Tenkara fishing

Tenkara fishing is a traditional method of fly fishing in Japan.  Only a rod, tenkara line (which appears to be nothing more than a long furled leader), and fly are used for tenkara fishing.  No reel is used in this style of fishing.  The long leader is tied directly to the tip of the rod.
In recent years I have become quite successful with the Czech or Polish style of nymphing.  With this technique little to no fly line is used and there is no "traditional" casting involved.  Flies are pitched or lobbed upstream and then tracked downstream with the rod basically parallel to the surface of the water.  There is a little more to it than that but thats the basic concept.  It is not much different from our highstick nymphing.  Less line is used and rod positioning is different, but if you highstick nymph fish you will find the Czech/Polish methods pretty easy to adapt to.  I am thinking that this tackle may work well for this style of fishing.  I am not quite sure how successful I am going to be landing big fish in heavy water but I'm going to give it a shot.  From what I have seen trout in Japan run way smaller than our fish.   I put this rod on my Christmas list and hopefully Santa will hook me up.  The rod is twelve feet long and is designed for those who consistantly catch fish over 16"  (I can dream can't I?)

Tenkara USA is a good source for information and equipment for this style of fishing.  I'll keep you posted on how this experiment works out.