A Japanese style of fly-fishing called Tenkara and Dapping

I've been visiting some fishing sites on the www and have found one based in Singapore that is really interesting.

The amazing thing is that even though the fish species and some of the techniques are incredibly exotic to me, the people on the forum are very down to earth.

You hear the same conversations and discussion points you would in a fishing camp on the Margaree. Guess the fraternity of fishermen is pretty well universal.

I think it was Roderick Haig-Brown who said something about," we descend from the first to leave the camp and go fishing when the tribe didn't have need of fish".

I'll search out the real quote for you. That's a good excuse to thumb through some well-enjoyed books by one of my favourite writers.

 I hope to one day be able to fish for Steelhead on the Campbell River of Vancouver Island and try to recognize the landmarks mentioned in his books. As a matter of fact, I learned to fly cast by reading his introduction to the art.

 My poor wife stood there holding the book and comparing my form to the illustrations as I tried to decode the right-handed pictures and instructions to my left handed reality. The forum is called fishingkaki and is at: www.fishingkaki.com Make sure you check it out.

One of the really neat things that I read about there recently is a Japanese style of fly-fishing called Tenkara. Tenkara is now accepted as the general term for traditional Japanese Fly-fishing.

 http://members.ozemail.com.au/~kamosida/Japan.htm is a great link to get an overview of contemporary fly-fishing in Japan.

But back to Tankara, it’s a method developed by professional fishermen based on variations of what we call dapping.

Dapping is where you extend your pole from cover with just the leader and an inch or two of fly line exposed. The fly is lowered so it is just touching the surface and is bounced or danced on the surface to imitate an egg laying may fly, a struggling terrestrial or whatever behaviour your pattern of choice suggests.

It is a deadly way to catch fish, not just because of the ability to really work the fly but it is so stealthy that you don't frighten your quarry. It is a good way to fish the small brushy streams so common on the East Coast.

 If it was a question of catch a trout or go hungry, I'd choose dapping as the go to technique. The only negative is that it is so effective that its not much fun for your average fly fisherman.

 In Tankara the technique is expanded to subsurface variations, in essence dapping under water. Having read about it, I'll definitely try some Tankara variations in my down-stream nymphing for trout next spring.

Another great thing on the fishingkaki forum is the section on fly patterns. Some are definitely strange to my eye, others not so much but I've tried a few on local bass with great results and will spend a little time at the tying bench this winter sampling some of the techniques and ideas.