Barbel Bugging… Tenkara

[John Bailey]

I’m fascinated by all the posts that come in, but the recent one mentioning Tenkara really caught my eye. Personally, I first became aware of its existence at a Game Fair many years ago, when it featured in one of the demos that took place. I was mildly interested, but sort of wrote it off as a method for small fish, and not unlike the way we had fished here in the UK back in the 16th and 17th Centuries. Now it occurs to me that my mates and I have been fishing a sort of Tenkara-derivation for roach and chub for at least five years, if not more. Let me explain.





Ian Lewis searching for summer roach

If you take our Eastern rivers in the summer when the flow is non-existent, the depths minimal, and the clarity startling, roach are almost impossible to catch on any normal method. A feeder or a float scares the bejeezus out of them, and they are gone in seconds. So what we have been doing is to use a 14ft float rod, set up with 3lb line, no float, and size 16/18 hook with a grain of corn as bait. We might in a wind add a No 4 shot, or very occasionally, a BB 18 inches up from the hook. I have tried using a pole, but even a light one I personally find just a tad too long and cumbersome.




We stalk the river for as long as it takes

Polaroids, breathable chesties, and lots of energy and patience are vital, and what we do is stalk the river for as long as it takes to find any fish that we might want. We obviously have favourite runs, but this can take an hour even so. The key is to watch the roach intently and work out their patrol route. When we have identified a piece of clean gravel or sand that they like to go back to, we place the corn there, once they have moved off, and we wait for their return. If you do everything right, 75% of the time you will get a pick-up and a fish, but the shoal will scatter for the day. These are the basic rules, and there are times you have bend them and improvise, but you get the gist. I’d go as far as saying this is the ONLY way of catching roach in these conditions, and if the weather is wet or windy, we’ll do something else!


Watch the roach and work out their patrol route


Low-water chub are even flightier than the roach

We have equal success with low-water chub, which are even flightier than the roach. We have completely discarded usual baits for chub in these conditions, simply because they are terrified of them a lot of the time. We might step up line strength a little and use a bigger hook. Best baits are a dead frog, a dead mouse, a small dead fish – gudgeon especially – a prawn or double lobworm. I’ve seen bad, rule-breaking boys use dead signal crayfish to startling effect, but I wouldn’t dream of recommending these of course. It seems to me that the advantage of what we are doing has over Tenkara proper is that we do have a reel to give line if needed. You rarely need to use the reel for roach, unless the fish is 1.08 or so, but a six pound chub is a different proposition.



Barbel from a high, coloured river… comparatively easy

Now we come to barbel, and I confess I have never really used this exact technique for them… though I have come close on the summer Wensum. If we look at the Wye, say, Summer 2020 saw it very low and clear at times, and Enoka (wife) and I couldn’t buy a bite, whatever we did. When it rained, and the river rose a little and coloured, it was a different story, but most of the time we watched an untroubled rod tip. I have been convinced for years that the splash factor generated by a lead, feeder, or even float on the line is the culprit. A bait, or fly, placed close to fish with no splash has to be the key in these killer conditions?



Visible barbel allow you to put a bait in place with as little splash as possible

Many, many times I have watched Wye and Wensum barbel eagerly mop up pellets in quick water, even digging them out from amongst the stones. However, any sight of a lead will move them away. How about using the 14/15ft rod and simply bouncing a 12mm or 15mm pellet down the swim, much as you do a nymph with the Czech technique? Worms, dead fish or boilies would probably oblige as well?




Close enough to see the taking fish…

In my long, long experience, I’d say summer fishing on low, clear rivers is ruined by fishing overly-heavy. Approaches that are half-fly, half-coarse, and allow you to put a bait on the fish with minimal disruption provide at least some of the answer. I find this truly intriguing, because there are no rules and you are making it up as you go along. And, of course, a lot of the time, you are close enough to see the taking fish… which has to be the most exciting moment in our sport??

The post Barbel Bugging… Tenkara first appeared on FishingMagic Magazine.

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[theartist]

Nice one John,
Re barbel seeing the lead there's one thing they hate even more and that's a heavy taut line in low water conditions, those liners spook barbel like nothing I've seen.

Here's my blog on tenkara style fishing using a matchstick, I've now caught over 100 barbel on the tactic plus a few good roach and loads of chub, it really works a treat in summer

The Best Float Money Can Buy

 

[liphook]

Interesting Artist though I think you are perhaps confusing the Wallis cast - a method for getting a centerpin to spin to give distance on the cast. The bow and arrow cast is useful with fly and very light float/freeline tackle. I've used cocktail sticks and cut down lengths of cane kebab sticks.
Tenkara is nothing new of course and JB describes an approach well known to the likes of Stewart, Wanless etc and long practiced by the upstream worm angler targeting trout/sea trout/salmon. The painstakingly slow and ultra careful use of chest waders to stalk from a downstream position can get you remarkably close to fish

 

[John Bailey]

Barbel Bugging...

Huge thanks as ever to those who have taken an interest in this subject. I particularly loved iainmortimer's contribution (on Fly Fishing Forum) describing his own blissful summer days. A joy to read. Thank you in these grey Covid times.

Can I reiterate that all these fancy-dan techniques actually work? Of course, barbel do fall to standard approaches, as all species do, but there are very many times that they do not. When rivers are low and clear and the light is bright, barbel, chub and roach can be nigh-on impossible if you fish for them the same old way.

I honestly believe that, in these conditions, the majority of fish are terminally spooked, often as soon as the box is dumped on the bank and a rod rest is battered in. It doesn’t need the explosion of a sploshed-in feeder to empty the swim completely. This might sound cliched stuff, but it is often fact. Fly fishing. Tenkara. Drifting a bait. All and every alternative approach has its merits.

Can I also pick up on the issue of fly-caught barbel in the Iberian Peninsula? It is a fact that several barbel species out there are extremely fly-catchable. For many years I had a cottage near Ronda... ah, bliss... and the rivers around held Andalucian barbel between two and seven pounds in weight. You could catch them on bait, but just as easily on nymph AND dry fly.

That was the cream of it. In the heat of the day, these barbel lazed on the surface, picking off tiny insects. Anything black or brown fished on a size 16, or preferably 18, stood a very good chance of being taken. The ensuing battle could be hair-raising. I have excellent pictures of all this on my desktop computer, which is in storage. When we move - if ever - I’ll post them up, if there is an appetite.

Wye monster barbel. This is SO interesting. The iconic Fred Crouch wrote thirty-odd years ago in Coarse Fisherman magazine that double-figure barbel from the Wye would be a stretch because of depressed water temperatures and limited growing periods. He was right... and wrong, in my view. Back in the early days of the Wye story, pioneers like me, Peter Smith, Roger Miller, Paul Ashton and so on, averaged two double-figure fish out of every five landed - a very impressive ratio. Between 1989 and 2000, I weighed many fish between 10 and 13.14 pounds. Elevens and twelves were relatively common, and I saw fish far bigger... but only one or two of these.

I would say that the last years have seen a noticeable drop-off in sizes. A ten now is to be remarked upon, and the last thirteen I weighed perhaps ten years ago. Certainly the sixteen pound-plussers that we become used to in rivers like the Wensum, Ouse, Medway and Trent have never materialised, and I assume never will.

So, in large part, I believe Fred was right. The Wye is a hard river for a barbel to make a living from. Frequent floods bringing down very cold water must inhibit feeding many weeks of the year. Food stocks are good... Roger Miller and I were convinced that minnows were a staple... it is just the water is too frequently too cold for monsters to emerge. But this is a fascinating debate, even to this day and there remains more to be said on the matter I know.

 

[John Aston]

I've only had one barbel on fly - deliberately , on a mayfly nymph but I have fished for coarse fish, especially chub , on fly for decades , long before it became A Thing . Indeed, the only 100 lb plus bag of chub I've had was on dry fly - on the sort of day most people don't fish - 30C , low ,clear water and blazing sun. But a hopper took fish after fish , often in less than a foot of water . If you only fish bait for chub , you might expect a walloping rise, as per floating crust , but you actually get a very slow , very gentle take which needs a second's delay to be struck .

Lures (whether jigs or flies) work superbly for chub , and on small rivers fly tends to be better as (really ) it's far easier to make an accurate and gentle cast ( with a size 10/12 streamer, or Woolly Bugger) with a short fly rod, assuming your casting is decent, than with a light lure rod (which I also use extensively ) . If there's any flow , you hardly need to retrieve either, just fish dead drift with the odd twitch as if you were upstream nymphing. And fishing upstream may be counterintuitive to many purely bait anglers but it is so much better for presentation and stealth .

Dace are great sport on small nymphs , if one of the hardest takes to hit - they are very, very fast.

Much as I adore many other styles of fishing , I don't enjoy anything more than creeping up a small river or stream in chest waders with my #3 or '4 weight fly rod , a scoop net and the few other essentials in a fly fishing vest .

The biggest thing many non fly anglers struggle to believe is that we don't fly fish just for fun, or to make it difficult for ourselves, but because it can be deadly . When I started fly fishing rivers in the 80s , I learned more about fish habitat and behaviour in my first season than for the previous 15 years . It was a revelation to discover you can catch fish on fly in places you'd never dream of fishing with bait - especially very shallow water.

As far as size is concerned , every fish is an event on a tight stream - big or small . But good fish come to fly as well as lots of fish - FWIW I've had chub to 5-8 (including scores of fish between 3- 4 lb plus ) , dace to 12oz , wild trout to 5-4 and grayling to 2- 13 on local becks and small rivers .

A key ingredient to success is using long leaders - they allow for far better presentation. It sounds impossible to a novice fly angler , but trust me, fishing a 12- 15 ft leader on an 8ft rod , or 9-12ft on a 6ft rod isn't hard once you've cracked it.

It's addictive - don't leave it too late to start . The younger and more supple you are, the better a small stream fly angler you can become . And don't other reading all those complicated articles with scary diagrams about casting - get a mate or guide to show you the basics and then adapt , improvise and improve .

ETA - Tenkara is fun on the right water for the right size fish, and some friends are addicted . I tend to bracket it with pole fishing -, tried it once, and it's not for me , and not for big fish . Unless you use very thick 'laccy , presumably .

 

[bullet]

Nice post, mate.
Agree with you regarding deadliness, and sublime sport into the bargain.
I fish lots of different waters and quite a few diferrent tecniques, but a good hatch with rising fish is hard to beat.

 

[Molehill]

This is taking me back to my mid teens, late 60s, my learning years; I fished the Dorset Stour a little below Wimborne.
Hot summer and river bare bones I had some roach that ran from bread (I had little else for bait), but somewhere I had read about silkweed - from angling times probably - I scraped some off the weir sill and headed to the pool. I waded in, can't imagine I had waders, stood very still and when the roach showed out of the weed I freelined a bunch of weed down in the current. They snaffled it with enthusiasm. Nothing big but the roach wanted that weed and I used the method often in those conditions. Light line, a hook and some weed, nothing more.
Not Tenkara or any other name, just something that worked at the time and helped towards my fishing education.
I fished the fly near every day for dace, honing my reflexes. But also for chub, as grayson says, it was absolutely deadly - once I had slowed my reflexes down, self control lad! Put a big bushy fly in front of a surface chub (without drag) and the fish was yours. Devastating method, unfortunately these days I don't fish rivers that give those opportunities.

 

[John Bailey]

Barbel Bugging Issues!

Thank you all for such fascinating insights into this subject.

Can I echo Grayson? It think it is really important to try to get across the fact that four ounce leads and feeders have a place, but are not the answer to every scenario. There are very many times, outside flood conditions, that a far lighter approach is desirable, even essential. The problem is explaining this to anglers who do not want to hear. For whatever reason.

Which brings me to Iberian and the rest of the comments from Europe [Fly Fishing Forum], where it is commonplace to catch barbel and most coarse fish on fly. I suspect this is not down to differences between our fish and theirs, but to differences between anglers in the UK and Europe. A problem is that we are mired by the divisions between game and coarse, a dichotomy that has existed since the 1850s when angling divisions hardened around class divisions.

Today, there are huge numbers of coarse anglers who still refuse to believe barbel eat anything but pellets. I find game anglers even more baffling. I have two ageing friends in Norfolk who are proud they have never caught a tench and would only fly fish. Blinkers are to be found everywhere.

Theartist. YES!! I was taught the wonder of matchstick floats on the Peak Forest Canal by a visiting Frenchman in 1957. I would spend the first fifteen minutes of any session rummaging around on the towpath for a fresh one. These last years I have been using pole floats to slightly great effect. There is more variety, and visibility is enhanced. But the principle remains the same, and a vital one at that.

I find these posts so very exciting and encouraging! Thank you and long may they continue!

 

[John Aston]

I have to say I now find far, more snobbery in coarse fishing than in fly fishing . There is a common trope exhibited by some coarse angling writers (including JB on occasion - sorry ) to swipe at long defunct game fishing stereotypes . The tweedy colonel type is now very largely extinct and , without exception , my many game angling friends and colleagues tend now to be fascinated about my tales of fishing on the other side of the tracks, as it were - a greater proportion than of that of the coarse anglers who express much interest in my fly antics.

But I did once have a dear friend , long since dead now , who was a real colonel , and a local worthy in the Salmon and Trout Association, an organisation which was suffused with snobbery in the 80s, when I was briefly a member . We were once been invited to fish in one of the lakes at Ampleforth School , which was stocked with trout for the school inmates to fish for. Colonel John called me over and showed me his catch 'Good Lord , I've caught a barbel !' It was , of course , a baby tench , bless him


It's all just fishing !

 

[john step]

Its interesting to hear you talk of Iberian barbel.
I have caught them in Spanish river fed reservoirs and also from the Rhone in France. I have wondered about them as they didnt "look quite right".

Regarding Tenkara, I had never heard the term until now. However it sounds like I used to do in the 60s on the Essex Roding a tiny river which was full of chub and roach. A fabulous little river which I have heard is no longer fabulous.
There were gaps in between rushes and trailing water weed where the fish could be seen but were extremely skittish.

This was before poles were available so I made one from lengths of bamboo and a glass donkey tip . Rod making bits were readily available from every tackle shop.

I was able to drop single maggots stealthily in gaps and had some great fishing.
I also used slugs for the chub.
Has anyone else found that by loudly plopping a slug behind a swimming chub, it would turn on a sixpence and snaffle it straight away!

 

[no-one in particular]

I have never heard the term Tenkara, I think the nearest I have come to it is just basically free-lining a lump of cheese for chub and barble.
I did catch some chub on a free lined half a sprat using a fly rod and fly line, basic fly set up but just a 10 hook on the end of the nylon leader and a half of sprat as bait. It was a small stream about 2ft of water and the chub used to lay under some sunken logs just below a small weir. The fly line worked as a float. I would let the current take the line down to where the chub were and maneuver the rod so the line and bait would waft that bait just by the logs. It worked very well and I had quite a few chub like that, it worked all along this small narrow river, there were places that getting a bait too was difficult, like long glides but the bank had high vegetation, I could just plonk it in and let the current pull the fly line out, holding back a bit to keep it all in line and this would waft the bait down quite a long way sometimes to a spotted fish laying in a little cut in the bank; I could watch for twitches in the line.; very exciting fishing.. The thing is the nylon leader would be about 6/9ft long and this would get to the fish long before the visible fly line. I suppose using a float with a long over depth might have worked but somehow I think the fly rod and floating fly line worked better, easily maneuverable in the current.
With a half sprat I would give the fish some time before I struck.

 

[theartist]

I have to say I now find far, more snobbery in coarse fishing than in fly fishing . There is a common trope exhibited by some coarse angling writers (including JB on occasion - sorry ) to swipe at long defunct game fishing stereotypes . The tweedy colonel type is now very largely extinct and , without exception , my many game angling friends and colleagues tend now to be fascinated about my tales of fishing on the other side of the tracks, as it were - a greater proportion than of that of the coarse anglers who express much interest in my fly antics.

It's all just fishing !

I've found this too, I think there's a closer link between the roving float/tenkara/freelining coarse angler to fly anglers than there is to other branches of coarse fishing. Always found fly anglers to be approachable on the bank and far from the Lord Snooty/ bumbling toff stereotype. However I think any references to each others attire and background are made in lighthearted jest on both sides on the whole.

Also found the Fly Fishing forum to be really helpful when researching new rivers especially those little unheard gems. I've got a lot of respect for those who will spend all day roaming on a tiny brook for the chance of a small wild brownie on the fly.

 

[John Aston]

I guess the real testimony to how much angling has changed is the fact that Tenkara is still unknown to some . That is no criticism but it does bear testimony to the fact that angling is now so much more the preserve of the specialist than the generalist . Back in the 70s , when I was learning new stuff every week , it was impossible for the keen angler to be unaware of what was going on in the sport as a whole . Hence one just osmosed a huge amount of new information , even if it was about branches of the sport which one didn't practice . In my case, treating Angling Times and Angling magazine as my bibles , I learned about Clyde cod, Grafham trout, Lomond pike , Irish tench , Witham bream and Suffolk bass - from anglers as diverse as Walker, Darling, Gibbinson , Stone, Bucknall , Gammon and a host of others.

But now ? There's hardly a generalist monthly magazine even in existence - and the odd ones I encounter are either whimsical tosh written by Yates wannabes , or more practical guides which recycle the same guff very month (25ways to target F1s in winter ! ) or are poorly written and often a platform for axe grinding. As for AT , mine takes me up to ..oh.. fifteen minutes to read ... ?

 

[theartist]

Bottom line is though that Tenkara is just a fancy name for what is probably the oldest form of fishing. Most of us as kids attached the line to the rod after getting a tangle at the reel, too lazy to re set up or maybe just a few minutes left before the train home, I know I did and bloody fun it was too, and still is, there's something to that jam jar fishing ethos that supercedes the clamour for big fish and dare I say it fame that many seem to desire. The magazines lost their diversity years ago focusing on the popular genres which has been well documented on many an AT or AM thread, It's safe to say the old fishing techniques will outlast all the printed press

 

[no-one in particular]

What a strange name, Tenkara, sounds like something you have with soy sauce. I have read loads of books including Issacs and never seen or heard it before anywhere in anything. Just goes to show you think you know it all and don't. But I still reckon it is just free-lining.

 

[John Aston]

May I suggest a little background reading on Tenkara? It's fascinating technique , which evolved in Japan and encompasses a whole philosophy of how we catch fish and the tackle used - and , like every other technique in angling , it has core elements which go back to the mists of angling time . Anglers whom I respect greatly , like Stuart Crofts, one of our finest fly anglers, is a big fan . Stuart is a no nonsense Yorkshireman and not one to fall victim to fickle fashion .

Oddly enough , when I enthused about drop shotting some years ago on another forum , I was told it was just sink and draw , nothing new and so on . It is very far from being that, and if you do apply sink and draw methodology you will not catch very much with a dropshot rig ...

Why so keen to dismiss innovation, especially if you've never heard of the method ? Isn't our sport an evolving one? Aren't new refinements fun to explore ?

 

[no-one in particular]

May I suggest a little background reading on Tenkara? It's fascinating technique , which evolved in Japan and encompasses a whole philosophy of how we catch fish and the tackle used - and , like every other technique in angling , it has core elements which go back to the mists of angling time . Anglers whom I respect greatly , like Stuart Crofts, one of our finest fly anglers, is a big fan . Stuart is a no nonsense Yorkshireman and not one to fall victim to fickle fashion .

Oddly enough , when I enthused about drop shotting some years ago on another forum , I was told it was just sink and draw , nothing new and so on . It is very far from being that, and if you do apply sink and draw methodology you will not catch very much with a dropshot rig ...

Why so keen to dismiss innovation, especially if you've never heard of the method ? Isn't our sport an evolving one? Aren't new refinements fun to explore ?

I assume your asking me, I am not dismissing it but I have only read the above description, I didn't know it was a whole Japanese way of fishing . I just had a quick google and I can see how it is done. Just a bamboo rod and no reel and for using a fly in small streams there which is not what John was describing which is more akin to free-lining to me. I was looking at a funny looking rod like that in a junk shop once, it was red bamboo and all a bit twisted, I dismissed it as a toy but thinking back I bet it was a Tenkara rod.

 

[Molehill]

My father was a fly fisherman but brought up coarse fishing around London, he was quite happy with both and I suppose I was unusual in fishing both methods from my 50s childhood onwards. Certainly from young adulthood in the 70s fly fishing was looked upon (by coarse anglers) as an upper class discipline that required great skills and money - the opening of Grafham water in late 60s probably started the change and the rest is history.

I have seen many coarse fishing methods incorporated into fly fishing which has muddied the waters in many ways as to what is fly fishing. A static booby on the bottom is really ledgering a pop-up articicial, but cast out with a fly rod. Dangling an articifical trout pellet from a static boat around cages is something - but not fly fishing. Even fly fishing leaded nymphs on massive long leaders so the fly line is not used is free lining surely? Sight bobs are small floats aren't they? Often anglers asking about carp fishing with the fly are advised to use a proper floating pellet and flick it out on a fly rod - missing the point surely?

I've never done Tenkara but am well aware of it's history and development in Japan, so consider that a totaly new method for the UK, but I'm sure given time we will adapt it into something it isn't in the name of advancement and catching more.
I'm begining to sound like a grumpy traditionalist!

 

[John Aston]

I remember having a bit of a spat with a fly fisherman colleague who dismissed the Klink and Dink method as 'just like float fishing '. I said I agreed , it had much in common, but what made him think float fishing was easy ?

For non fly folk, Klink and Dink is fishing a Klinkhamer dry fly , and attaching a shortish length of nylon to the hook bend , and fishing a sinking fly (nymph ) on that. When the Klink disappears , you have a take down below . AKA 'Duo' - and although often a thought as new , it was written about in the 30s but it never took off . The ironic thing is that I still encounter the odd old boy (and I'm in my late 60s ) who regards dry fly as the most skilful discipline . I don't have the heart to say it is one of the easiest ....

I fish leger ,float , lure and fly in still and running water and if I have learned one thing , it is that hardly any technique exists in isolation, all are complementary and often blend into each other . Light lure fishing shares a lot with Czech nymphing , in appeal and technique , for example . Using a real bait on a fly line? Hell , why not , the Irish have been dapping live mayfly for centuries !

 

[John Bailey]

Tenkara, Spain and Snobbery.

Love the thought of bonefishblue’s head exploding with class-driven confusion [Fly Fishing Forum]. 'Nuff said. Nearly.

All I will add is that all I have ever wanted in all my fishing life is a greater acceptance of every fishing style across the board. Personally, because I bait fish, many fly anglers I know have treated me with suspicion... rightly you’d say.

Equally, because I fly fish, many coarse anglers have viewed me as posh, or even gay! Wrongly on both counts, I stress.

I completely agree that the standard angling media does nothing to break down false divisions. For me, it never got better than Angling Magazine in the 70s. Okay, Sandy Leventon was a handful, but the mag was superb. Hill loch trout. Scandi skate. Avon barbel. Tweed salmon. Indian mahseer (Paul Boote’s high-point). It was all there to inform, instruct, but above all, to inspire.

As a late teenager/twenty year old, I worshipped the whole world of fishing the mag was my passport to. When Jon Ward Allen began Waterlog, I pleaded with him to replicate Angling with a modern twist. I have always felt there is room in the market for something similar today... but perhaps that is what we have got with Fishing Magic and Fish and Fly?

Certainly, when you look at the writers forty years and more back, they were never pigeon-holed... Clive Gammon fished for everything that swam. Jim Gibbinson. John Darling. Ian Gillespie. Guys that transcended all divisions of any sort.

Tenkara. I agree this is a case of the Emperor’s New Clothes, in so far it is really a tarting up of something old as the hills. It’s truly refreshing that so many of us out there appreciate what can be done with rod, line, matchstick float, and not much else. It’s a perfect example, surely, of the blending of game and coarse?

Spain. How those photos brought back some of the most vivid, spectacular rivers and fish of my life [Fly Fishing Forum]. Thanks indeed Tippetuk. Andalusian barbel might not be enormous but what gems they are. I had hoped to take Mortimer and Whitehouse there but for this bloody disease.