For years now I've used wading boots with metal cleats on the soles. For my streams, I prefer aluminum cleats as these work best for the slippery bowling balls that make up the bottom of my streams. But every once in a while I'll go fishing in hiking shoes instead of my regular wading boots. I've tried a lot of various hiking/wading boot combinations but I've never found one that can do both hiking and wading really well.

Editor's Note: A few weeks ago, we gave away a river peak Mizunoma tenkara rod. It's their latest model and was designed by innovative Japanese angler Kojiro Yama. Well, we've recently heard back from the contest winner and Kyle had this follow up to provide on his impressions of the rod. I have been fishing the Mizunoma  heavily this last week.

DRAGONtail's first camp-on-the-water event catches on strong! The event was held at Baumgartner Group Campground in the Sawtooth National Forest, about 2.5 hours east of Boise, Idaho. The campground itself is perched on the banks of the south branch of the Boise river. It is one of those locations where if you want it, you better bring it with you, because the there isn't much resupply in the immediate area.

In June 2024, DRAGONtail Tenkara and Nirvana on the Fly released the Kokoro 360 tenkara rod. Made in their Korean rod factory, the Kokoro 360 matches or exceeds many Japanese tenkara rods in weight, action, materials and aesthetics. It has rapidly gained a reputation for Japanese-like quality without the hassles of overseas sales and shipping. DRAGONtail and Nirvana now announce that pre-order is open for two other Kokoro rods, the…

In Episode 27 of the Tenkara Angler Level Line Podcast the Tenkara Angler crew invites special guests Payton Skidmore (Skiddy Fishing) and Keegan Uhl (Mostly Tenkara) to discuss various fishing destinations, focusing on locations west of the Mississippi River. We explore the beauty and fishing opportunities of Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, the Uinta Mountains of Utah, and Eastern Sierras of California highlighting travel tips for accessing these stunning locations, the various trout species available, fishing techniques, and the importance of planning and timing for a successful fishing trip.

In May, at the Tanuki Boot Camp in Brevard, North Carolina, I was able to fish with Brent Auger of DRAGONtail Tenkara. I also got to spend several hours in the car driving from Charlotte to a Western North Carolina mountain town and pick his brain on the happenings of DRAGONtail and the like. I have corresponded with Brent online, via text, and at…

A Call For Submissions for the 2026 Print Issue As we reach the first day of October, I thought today would be a good time to extend invitations to our readership for submissions to our annual print issue of Tenkara Angler magazine. For those only familiar with our digital content, we're talking a physical magazine, made of paper. Our print issue comes out around the new year, typically a slower time in the fishing calendar.

A Helpful Guide to Destination Fishing Around the World Every year I try to find new places to fish close to home. There’s a special thrill in stepping into water you’ve never fished before. It is exciting to find new places and meet new fish. Local adventures are wonderful, but what happens when we broaden our search for new waters to include international destinations?

We don't often drop short little posts like this, but everyone on the Tenkara Angler team is so happy to congratulate our own Bill Robichaud for having his piece "A Shining Success in Wisconsin" published in the September 2025 issue of TROUT, Trout Unlimited's quarterly print magazine. If you've followed along with Bill's writing here, or listened to his contributions on the…

If you've been following along on Tenkara Angler, Tom Davis recently did a review of the river peak Mizunoma, which was then followed up with a rod and line giveaway that just concluded, with reader Kyle taking home the prize. During this process of working with river peak, we were afforded the opportunity to interview the member of the brand's…

With 1760 entries, I'm happy to announce that the winner of our River Peak Mizunoma 33 Giveaway is Kyle! Tom will be reaching out to Kyle to confirm the shipping address and get the rod & lines on the way ASAP. If Kyle doesn't reply in 7 days, we'll pick another winner. Congratulations Kyle! If you didn't win this time, but are still interested in River Peak's rods, check out their site to see all of their rod offerings, including the Mizunoma and more.

Article by Devin McPhillips Fly-tying is a great way to do something fishing-related with 20 spare minutes on a weeknight, or anytime fishing isn’t possible. My son embraced tying as soon as we started tenkara, and we’ve had fun reproducing whatever patterns we find on YouTube. It’s always fun to catch a fish on a fly that we tied ourselves. My flies aren’t often elegant, but I can be prolific, especially in the off-season.

For those of you reading this post anticipating a "Tom Davis" style rod review, my apologies in advance. At the very bottom of this post, you will find a list of some brief specs and measurables of the rod I'll be reviewing, such as CCS & RFI, but that's about as close as we'll get in written form today.

Article by Devin McPhillips In Southern California, the off-season for trout is August and September, when the local mountain streams become too warm. It’s a good time to target carp in the LA River or surf perch at the beach. But I tend to fish less frequently. I haven’t yet learned how to catch these other species reliably. When I don’t go fishing, I might tie flies, practice casting, and catch up on tenkara YouTube.

Let’s do a Community Kebari Swap! With the summer quickly coming to a close, we thought it might be a good idea to hold a “Fall 2025 Kebari Swap” here at Tenkara Angler. Our friend Chuck Grimmett has volunteered to be our “Kebari Coordinator” for this event. He’s going to lay down the rules, details, and deadlines. If you want to participate, you’ll register using the form included in this post and then send him your flies – 

In Episode 26 of the Tenkara Angler Level Line Podcast the Tenkara Angler crew discuss the intersection of tenkara fishing and foraging with special guest Ari Rockland-Miller of The Mushroom Forager. Ari's unique background as a professional mycophile who has a growing passion and knowledge for tenkara lends itself to an interesting conversation we're sure you'll enjoy. We talk with Ari about the world of mushroom foraging, discussing the safest mushrooms to start with on your foraging journey (and those to stay away from), the best seasons for combining foraging and fishing, the diversity of wild foods including edible greens, and delicious cooking and effective preservation techniques.

I was recently contacted by Ichi Katsumoto of River Peak about doing a review on their new tenkara rod, the Mizunoma. He offered to send me one of their rods, along with some their lines free of charge. Personally, I prefer to buy items that I review so to reduce bias and so I thought about just buying one of his rods.

An Ambitious Idea A few years ago, we had some grand video-based plans for Tenkara Angler. Jason Sparks really wanted to dive into videography, and create on-stream content that was a bit different than what was present in the tenkara space. His idea was to follow one of his tenkara angling friends on a day out on the water, have them mic'ed up, and just have them talk while they fished and he recorded.

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Tenkara Tanuki has been known for producing rods that are functional works of art, but Luong Tam may have recently outdone himself. While most recent Tanuki rods have focused on outstanding and unequalled art work as part of the rods decoration, Tanuki recently has released two rods that push tenkara rod artfulness to its pinnacle. These are the Wabi 360…

Tenkara USA recently sent me a sample of their new pack rod, the Tenkara USA Yama. I took the opportunity to unbox, measure, and fish it a few weeks before it hit the market. The video and longform article below are a summary of my thoughts on Tenkara USA's latest rod. Per Tenkara USA: "Optimized for mountain stream adventures, the Yama is an excellent rod for almost any typical mountain stream.

Article by Hiroyuki Ishii Hello! My name is Hiro and I work for "NIKKO TENKARA," a tenkara fishing guide business in Nikko, Tochigi Prefecture, Japan. We run our tenkara fishing guide business as NIKKO TENKARA as part of the business of DMC Kinugawa Onsen Co., Ltd., a tourism and urban development company. Our business purpose is not to make money (lol)!

The tenkara community really stepped up back in 2023, helping launch the original Seiyu Therapy 33 tenkara rod through Kickstarter. As a refresher, the rod was developed by licensed psychotherapist, trauma therapy consultant, and military veteran Tony Parmenter to use as the primary fishing tool for his therapeutic fly fishing program for people seeking relief from post traumatic stress disorder.

It happened again—I was watching one of my favorite backpacking YouTube channels, and this episode featured the host trying tenkara for the first time. I was thrilled. The rod company rep walking him through the setup did a great job, and the host seemed genuinely impressed. It was a great opportunity for new people to discover tenkara. And then, stupid me… I read the comments.

Article by Steve Allen While scratching around on eBay for more fly-tying materials that I don’t need, I was presented with this “lot” of tying materials. What caught my eye was the low price. As I cycled through the photos, I saw this appeared to have been a previous fly fisher’s complete fly-tying kit. What also caught my eye was the age of the tools and materials, most definitely mid-20th century.