Tenkara Fishing - 2016 Season

Shenandoah National Park

 The Big Meadow

  

The Rapidan River brookie

Camping and fishing in Shenandoah National Park was the highlight of this season.

The Croton Watershed

 My wife caught this big one in one of the pools. She got some more of similar sizes.

Fishing was productive this summer until the end of August when the water temperature of the West Branch was unusually warm.  I caught this rainbow in the East Branch.

The Catskills

We went to the Catskills on Labor Day weekend. In Hale Eddy of the West Branch Delaware, we both hooked large ones of West Branch standard at the same spot of the rapid, but both tippets were broken in a moment. .

I bought 4X tippet the next morning at The Fly Shop in Roscoe, but I got no chance to go back to Hale Eddy.

The Farmington River in Connecticut

  She caught a brookie in the Upper Farmington River.

 I have tried several times, but I haven't caught one.

She caught a beautiful brownie with a hooked jaw in the Beaver Pool.

 

 The Church Pool

Tenkara Fishing in Croton - The Trout Season Ends.

Last Saturday we fished the West and East Branch of Croton to conclude this year's trout fishing season.

I caught a beautiful 15+ inches rainbow in the East Branch as a nice season's finale.
   

My wife got many browns in her favorite pools in the West Branch.

We were happy to end the season with these catches.











On Sunday I planned to go to the Breezy Point jetty,
but instead I went to Croton again because saltwater fishing seemed still slow.
The pools that were productive on Saturday were very quiet,
and yet I found a pool with fish rising to tiny ants.
I caught many browns with midge flies similar to ants in sizes and looks. They really like ants.

Tenkara Fishing In Croton Falls Outlet

My wife and I went to the Croton Falls Outlet for tenkara fishing again.  We hoped to have a good time like last weekend.
We were quite well prepared this time.  We carried our whole sets of fly boxes.



The water was still murky. We fished in the small pool where I caught several fishes last weekend. This pool was very productive. Fish were rising in the morning, and after the severe noon time thunder storm, they were rising again.  Just before the late afternoon thunder storm, I caught a 14-inch brownie.  Then we were forced to take our leave.

The fish seemed eating spent caddis,  Anyway they were not picky.
We caught fishes with different kinds of flies which were similar sizes and colors of the spent caddis.

I've been fishing with the tenkara rods for two seasons.  In a small stream like the Croton Falls Outlet, I can control the flies easier with tenkara rods than fly rods whether I am midging, nymphing or dry fly fishing.

Tenkara Fishing Trip to the Catskills and Croton Watershed in Labor Day Weekend

 

Saturday:

I was eager to show my wife the beautiful streams and ponds in the Catskills Mountains where I had explored earlier.

First we visited West Kill in the Hunter Mountain region.
Unfortunately construction has been going on in the lower section of the stream. The water flow is redirected into a metal pipe and causes no water flow in this section.
However we were still able to fish the public fishing stretch in the middle section of the stream.

We each caught a small brookie though the water level was quite low in the late summer as now.

I think West Kill's wide open bank and many nice plunge pools make it one of the most tenkara friendly good brookie stream when there is more water in spring time.

In the afternoon we fished the mountain pond where I caught many brookies three weeks ago.
In the beginning we used dry flies and caught many 3-5 inches brookies.
When they seemed getting tired of dry flies, we used bead head tenkara flies with twitching movement.
These inexperienced brookies just could not resist them. We were catching 6-inch brookies one after the other till almost all brookies in this pond I guessed got some painful lessons.  

             
                                                                                                           

Labor Day:      

We went to Amawalk Outlet in the morning.
The stream condition looked good, but there was not much action. It seemed not many fish were in the stream.

In the afternoon we fished the West Branch of the Croton Outlet. Although the water was murky, some fish were rising and we caught a few.

In the early evening the fish were rising left and right.
My wife said, " It is once in a life time opportunity in this water."
I couldn't figure out what they were eating, only later did I find out it was tiny black ants when I saw a lot of them on the water.

Being lightly equipped for tenkara fishing, we carried only several kinds of flies. Even with these limited supply and without the right size ant, we caught several of those nice rising trouts between 12 to 14 inches.

The Day of Doubleheader - Surf Fly Fishing and Stream Tenkara Fishing

Since mid-May, I have been fishing in Robert Moses along the beach on the ocean side. In all my outings,
I got a few schoolies in one morning only.
Again Saturday I was skunked.

Later I drove to the Croton Watershed for fishing spots hopping.
In Amawalk I caught several beautiful small browns.  

After checking out some other favorite spots, I got to the pool in the East Branch where I had a good time last weekend, but a fisherman was fishing there. So I fished the rapid in the upstream of the pool with tenkara wet flies.
I caught several nice browns and rainbows. In contrast to the dry flies, catching them with the tenkara wet flies made me feel really like a traditional style tenkara fisherman fishing the mountain stream in Japan. It was a lucky day for me.

In Saturday's tenkara fishing, I saw sulphur in every spot I visited.  In the afternoon, in one stretch of the upstream of the East Branch, light cahill, caddis and many other insects were also hatching.
A lot of small birds were busy flying back and forth catching insects. They caught almost all insects in the air and on the water.  It seemed the trouts couldn't get a chance to rise for them. It is interesting to think whether it was a good day or not for dry fly fishing - there were an abundant of insects, but the trouts couldn't taste them.

Tenkara Fishing in the Croton Watershed

Today I went fishing spot hopping: the Amawalk Outlet, West Branch Outlet and East Branch of Croton River. When I arrived at Amawalk, each access point had already parked with cars.  Sunday is usually quite crowded here.

I wasn't even able to catch one fish in my couple hours of fishing. This stream is just too small for too many fishermen.  I'd better go as early as possible to beat other fishermen for my favorite spots on Sunday.

My luck turned around when I fished in the pool under the bridge of East Main Street in Brewster.
There was a good caddis hatch, so I could enjoy catching many browns with elk wing caddis flies.
Dry fly fishing with tenkara rod is indeed as much fun as with the regular fly rod.
I had a good fishing day!

Tenkara Fishing in Croton

Yesterday I visited the East Branch of Croton again. Two weeks ago when I was there, I had a good time catching a carp, a bass and several trouts. Because that carp was rather large for my tenkara rod to be handled, it gave me a thrill
I was looking forward to repeating the experience and even maybe I caught a larger one.
Somehow this time I caught many pan-fishes and a few small trouts. 
I fished several spots and always the pan-fishes were the first ones getting my flies.     

First Tenkara Fishing of the Season

I fished the East Branch of Croton River with a tenkara rod today - this season's first outing to the river.
Though the water level was quite high, I caught .....

The first freshwater fish of the season.

The second !

The third !
..... and few more trouts.

All of them were caught by this bead-head nymph.
I didn't expect I could catch such a variety of fish.
It was a surprising and fantastic first tenkara fishing of the season in the river.