Posts Tagged New York

Josetsu in July

July 21, 2017 at 7:03 pm · Filed under Tenkara Art, Tenkara Gear, Tenkara Kebari, Tenkara News, Tenkara Philosophy, Tenkara Reading, Tenkara Techniques, Tenkara Trips ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

Josetsu in July . . .

Answer in Hand
(NYC 07 12 2017)

How do you catch a catfish with a gourd?

Tenkara

Catfish like the black bullhead will be a game opponent in summer if one waits for lower light and goes slow on the presentation speed. Evening lifts the direct sun off the lake and Ameiurus melas returns from the lake’s deeper places, the sinks and channeled centers, onto the flats, shallows where lily pads and branches attract diverse creature protein.

Bullhead Abode
(NYC 07 12 2017)

Places storied as the same of the bass and other sunfish. The approach best calm, cautious, the fly, for me my one fly; a Green Guarantee kebari pattern, one that earlier lured a bluegill from the same end of the lake.

This plump pond permit flattened my Green Guarantee.
(NYC 07 12 2017)

Slowed to a crawl, patience through repetition gets to be rewarded by a sudden tug, the shake of the head that compels the wrist to lift, set, find a fish on the line.

July evenings may find the finned to be a black bullhead catfish. Whenever I see this fish family’s end game wrestle about the surface, I see the whiskers, and smile.

We two, this fish and this fisher, are quite alike, even in the face.

Nature. Found. Naturally.

Josetsu and the elder shogunate clans, I hope, approve.

Black Bullhead the size of a zucchini . . . GOURD.
(NYC 07 12 2017)

Arigato gozaimas!

zazen . . .

rPs 07 21 2017

 

Postscript: Revisit my first reference to Josetsu here, at TTM, circa April 2012:

https://tenkaratakesmanhattan.com/2012/04/20/the-answer-tenkara/

 

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Summer Flush

June 30, 2017 at 4:12 pm · Filed under Tenkara News, Tenkara Trips, Uncategorized ·Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Summer Flush . . .

 

Solstice Shower Passes Meadow Lake
(NYC 06 21 2017)

Meadow Lake, shaped like a peanut, perimetered by tall phragmites, has again proven to be a place where fish confounds fisher.

The fish of Flushing-Corona Park are there, but when and where, mystery remains. The bite becomes regular, as all fishes feed, still Flushing’s finned inhabitants hold the cards.

The southern end of this shallow brackish lake has undergone substantional reclamation. Indigenous wildflowers bloom now along its open bank and litter to one eye has been reduced by 80%.

Evidence of species other than carp and white perch can be found. Two large yellow perch, large enough to believe their passing was caused by natural older age, revealed the only fish kill found around the entire water body, one minor enough to cause no concern.

Retired Perch
(NYC 06 21 2017)

 

No snakehead species have been spotted despite a conscious attempt to find one. What was a scare in the spring of 2013 may well  have been an isolated incident.

These fish are tough, and so can be the actual fishing. Wind has the ability here to foiled the best of casters. The lake seems to draw down the atmosphere, forming a vortex, a kind of reverse funnel, forcing, blowing air at once in all directions facing the fisher. There are breaks in this steady breeze, pauses measured in minutes, and this is when calm water may be read. Bubbles surface in scattered spots; turtles, a few, and carp, grazing the bottom in loose schools that resemble grazing sheep.

“Careful casts now!” is my whispered mantra at such times.

Numerous marsh birds, redwing blackbirds, cormorants, ducks, and gulls abound. Fishing birds are another good giide to the fishes’ whereabouts.

Mulberries have ripened with the arrival of summer.  Flush with the fruit of the tree, birds are fed and so are their counterparts in the water. The tenkara carp challenge continues around an interesting and improved urban natural environment.

Solstice Sweetness: Mulberries
(NYC 06 21 2017)

— rPs 06 30 2017

 

 

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Salad Days

June 5, 2017 at 5:07 pm · Filed under Tenkara News, Tenkara Trips, Uncategorized ·Tagged , , , , , ,

Salad Days . . .

Modest Largemouth (NYC 06 2017)

. . . of June.

 

Pond shallows, turtle banks, all is lush.

The largemouths chase small fry.

Feathered bright as the white sky.

Herons all angle up modest luck.

 

(3) – a three-pound athletic bass was wrestled to the shaded green bank, the two of us tethered by 6X (4 lb.) monofilament tippet of a kind ideal for tenkara. Two runs had just bent the TUSA Yamaha rod into a bridge arch over turmoiled topwater. There had been a witness, Jesse Valentin, who earlier, with, together we watched the tall white bird spear pinch a brace of bluegill.

June = Bass

King Sunfishes.

20170602_134242

Jesse; “Heron 1, Bluegill 0” (NYC 06 2017)

Heron Approved.

— rPs 06 05 2017

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5 Yrs.

April 9, 2017 at 10:02 pm · Filed under Tenkara News, Tenkara Philosophy, Tenkara Reading, Welcome ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

Five Yrs. . . .

Ebisu Approved
(NYC 04 09 2017)

“Five Years” is the title to the opening track of David Bowie’s necessary masterpiece “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars”.

Five years now marks the amount of time I have spent rendering the topic of tenkara in images and words.  During that time, Bowie has passed, although his music continues to inspire those of us still here, some of us fishing.

Manhattan saw my first use of true telescoping fishing on the fly. Exploration of the island’s fresh and salt fisheries has centered tenkara at my angling core. Rod, Line, Fly = fishing, and fish, more often than not.

The sport has drawn me across the face of New York, as well as Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Washington and Hawaii, waters fresh and salt.

It has been stated countless times in conversation that it takes ten years (or maybe 10,000 hours as in the words of Malcolm Gladwell), that it takes such long time to end up a master of some thing.

“Five Years” begins a great Bowie album.

Perhaps five years ends the beginning of an aspiring tenkara master’s journey path.

Five years ago today I began to offer my own word on tenkara, fishing, fly tying, and adventure, which I then as continue to now find to be a more than fitting, in fact necessary, natural progression of an author whose book Small Fry: The Lure of the Little, published in 2009, coincided in some ways parallel with the bright and enterprising incorporation of Tenkara USA by Daniel Galhardo.

Imagine my happiness, then, to receive in coincidence a copy of Daniel’s new authoritative tenkara book, — “The Book” – on this same 5th anniversary weekend of Tenkara Takes Manhattan.

Ebisu now, as then, appears to approve.

– rPs, Palm Sunday, 04 12 2017

Postscript: Revisit the first TTM post here:  https://tenkaratakesmanhattan.com/2012/04/09/hello-world/

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Cold Water, Wet Wind

March 31, 2017 at 5:27 pm · Filed under Tenkara Kebari, Tenkara Techniques, Tenkara Trips ·Tagged , , , , , , ,

Cold Water, Wet Wind . . .

 

The Sticks Cast
(NYC 03 2017)

Days of rain had drawn a distinct mudline, a seam bordered by blued rippled crystal, rendered by cold water current and a consistent wet wind. Perfect, for a stretch, from which fish might pounce on prey and retreat, covered.

A largemouth of fifteen inches darted from this cover and raced over the sprouts of pond bottom plants and in full sun rolled over my Green Guarantee. Rusty ron P. raised Ebisu, plucked the fly from the fish’s mouth a nanosecond before jaws could clamp down on the inhaled line.

Between the lasting breezes, a cold even thermal wear could not weather long. Run, jog, run made mandatory to stay active, not frozen. Beyond the sticks of last year’s shoreline stalks, fishes, and by leaning, balanced, a toehold on dry rock, Ebisu held out to work kebari along the edges, fishes.

Fishes. Yes. No, not the black bass, nor the expected black crappie. The bluegill, male and female both, took to strike the feather and fur kebari worked on the steady swim just above bottom.

Cold water.

Wet wind.

Fist Fish, 2017.

First Fish, 2017.
(NYC 03 2017)

Second Fish, 2017.

Second Fish, 2017.
(NYC 03 2017)

Yes. Gone fishing. Catching and Releasing. Happy.

–  rPs 03 31 2017

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Tenkara Vegetarian

July 11, 2016 at 7:07 pm · Filed under Tenkara News, Uncategorized ·Tagged , , , , , ,

Tenkara Vegetarian . . .

 

Vegetarian Tenkara 07 2016

Genus Fucus (NYC 07 2016)

 

One photo with one caption can at times tell it all.

Location: the salt waterfront of Manhattan Island.

– rPs 07 11 2016

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Flies in February

February 5, 2016 at 6:17 pm · Filed under Tenkara Kebari ·Tagged , , , , , , ,

Flies in February . . .

 

There sits on one of my windowsills a squat glass jar capped in gold. February finds this once full glass filling again.

 

Interests and the path spreading like branches follows evolving passion even in the face of an other’s suggestions. I do incorporate experiments and techniques from and with friends, yet I avoid the net of orthodoxy by remaining as much as a lone cat as I can.

 

Two patterns from the vice beside the windowsill are small enough to fit a few on the cap of gold:

 

Partridge and Olive

 

Partridge and Olive Size 12 (2016)

Partridge and Olive
Size 12
(2016)

 

Heerl and Deer

 

Herl and Deer Size 12 (2016)

Herl and Deer
Size 12
(2016)

 

Tenkara Kebari all but for orientation of the hackle. As the remainder of the recipes fall in line with orthodox Tenkara Kebari I pause, side with majority rule in regards to the fundamental composition of each pattern, and I acknowledge there exists a kind of “Reformed Branch” of Tenkara, too. This branch I do practice with attention to balance.

 

Both kebari patterns fish well in my favorite waters; confidence driven by the constant elements: sparseness, natural speckled hackle, and body iridescence.

 

— rPs 02 05 2016

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Swegman’s Sunfish Catches A Fish

April 13, 2015 at 4:39 pm · Filed under Tenkara Art, Tenkara Kebari, Tenkara Trips ·Tagged , , , , ,

Swegman’s Sunfish Catches A Fish . . .

Swegman's Sunfish

Swegman’s Sunfish

Swegman’s Sunfish lured Lepomis with orange breasts to match the twitch, hooked, and tethered to a hook holding hair rather than feather.

Swegman's Sunfish Angle

Swegman’s Sunfish Angle

Will mention also another mention of the Green Guarantee:

Green Guarantee Incite Bluegill

Green Guarantee Incite Bluegill

As well as the smaller Deer and Green soft hackle:

Deer and Green Incite Bluegill

Deer and Green Incite Bluegill

Green guaranteed even as the NYC region remains brown.

– rPs 04 13 2015

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Tenkara Art: Primary Kebari 2

March 30, 2015 at 4:15 pm · Filed under Tenkara Art, Tenkara Kebari ·Tagged , , , , , ,

Tenkara Art: Primary Kebari 2 . . .

Primary Kebari 2: a partridge and white warm season soft hackle. (image copyright 2015 by ron P. swegman. All rights reserved.)

Primary Kebari 2: a partridge and white warm season soft hackle.
(image copyright 2015 by ron P. swegman. All rights reserved.)

Partridge and White

The Partridge and White Rabbit kebari is another pale pattern for warm day hatch matches of light mayfly and caddisfly species in sizes 12 to 18. Note the traditional tenkara orientation of the feather hackle. Ribbed or not, the texture of angora rabbit adds extra body. Drift from upstream with the intent on guiding the float back to the angler’s waist or free hand unless the lure of the little trout or panfish intercedes first.

The illustration uses primary colors rendered in an abstract expressionist manner to contrast with the subaqueous white.

— rPs 03 30 2015

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Tenkara Art: Deer and Green

March 23, 2015 at 9:27 pm · Filed under Tenkara Art, Tenkara Kebari ·Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Tenkara Art: Deer and Green . . .

Deer and Green: an American kebari (image copyright 2015 by ron P. swegman. All rights reserved.)

Deer and Green: an American kebari
(image copyright 2015 by ron P. swegman. All rights reserved.)

The Deer Hair and Green is a soft hackle kebari tied with an American or Western oriented hackle. The recipe includes four-strand floss, French tinsel, and deer hair. Eastern brook trout are attracted to this pattern in size 14 through 18.

A large portrait of a small kebari lends an illustrative slant with a faded, marbled, impressionistic effect, the way the eyes perceive the soft blur of a pattern set in clear stream water. Colored and other pencils on acid-free paper in natural light remain my medium and process.

— rPs 03 23 2015

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