Clean Slate . . .
Nymphing with Ebisu in January
(NYC 01 2017)
New York City wore a thin sheet of powdered snow for a few days at the start of the year. Sustained rains came to soak the five boroughs, misted, warm enough to keep the park ponds free of ice. The cleanest water of the year rests still and cold . . . and uncovered.
The season of slate water is here to mark the new year. Winds like change blow through in between days foggy and still. Stillwater tenkara may best be tried when the wind is low enough not to complicate a narrow cast over and around branches bare or covered with dry leaves, crisp, curled, almost eager to grab a traditional tapered line or 5x leader.
Nymphs (and streamers if you must try more than one fly), crawled just above the bottom build technique, but often seem not to lure interest. Fishes all seem to have vanished, perhaps in the deepest water bedded down in the same submerged leaves that give the New York City waters that wintertime tannic quality and stony dark color.
Combined, it almost reads like a sign.
“Do Not Disturb”
For now then, fishes, all right.
– rPs 01 22 2017
Tenkara Takes Manhattan 
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