The Bad & The Ugly
July 2025
By Zane Jacobs
It’s not all sunshine and rainbows with tenkara. Like most activities we enjoy, we tend to look at only the positives. When we talk about our favorite pastime, we want others to understand why we do it. Typically, that doesn’t happen when all the talking points are negative. One negative point came out of hiding for me recently.
It is no secret that brook trout waters aren’t generally wide-open plains in the Southeast. I was hunched over wading through a usual brookie stream in an attempt to find a suitable hole. As I passed by prime holding water, spooking all the residents, I caught enlightenment rather than a fish. If I had a reel I could have fished all the water I had trod through. My lack of line guides kept me from a potential catch.
I’m no stranger to the bow-and-arrow cast regardless of my fly-fishing rod configuration. I can accurately fling a fly with either set up without much error. It’s a great way to get under the overhanging rhododendron. That overhanging vegetation is the real problem. With a tenkara rod, those leaves and twigs remove the possibility for a hook set without a broken rod or tangle. With a Western set up, you can strip the line to set the hook. Not the standard practice for trout streams, but still an available option.
Wide open setups are best for tenkara fishing.
More often than not, I will pass over a good-looking hole due to not having enough vertical room to swing my rod. I have tried to set the hook horizontally, but that usually ends in catching a branch instead. I would rather not fish a hole, than break a rod or lose a fly to the shrubbery. Moving upstream nearly always provides a more open casting opportunity.
Even knowing the negatives of tenkara, it is still my preferred method for small water. You can’t hide from the bad points of anything you enjoy, so you might as well acknowledge them. There are other drawbacks that I haven’t discussed here, and I may not talk about them at all. It certainly isn’t going to make you eager to grab a tenkara rod, if I keep complaining about it.
