February: often full of hints of spring, but not this year.
Snow on the beach, like ice on the pond, keeps the tenkara trip just out of reach.
Spring begins in just a few more weeks. Then, perhaps, the real thing when fixed line fishing in close quarters can begin.
— rPs 02 28 2021
There is a “no” in snow, and that no means no fishing, tenkara or otherwise, for the time being.
There is a “now” in snow as well, and that time now is ripe for reading, fly tying, and the other comfortable indoor aspects of the fishing life.
Anticipation can inspire preparation!
— rPs 01 31 2021
Icing on the Lake . . .
Open Water = Hope
(NYC)
Punxsutawney Phil predicted on February 2nd an early spring. He has been correct but for two spells of clear, cold artic gale.
The ice left behind the windswept spells retreats by half after just a day or two warm enough to compell the morning doves to coo.
One can walk the pond’s bank, hear garrulous bluejay’s, and the polite tufted titmouse can be seen in the park’s bare deciduous trees. A streamer shuffled across the ice until it drops with a wake into open water can at this time of year lead to a large largemouth on the line.
Winter Bass
(NYC)
Black Crappie, too, the icing on the lake.
Crappie in the Cold
(NYC)
Thanks, Phil.
— rPs 02 27 2019
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
A Few Hours on Christmas Eve . . .
Exposed tree roots create an inviting target for tenkara casts during the winter months. (photo taken 12 24 2012)
My 2012 fishing year, my first tenkara season, ended along the same water where it began: French Creek in southeastern Pennsylvania. My Christmas Eve had been planned from early afternoon onward – situated at the in-laws, gift wrapping, attending services, dining on a meal of seven fishes – which offered me one last free morning of trout fishing if I wanted it.
I did.
Silently I departed from a slumbering house after coffee and a cinnamon roll. Outside, the damp December air filled my lungs and legs with awakening. Frost crusted the grass as a thin overcast filled the still sky. Snow was in the evening forecast. The solunar table predicted a Major between nine and eleven a.m. Perhaps a few little caddis, as well as a few following Salmo trutta, might brave the morning calm along with me.
French Creek, just a few downhill minutes away on foot, flowed clear and low. Large knots of exposed oak and London plane tree roots broke the opposite bank every few dozen yards. These tangles can always provide some depth and holding lies where delineated pool and riffle structures are not present. A small Pheasant Tail nymph shortly found itself drifting by these pretzel patterns of wood.
My casts were smooth and hypnotizing. Chatty crows flew by and chickadees made friendly calls from nearby branches. One polite slate blue and white nuthatch appeared on a nearby tree trunk and softly said: “Hen. Hen. Hen.” in a way that resembled advice on where to cast.
The big take of the outing came soon after, slowly, more of a stop in the flow that felt at first like a flexible snag. A tree branch, submerged, must have hooked up with the pattern, I assumed. My response was a kind of lackadaisical pull back. The resistance pulled forth. When the back and forth symmetry abruptly turned into asymmetric animation, I realized the other end held a fish. A flash of bronze and silver flashed from below and then I was snapped off a decent brown trout. I was not used to the new 6x tippet material I had employed, or maybe my knot had frayed on a root.
Upstream called to me then. One large flat pool with some depth lay a few dozen yards above the bridge just in view through the brown web of bare trees. I hiked up to it, passed beneath the span on a narrow band of frozen mud. I then faced my athletic challenge of the day. I had to climb along a scree of red siltstone that is near impossible to navigate when the full growth of summer is present. I angled myself parallel to the steep side so a slip would simply land me hard onto the loose rock rather than on a neck breaker of a tumble into frigid water below. Tenacious thorned vine branches nagged at me as well, but I made it, climbing down to the water on a natural staircase of the red rock beside which a sapling bannister stood.
A natural staircase of red siltstone along French Creek. (photo taken 12 24 2012)
While I scanned for risers and contemplated the water’s sound and motion simultaneously, I heard rhythmical wind sounding from above. A great blue heron passed overhead with an audible flap of broad wings. Its prehistoric profile approached a series of power lines that stretched across the creek about twenty yards farther up. One of the cables must have been strung a few feet higher than the others. The big bird had to add an extra jump to clear the hump. Loud croaks followed, an ornery sound reminding me of any other pissed off commuter faced with an unexpected obstacle.
No risers appeared as the clock continued toward noon. I tipped my leader with a Gold-Ribbed Hare’s Ear nymph and swung it a few dozen times. No takers. I was pleased, though, to have had a few hours before the holiday that were removed from structured stress and inserted instead into the random natural world of wind in the ears and water before the eyes and the thought that my fly attached to a tenkara rod might present me with a Christmas gift of a trout. As it happened, I received a present even more grand – one of presence, pure and uncomplicated – one of happiness.
The view as I departed French Creek for the final time in 2012. (photo taken 12 24 2012)
Yes, Happy Holidays.
— rPs 12 29 2012
ron P. swegman is an angler, artist, and author whose writing focuses on those times and places when and where nature and the city intersect.
Tenkara Takes Manhattan 