, I just think of it as being the old school or traditional way of learning. Some of the older tenkara personalities have stated that when they were young and wanted to learn how to fish with tenkara gear, asking the village elder. or even their fathers, was just not done. They would watch them fish from a distance, then go off somewhere to a stream and see if they could duplicate what they had seen.
Of course it helps that I have learned to read Japanese a little bit, or can figure out the text on the screen. That’s not a lot different from their experience of just watching as they did.
And as the great Yogi Berra has stated, " You can observe a lot by just watching. "
There is a lot of fishing, a little hand outline points to the target spot in the stream when the line is not visible. Often the line is visible because the background was a gray stone face. Sometimes aiming for spots that weren’t expected. There is a fair amount of river reading demonstrated.
He often alternated his cast; sometimes a straight overhead cast, other times. casting with the rod tilted 45˚ to the right or left. Sometimes tracking the drift of the kebari with the rod tip up stream, other times with the rod tip down stream of the kebair position. Like most videos the use of telephoto lens shortens the distance in the background. Making the width of the stream appear narrow that it really is.
How he rigs his tackle.
He fished with the Daiwa Expert L LL 3.6 m rod. You could see it is a full flex rod, it seemed to bend down to his finger tip on each cast. He always fished with his hand near the top of the grip.
The LL was attached to the Lillian with the standard slip knot. Measuring the line to the length of the rod + one arm span, [ which is kind of a world wide used measure. In the west it became known as 1 fathom. In Japan a Hiro ( ヒロ ). Half a Hiro being an Yabiki ( 矢引き). Finger tip to ear lobe.
He ties on a 4 inch long piece of yellow line as a sight marker. He joins the marker line to the LL with, I think, a double Uni knot or double Duncan knot. I think the two are the same thing. Ending with a figure 8 knot where the tippet will be attached.
I never use a marker line. But I sometimes do something that functions similarly. I sometimes fish with Sunline Snipper line. This line gets some on line chat as Tenkara LL. Some like it some don’t because of its color. I think it cast well. This line changes color every few inches. The green to clear sections are difficult to see. But the red or orange sections are pretty bright and visible. I just always cut the Snipper line so one of the brighter colors is at the end where the tippet is connected.
The tippet was tied with a double figure 8 knot loop , that is girth hitched on to the level line. There is a youtube video with Masami Sakakibara showing the same method. I usually attach my tippet to the LL using the same knot I use at the hook end.
He adds 1 to 1.5 m of tippet.
He ties the hook to the tippet the same way I do. But he uses a different knot. I think I might like his way better.
The process is to slide the hook onto the tippet. Let is slide down to where ever it wants to go. Tie a sliding loop at the end of the tippet. Then pull the tippet and fly back through this loop. Tighten the loop onto the standing part of the tippet tight at the eye of the kebari. The difference is he uses the same slip knot that Dr Ishigaki uses to tie on the kebari, same knot shown on the TUSA website. But the kebari eye isn’t in the loop, the loop goes round the standing part of the tippet., and is tightened onto the tippet. The way Etsiji-san does it the knot is stopped from moving by the eye of the hook as he tightens the loop. A more efficient, quicker way way that how I have been doing it.
Toward the end he ties his iconic kebari, the only type I saw in his fly box. I have tied imitations of it, and have had success catching fish with it. But seeing how he ties it I see he adds a couple of steps I haven’t been using that would make it a more robust kebari.
If you like Japanese Tenkara instruction videos I think you will like this one.
No doubt I will pickup more with additional viewing and taking more time to figure out the text on the screen that I could only partially read the first time through.
DVD Menu:
全編再生
レベルライン・テンカラの竿
レベルライン・テンカラの仕掛け
グリップのり屋方
グリップのり握方、竿の振り方
理想的はラインの長さ
竿とラインで作る三角形
釣れる毛鉤の流し方
誘いを入れるタイミング
ポイントに対する立ち位置
「衣食住」で見る魚の付き場
結び毛鉤とその巻き方
アタリの取り方
Full-length Play
Level line · Tenkara rod
Level line · Tenkara’s gimmick (rigging)
How to get a grip
How to grasp the grip stick, how to swing the pole
The length of the ideal line
Triangles made with pole and line (i.e. casting distance
How to catch sink fly
sasoi timing
Standing position with respect to the point
Fish place to see in “food, clothing and shelter” (meaning, where they find the necessities for life)
How to tie and wind fly
How to take of Atari
