Wax Those Loops!

When I designed and tested my tenkara lines, both the Tactical Tenkara Nymphing Line (TTN), and Tenkara Floating Line (TFL), I spent a lot of time on detail.  One of those details was the material I would use for the connection loop.  I wanted a really strong and grippy material that wouldn’t go limp and slip off the lillian.  I found what I was looking for, and by impregnating my connection loops with wax it made them even more grippy, keeping them in firm contact with the lillian, and more resistant to water and ultraviolet light.

My lines are virtually maintenance-free, however you certainly can enhance their “grippy-ness”, especially if you have them for quite a  while, or use them often.  You need to wax those loops!

Waxing connection loops involves nothing more than rubbing pure natural beeswax into the loop material. I have several bars of 100-percent natural beeswax that I have used for conditioning the bowstrings for my traditional recurve target and hunting bows.  I don’t think Bohning is offering these particular bars anymore, but there are plenty of other sources.

These little bars of beeswax are hard, so I cut off a thumbnail sized chunk, put it in a small ceramic bowl, and microwave it for about 30 seconds, or whenever it starts getting a little soft.  Then it’s ready to rub into the loop!  I rub the warm wax into the loop with my fingers, which helps keep it warm while you’re getting it into the loop material.

How much wax is enough on those loops?  Here’s a great test…if you have enough beeswax rubbed into those loops, they will stick straight out like this….

That’s it…easy maintenance on your TTNs and TFLs!  This will keep your connection loops tacky, semi-stiff, and weather and UV resistant.  Wax those loops! 

The Evolution of a Tenkara Nymphing Line

A half-dozen Tactical Tenkara Nymphing (TTN) lines, ready for action!

Five years ago I designed two tenkara lines.  It was a long time coming, and it happened after considerable amount of testing, knot-tying, material sourcing, line builds, re-testing, and more re-testing.  It was worth it.  Here’s the story of one of them.

The backstory:  I discovered tenkara, or as I like to say, tenkara discovered me, in 2009.  I was caught in the uptake created by two men…Daniel Galhardo and Ryan Jordan.  Both were tenkara anglers and lightweight backpackers, and both immediately earned my respect and attention.  I’ve often talked about how the real tenkara hook for me was backpacking, and between Daniel and Ryan, and the tenkara rod they collaborated on, the TUSA/Backpacking Light Hane, there was no looking back.  At that time, the only line options I was aware of were furled nylon lines and fluorocarbon level lines.  The first tenkara line I ever cast was a tapered, furled nylon line.  There were a few things it did well for me, and many things it did not.  In 2010, I started casting fluorocarbon level line, which gave me the advantage of much less line surface area, which in turn collected a lot less water.  The water-weighted belly in the furled line was gone, and it was considerably easier to keep the line off the water.  For several years, level line, especially the 3.5 diameter, was my mainstay.

Tenkara nymphing on the Uncompahgre River tailwater in southwest Colorado.

In early summer 2012 I became one of the first professional tenkara guides in Colorado.  Some of the water I ended up guiding on was a stretch of technical tailwater that held huge cutthroats and browns, and some respectable rainbow trout.  All of these fish received nearly constant pressure during the summer months, and I discovered the secret to catching them and getting my clients on them, was getting flies, especially nymph rigs, to the exact depth where the fish were holding in feeding lanes.  Western fly anglers could use strike indicators, with adjustment along the leader, to achieve this.  They were also adding and adjusting weight to their nymph rigs.  This had been standard procedure with western nymph fishing for years.

I initially tried fishing traditional kebari on that tailwater with limited, VERY limited, success.  I simply wasn’t getting my flies down to the trout, and those trout wouldn’t move much to take a fly.  I switched over to proven western nymph patterns, mainly a double nymph rig, and started adjusting my split shot weight.  I even ran a drop shot rig.  Once I found the right depth…BAM!  The light bulb started flickering above my head!  This was working…sort of!

Step two was dialing in my depth.  Once I found the depth in the water column where the fish were holding and feeding, I had a hard time staying at that depth from one drift to another without the aid and bulk of a strike indicator.  I did have a fluoro level line with alternating colors in knotted segments.  Those alternating colors helped, but it still really wasn’t enough.  I came home from a summer of guiding in southwest Colorado to my home water, and on one particularly gloomy, cloudy day on a huge, dark green bend pool on the Arkansas River, the light bulb stopped flickering and flashed like fireworks!  That’s the day my Depth Dots and my weight-forward design came into action.  The Depth Dots gave me a foolproof way to maintain consistency in drift depth, and they gave me another “spotter” along the span of the line to keep track of my drift above the surface of the water, which was effective in low light conditions.

An exclusive feature of the TTN, the Depth Dot.

I came home from that day in Bighorn Sheep Canyon and started making prototype nymphing lines.  As a traditional bowhunter, I also took what I knew about the efficiency and power of the weight-forward handmade arrows I had been making for years, and I applied that to my nymphing line.  A weight-forward-of-center arrow carries much more penetration power to its target, and by applying that theory to the 12’ span of a tenkara line I found that I had weight-forward tapered line that could deliver anything, from a single traditional kebari all the way up to a weighted double nymph rig, with finesse and accuracy that required nothing more than a slow, methodical arching cast forward.  In short, the weight-forward taper worked.

Since then, I spent another year testing taper, line diameter, and line length.  I finally arrived at a line that worked really well, and accomplished everything I had set out to do.  After testing the Tactical Tenkara Nymphing line on the Arkansas River freestone right next to my home in Canon City, Colorado, I started traveling and fishing it elsewhere.  In 2016, my friend Shawn and I made a trip to the Alaskan interior, and the TTN line was very effective on trophy arctic grayling and sockeye salmon.  The next year in 2017, I made one of several trips east to the Driftless in southwest Wisconsin, and again the TTN really shined on the crystal clear little spring creeks in the coulees.  I’ve also taken the TTN to challenging tailwater fisheries on the South Platte and Arkansas Rivers in Colorado with great success.  In 2017 and 2018 I returned to Alaska, the Bristol Bay region, to target huge rainbow trout, and again the TTN got the job done.

Hooked up with a trophy arctic grayling on the Tangle River, Alaska.

 

Running a double nymph rig through the tailout of a huge pool on the Copper River, Alaska.

Another solid rainbow in southwest Alaska, caught with a TTN!

Nymping a bend pool at home in the canyons with a TTN.

I now produce the TTN lines exclusively for Royal GorgeAnglers, where I also guide tenkara trips.  It’s truly a blessing to guide for a fly shop and outfitter that has provided me an opportunity to offer these lines to the public.   I really enjoy having total control over the production of the lines, since I hand craft each and every one of them myself.  Without outsourcing the production, I can keep a close eye on quality, and that means a lot to me.  I also enjoy having a direct connection with customers who have questions about the lines, or want to share stories or photos of the lines in action.

 

In short, this has been one of the most enjoyable and rewarding projects I’ve ever undertaken!  I’m looking forward to many more days on the water with a TTN, nymphing with a fixed-line rod!   

Here's a video on my You Tube channel focused on tenkara nymphing...

Small Water Tenkara Nymphing with a TTN

    

Gear I Use: DRAGONtail Tenkara Komodo

The DRAGONtail Komodo comes with a handy rod sock and a sturdy rod tube.

I know, I can almost hear your thoughts..."no...please...not another tenkara rod review!".  Well, this isn't really THAT, it's more like "here's the gear I use, and why".  As with nearly every piece of gear in my arsenal, and I have a LOT of gear, there are nearly always other options that will do the same job.  The vision I have for the "Gear I Use" series of blog posts is to simply showcase certain pieces of gear that I find useful and let you decide beyond that.

Enter the DRAGONtail Tenkara Komodo.  I'm a sucker for small mountain water and the trout that live there.  I've been fishing this kind of water for well over 40 years.  First, let me qualify what I mean by "small mountain water".  In Colorado alone there are thousands of miles of streams that are from 12" to 25 feet wide and flow anywhere from 5 to 50 cubic-feet-per-second.  In those streams live brook, brown, rainbow, and cutthroat trout from 6" to 16" long.  That's magical water, and that's where a rod like the Komodo shines!

Typical "small water" in the canyons in southern Colorado.

Typical "small water" in southwest Wisconsin's Driftless.

Small water isn't confined, of course, to mountain streams in Colorado.  There is similar water, although lower gradient, in the Driftless, Appalachians, Ozarks, Adirondacks, Black Hills, Inter-mountain West, Sierras, Alaska, and countless other places.  As my good friend, Alan Luecke, mentioned on the recent eposide of my Tenkara Tracks podcast, there's even small water alongside interstate highways in the middle of Kansas.

So, back the Komodo.  The Komodo is a lightweight, compact 320cm/275cm single zoom rod, which means it has two fishable lengths.  Those metric measurements roughly equate to a 10.5ft/9ft rod.  The Komodo weighs in at 2.9 ounces on my venerable Escali scale.  The comparatively short cork handle has a nice double contour with a defined waist that fits my hand well.  The bottom end of the handle also has a cork/rubber composite accent just above the bottom cap that's a really nice touch.  I love the stealthy, matte black finish DRAGONtail puts on their rods (Hellbender, Shadowfire), and the Komodo has the same tactical finish with some muted, matte finish red accents on all but the top two sections.  There's an industry standard red lilian, sans swivel, at the tip, and the artsy wooden top plug has a handy loop of nylon cord attached.

Any tenkara rods I use have to be able to do a few things really well.  In addition to casting a simple level line and traditional kebari, my rods also have to be able to cast a lightly weighted multi-fly nymph rig.  They have to be able to cast a dry fly or dry/dropper rig with a floating line.  They have to have a little spine, so to speak.  5:5 mid-flex rods are out.  All of the rods I use a lot are either 6:4 or 7:3 tip flex rods.  It takes a tip flex rod to fish the way I do.

The Komodo will do all of that!  Obviously, it'll perfectly cast a 2.5 or 3.5 level line with four feet of tippet and an unweighted sakasa kebari.  It does that really well.  However, that only accounts for a fraction of what I do with my rods.  This past spring I took my Komodo out into the canyons with one of my 11-foot Tactical Tenkara Nymphing (TTN) lines, four feet of 5X fluorocarbon tippet, and a pair of nymphs...a #18 Flashback Pheasant Tail with a #20 black RS2 trailing behind on 6X tippet.  I had installed two #4 split shot about 9" in front of the top fly.  As a small rod at the upper end of 6:4 flex, this little rod cast this nymph rig VERY well at its fully extended 320cm length.  I rarely fish a zoom rod at its shorter length if I have a choice, and I really never had to zoom it down.  This setup accounted for dozens upon dozens of rainbow and brown trout in my canyons between March and June of this year.  The Komodo had the spine to cast a nymph rig well, but still had the sensitivity to feel those subtle takes.  I really couldn't have asked it to do more!

Nymphing a bend in the creek with the Komodo...southern Colorado.

Another task my tenkara rods must be up for is fishing western dry fly patterns or even dry/dropper rigs.  To do this, I designed a floating line that combines small diameter, low-profile, no-stretch material with the most buoyancy possible.  My Tenkara Floating Line (TFL) meets those requirements, and the Komodo can cast dries and dry/droppers quite well, as long as you keep the fly sizes matched appropriately with the small rod.  I built a special 11-foot TFL line for it, and headed to southwest Wisconsin's Driftless with a boxful of Rich Osthoff's  #16 brown elk caddis patterns, as well as a couple dozen of the late Larry Kingery's #16 Better Foam Caddis.  While fishing in the Driftless, I even added a #18 Guide's Choice Hare's Ear as a dropper under the adult foam caddis.  The capable Komodo, with its strong 6:4 flex, handled all of that well, even with a solid breeze.  When I found myself fishing really small water choked up with overhanging trees and tall grass, I zoomed the Komodo down and found that it fished quite well at its shorter 275cm length.  It did require that I switch to a shorter 10-foot section of level line to make casting and line control during the drift feasible.

I stopped worrying about small tenkara rods handling relatively big fish a long time ago.  The biggest fish I've caught with this rod to date is a nice 16-inch brown trout from the Driftless, but I've also caught many 12-inch rainbows in my southern Colorado canyons, and those 'bows can really fight, and there's more current here than in the Driftless.  I'm sure this rod could handle any 16-inch trout, maybe even a bit bigger.

My biggest catch so far on the Komodo.  Southwest Wisconsin.

Another Driftless brown.

One of dozens of brown and rainbow trout caught with the Komodo in the canyons in southern Colorado.

Lastly, the Komodo offers a LOT of bang for the buck!  I greatly admire that in any piece of gear, whether it's a knife, a pair of boots, a rifle, or a tenkara rod.  It's the same reason I drive Toyota pickups and Subaru cars.  DRAGONtail Tenkara has offered up a very capable small water rod with the Komodo, and it's $119.99 price tag puts it well under the competition.  This fact impressed me so much that I recommended the Komodo as the small water tenkara rod that we stock at Royal Gorge Anglers, as well as the one I use with my clients my guided tenkara trips in the canyons.

This compact, strong rod is a winner in my book!  I'm looking forward to using it on guide trips and on my own fishing adventures on small water.  Great job, DRAGONtail!



     

Windows of Opportunity

It's shoulder season in the southern Colorado foothills and canyons.  It's that time of year when you can run the air conditioner and the heater in your truck all on the same day.  One weekend it can snow  six inches and the next one you can go for a trail run in shorts.  There are windows of opportunity to get out into the canyons in pursuit of browns and rainbows, and you have to grab those windows when you can.

Winter storms are in the forecast, but not quite here yet.  Coming tomorrow.  Navigating my truck down washed-out switchbacks and bedrock to the bottom of the canyon, and then back up the opposite wall to a hidden pullout.  Getting out of the cab, I notice the so-called road was so rough it rattled my gas cap open.

A good friend meets me at the pullout, his own truck dusty and disheveled from the trek.  We've fished together in the canyons, and beyond, even to Alaska.  Conversations begin where they ended weeks or months ago.

We gear up and start the thousand-foot drop down the canyon wall to the creek.  Old knees and worn backs welcome the weight of wading boots and backpacks.  Our bones and muscles know this routine well, and we know this is the easy part...we will have to climb back out at the end of the day.

The water is low and gin clear.  The browns and rainbows are holed up in the bend pools...spaces between cold rock and deep water.  They aren't picky, and they know they have the same windows of opportunity to eat what they can before the winter ice closes off their world for six months.  Hard takes on Killer Bugs, Beadhead Squirrel Nymphs, and RS2s.  It's an exceedingly good day.

The sun sets early behind canyons walls, and the temperature plummets.  We climb the thousand feet up and out of the canyons, chests heaving and brows sweating, sad to be leaving  Once on top of the wall we sit in the dark drinking beer, discussing the day, the fish we caught.  We feel fortunate to have had this window of opportunity!

Delicious Autumn!

“Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.”  --George Eliot

Autumn in the canyons!

I'm sitting here on my patio five minutes from the banks of the Arkansas River.  We've already had measurable snow this month.  There's a foot of desicated, brown, crunchy maple leaves in the backyard.  The shadows are getting longer, the days are getting shorter, and it's my absolute favorite season of the year!  It's that same season that calls to me every year, urging me to get with the program and get firewood cut and split, get elk anchored to the ground and in the freezer, and get out onto the water to grasp what remaining fishing can be done before winter sets in.  There's both a soothing relaxation of the season, and a haunting reminder that it'll all be wrapped up by Mother Nature, whether I like it or not, in the next few weeks.  I heard (or read) somewhere that the same Mother Nature saved all of the beauty of the other three seasons and dumped it into this one all at once.  I tend to agree.

Golden aspens and long afternoon shadows!

This fall has been blessed with success and fraught with failure.  I'll take them both in stride and keep on trucking.  First of all, I've been fortunate enough to spend some really great days out on the water, enjoying Indian summer and catching a lot of fish.  Secondly, I've been struggling with some injuries caused by a 20-plus year career in the Army, that raise their ugly heads a couple of times a year, and those injuries made me miss my wilderness elk hunt during the first season here in Colorado.  You just cannot haul 150 pounds of boned-out elk meat out of the backcountry in a backpack with nagging, decades-old problems with your lower back, not to mention the wear and tear of 40 years of backpacking.  So be it...I know where those elk live, and they aren't going anywhere.  I'll be back after them in a late season hunt this year when there's plenty of snow on the ground.

Back to autumn fishing.  After a good guide trip in early October with some awesome clients, I was able to get out into some higher canyons for a full day of fishing.  Just prior to that trip, I had made the Tactical Tenkara Nymphing (TTN) line I designed public, offering it exclusively through the fly shop I work and guide for, Royal Gorge Anglers.  It was a whole lot of fun to take that same capable tenkara line out into the canyons this fall for some small water nymphing.  I had been testing and tweaking that line for nearly three years on water ranging from my tiny canyons and larger rivers here at home in Colorado, to streams in southwest Wisconsin's Driftless, and then all the way up to Alaska where it worked amazingly well on trophy Alaskan rainbows.  Most of my big water nymphing is done with the standard 12-foot TTN, including the fishing I've done in remote Alaska.  However, I've also dialed in the taper of this weight-forward line to a shorter overall length line for small water nymphing here at home in my canyons.  It was this shorter line (in this case an 11-foot length) that I used this fall for some stellar fall fishing at home. 

The heart and soul of small water nymphing, my 11' TTN!

A couple of fall trips to tenkara waters really stand out this year.  One was very close to home and the other was a few hours away.  Both of them were a celebration of this brief season here in Colorado, and a thoughtful comparison of solo fishing and the camaraderie of fishing with a friend.

I happen to guide with some very talented folks, who also happen to be very good friends.  This past season, my busiest ever, was spent guiding some group trips (enough clients to warrant two guides) with a couple of solid fellow fly fishing guides.  One of them, Joe, has been my fishing partner on more than one "guides day off" fishing trip this year.  We partnered up for one such trip in mid-October this year.  We headed up to around 8,500 feet to one of our favorite canyons.  I really didn't know what expect up there, because I just hadn't had the time to scout it at all this year.  What I did know was that there had been widespread low water this year in all of the canyons, but of all of the canyons I fish close to home, this one was one of the highest in elevation.  That would give us lower water temps, and hopefully higher flows.  My estimations were correct, and Joe and I found conditions just about perfect for a day of small water canyon fishing.  The aspens were golden, the cool fall air was refreshing, and the brown trout were hungry!

A beautiful fall drive in my Tenkara Taco on dirt roads to the canyons!

Good company!

On this particular trip I took along a Zen Tenkara Suzume, my favorite small water rod.  I nearly always fish this rod at it's fully extended length of 10'8".  I teamed this rod up with my  11' TTN line, with about 3' of tippet, terminating with a #16 olive Bead Caddis tied by my friend, Rich Osthoff.  I put one #4 splitshot about 9" in front of the nymph.  It was a simple, lightweight nymph rig, perfect for small water nymphing!

A rock-solid small water rod!

Rigged up for a full day of fall fishing.

Rich Osthoff's wonderful little nymph.

I stopped counting fish at around 30.  It was a great full day of fishing with a good friend.  The Colorado fall colors were vibrant, and the air was cool with a hint of the coming winter.  It was a simply amazing day!

Fall colors, fall water.

Joe, working a tailout.

A beautiful little brown trout

The next fall trip that really stands out is my annual pilgrimage to Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park.  Our family has been making this trip, on the same weekend each year, for a very long time.  We usually rent a cabin in or near Estes Park, and this year was no different.  We had room in the cabin for our immediate family and a few guests, including our oldest daughter who's attending college at Colorado State University in Ft. Collins, about an hour away from Estes Park.  Each year, I'm able to spend a whole day during this retreat fishing in Rocky Mountain National Park.

Passing through my Stomping Grounds, en route to Estes Park.

Mule deer in the yard at the cabin in Estes Park.

My normal routine is to get up before dark, brew coffee and eat breakfast, and then head into Rocky Mountain National Park for my fishing day.  Over the years, I've spent most of my time fishing the Big Thompson in Moraine Park and Forest Canyon, and fishing Glacier Creek below Bear Lake.  This time around I headed back to my regular spot on the Big Thompson at the upstream end of Moraine Park, and started fishing up.  If you fish this way on that section of the Big T, it becomes increasingly overgrown with Douglas fir, blue spruce, willow, and western river birch.  Thankful that I was casting a relatively short tenkara rod (the Zen Suzume), I kept fishing upstream until I finally had enough of the spider web of tippet-catching vegetation overhead.  In the process, I caught a dozen or so brook trout on the upper half of this stretch, and half as many browns on the lower.  Luckily, I had enough time left to head over to Glacier Creek, so I at my lunch on the bank of the Big T in Moraine Park, and then headed back to my truck.

A glorious view of Moraine Park!

The Big T, near the entrance to Forest Canyon.

The headwaters of the Big Thompson River.

An upper Big T brown.

After fishing the Big T, I drove out of Moraine Park, enroute to Glacier Creek on Bear Lake Road.  At the downstream end of Moraine Park the park rangers had set up a roadblock.  Once I got to the head of the long line of vehicles, the ranger informed me that because every single parking space had been filled between Moraine Park and Bear Lake, they were turning all traffic away for about an hour.  In all of the years I've been fishing Rocky Mountain National Park, and that's a lot of years, I've never seen this happen!

A view of Longs Peak from near Deer Ridge Junction.

Horseshoe Park.

After pulling a quick u-turn at the roadblock, I drove up to Deer Ridge Junction, down into Horseshoe Park, and drove up along Fall River and parked just below the Alluvial Fan.  It's a good quarter-mile hike across the grass and marsh of the valley to Fall River, but it was worth it!  After the devastation of the last flood on Fall River, I was a little worried that it may not have fully bounced back yet.  I was pleasantly surprise to find a LOT of trout in the river.  Bright sun and no shade along the river (the exact opposite of Forest Canyon) made it challenging!    

Fall River in Horseshoe Park

Fall River, looking downstream toward Estes Park

A Fall River brown.

In all, I've had a very enjoyable fall season of tenkara!  I don't think it's over yet, but we're close.  There are sometimes brief windows of balmy weather even into December, and when they come along I'll jump on it!  But for now I have a hot wood stove heating our home, six inches of snow in tonight's forecast, flies to tie, and tenkara lines to make.  Life is good!